This morning we're talking about prayer and the title of the message is prayer. Attitude and prayer in a relationship, in a relationship with God. And for any relationship to increase in intimacy, husband, the couple that marry, getting to know one another or whatever, but that relationship grows more intimate over the years and for that relationship and marriage or for friends or whatever, there must be contact with one another. The contact with one another is communication. We have to communicate with one another and we need to learn to communicate with God and understand that communication and coming under God where it's different from men and friends and everything. But we have to learn that He's our sovereign and in prayer we can't get that through until we turn to God as sovereign. I bet you know we went over submission and humbleness and repentance and turning to God or whatever because Without being fully submitted to God and returning to God, we can't be in his kingdom because his kingdom requires obedience. And that is, God is our sovereign, he's our master. We're taking commands, we're taking his word, we're learning of him or whatever. And it requires humble submission and that's what has the nation, I guess, going backwards, because the tares have been leading throughout the years, and we see the tares have infiltrated the church. Satan's ministers have infiltrated the church, and they have even infiltrated prayer, where prayer has turned to the gimmicks. The gimmicks, you know, asking God for something, coming before God always for ourselves. That's really not how to get our prayers answered, and that's really not what prayer is. It's pleading or plead to God, but it's the attitude in which you come to prayer. My granddaughter, a lot of times when she wants something from my wife or something, she'll say, please, please, mama, please, please. But we went over it last week and we'll go over it again this week. But please, that's not what God, when we say please to God, we use the word please. As I said, secularly, we've turned that word away from what it actually means. Please is a word that is for respect. Word of respect, and like I said, go back last week to talk about it. Please is showing deference or respect in something. If you ask someone, would you please do that? You're asking with a manner of respect. Please is not a word of begging, and now we have it to where the children think please is a magic word. And we plead with God and please like we are beggars. God, we're not begging God. Now, like I said, as preaching and teaching has changed, we all come before God wanting riches and all of these things. But that's not what God's looking for. He's looking for a broken and contrite and a humility before him. And that's why we're talking about attitude and prayer this morning. In aviation talk about an airplane, when you're talking about airplanes and aviation, that word attitude is a primary meaning the physical orientation of the aircraft with the horizontal, the vertical with the ground. And it's also the mental and emotional state of the pilot. I tell you, God looks for a broken, contrite attitude. That's how we get our prayers answered with God. He says, that man, Isaiah 66 or 62 and 2, where it says those that he would hear, those that had a broken and contrite heart. Physically, the attitude is, in the aircraft's orientation, is relative to the horizon. In other words, the proximity of the plane, the instruments in the plane to maintain a line of pilots, aircraft, even when the horizon is not visible, when they're going through the clouds or wherever they're going through, if they're flying at night, if there's a storm or whatever, they depend upon the instruments. When the tower or something say, what's your attitude? They're not just talking about your mental state, but what's the correlation that your instruments are reading or whatever. Sometime we have to be able to read the room, read the people around us, read things around us, because we walk by faith and not by sight. Just as that pilot is flying the plane, He can't see the ground, you know, looking at the ground and judging with his, that develops a different attitude to go away. And so we have to walk by faith and that is hearing the gospel. Once we hear the gospel and we're born again, God is our, How would I want to say this? He's the tower he's directing us and we have to stay in communication with the tower and he puts nothing in between us in the tower or whatever and That's why he sent his son Jesus to die for us and that's contained in the gospel And we have to continue the way that continue to grow us through the hearing of God's Word That's why he told Peter to feed my sheep. I If you love me, feed my sheep. So it's a continual coming to God day by day for your daily bread because your daily bread is the Word of God. It is the Word of God in hearing, in faith coming by hearing, in hearing the Word of God. And now if we stop hearing that Word of God, develop a know-it-all attitude as children do as they grow older or whatever, Lose! I don't want to say proximity or whatever because it's not a physical contact with God or physical proximity of God because God hear you anywhere you are. God heard Jonah at the bottom of the sea when he was in the belly of the fish pleading to God when he humbled himself before God. That's why I say it's my people if they would humble themselves and pray, then I will hear from heaven. So when the prayer that Solomon prayed when they were dedicating the temple of the Lord, it was directing people to have contact with God because we go so far away from God. Sometime we could be right there where God is, but we get our focus off of God. As I said, Peter got his focus off Christ and started looking around at the circumstance and the situations and the things around him. and we lose contact with God. We start having a know-it-all attitude, a disposition of As I said, that word attitude with the pilot, when you're talking a mental attitude, it refers to a pilot's disposition that is with positive being crucial for safety. In other words, it's all right, it's good to have a positive attitude. You want your children to have a positive attitude that they can do something and not doubt themselves or whatever. But we can't forget who's commanding the ship. We can't forget that that instrument panel is what's guiding the plane. If your instrument panel is off, if you can't communicate with the tower, if you can't communicate with God, then we lost. Our parents focus us in life, growing up and listening at the instructions of the parents. If you read Proverbs, it tells you not to forget the instructions of your parents, of your mother and the father, whatever, because they've put that direction in you, and they supposed to have raised you in the fear and reverence of the Lord. And when you get that disposition or that mental attitude of, you don't tell me what to do. They grow up and says, you don't tell me what to do. You get impulsive and overconfident. And look at my granddaughter sometime and what she's suffering from. We want her to grow and she way advanced more than my grandsons are. She's learned to do things actually faster than they are or have done or whatever. But prayer is a dependency on God. It's just like that pilot is dependent upon his instrument pound. God wants us to pin it up on him as little children. He had directed prayer for us to requisition, to go through him for all of our needs, to learn to count on him for all of our needs. But my wife and my daughter are here talking all the time or whatever, because they want my granddaughter to let them do things for her. They say, Gigi, you're losing a lot of your babyhood or whatever because it's not just about her learning to do it or her doing it. It's that the parent want to do for you. The parent gets pleasure, gets a joy from being able to help the children. I know you have your son come over for holidays and your children come over for holidays. But you know, grandparents love to do for the grandchildren. The parent loves to teach the child how to do things and guide them. That's part of the reciprocal portion of what we have. And God wants to give us every good thing. He wants us to prosper and be in health. But he's doing it for our well-being, for our growing, that we would grow with How can I say it? With a disposition that it's not all about us. It's not all about what we achieve. It's not all about what we can do. It's Jesus that says that being in the likeness of God, he saw it wasn't to be equal with God. You remember what the promise Satan had given Adam and Eve in the garden when he talked to Eve? He says that you can be like God. that you could be like God. That was his promise. But when they chose to want to be equal with God and like God, they lost respect for God. They lost respect for his word, they lost a lot of intricate things that would be in the precepts of what God was teaching them by going too far, by listening at other people or other things around them, just like they rejected God as king and said they wanted a king just like the people around them. Wasn't that God didn't want him to have a king. We see throughout the word of God that he always said it to where that they would have a king eventually one day. But there's other things in growing from being a child and going through life that we need to learn that's very, how can I say it? Very instrumental in our development and growth. We don't wanna be growing too fast as we learn we don't have the in-between between Adam and God. Before Adam disobeyed God, all we have is that him and Adam communed in the pool of the day. That they talked at a time. And that's what gets me a lot of times. I tell you, my sons come over and talk or we try to talk or whatever. Communication is key. And he started to fear God and he hid himself from God and God says, Adam, where art thou? He lost contact with God. If you have friends and things, you've been away from friends for months or years or whatever, that friendship kind of dissipates. It kind of loses because you hadn't been in communication with one another. Some other friends or somebody else come in there. If spouses don't talk to one another, talk to each other, the way that we are built, we begin to bond with the television, with the computer, or whatever thing it is that has taken that person's place. That's why it says, you shall have no other gods. You shouldn't put anything before God, because God wants you talking to Him throughout the day. God wants you to meditate on His Word day and night. That's why it says, cease not to pray. continually praying all the time. If we learn to talk with God and that God is there and he never leaves us or never forsake us, that means that we'll stay in a humble, in a contrite, a broken attitude, a disposition, and that means all of those that come in our sphere, in other words, come around us, we'll learn to respect them and give a proper deference. That word, deference, means put another, give in, yield to one another. That's one of the things that I was watching. I tell you, I was praying for this fellowship, for this getting together, for Thanksgiving or whatever. And I wasn't gonna stay long in that. I was looking at it because, like I said, we approach that circumspectively and we have to guard or watch ourselves. In other words, our disposition. we have to stay on the garden and you know we were talking about praying and when your son-in-law was saying prayer whatever see even standing up here i have to watch myself because sometime when they hate me and the people are saying things you get beside yourself and you think it's all about you like my granddaughter about all about her but it's about your grandmother too it's about your mother it's about everybody else it's not pleasing yourself it's pleasing god it's pleasing others and a constant respect of others. So sometimes we get to saying other things and flying our own plane, that we're not worried about the passengers in the plane, the people around us or whatever. We were talking about animals or something was coming up, and something about a buffalo or whatever and I said, that's like a bison or whatever and my son said, well, no, they ain't the same, you know, and, but I noticed as I go around all the older people and I told you, I go around elderly people and you know, I was talking with Minister Miller, me and him sitting and talking with Iowa to the other day and he's 90 years old. Go by Brother Park or Brother Bazille, and both of them is in their mid-80s. But when talking to older people, they may get a lot of things maybe not precise or may not be right. When talking to your friends or other people, or people that's not as spiritual, as religious as you are. Sometimes we have to give deference and as we're talking about him, not criticize him, not down him. When I was talking with you, I didn't want to be critical of what you were saying, but I might have wanted to point out things in a certain way instead of him saying what. Then it's kind of like a buffalo, it's not the same as a buffalo, and he could have pointed out the differences. But with the world's mentality, we go after people, we have to win. It's about us, it's about the different things. And I wanna think about what I like, I don't like Kansas City, I'm glad they lost the other day. But I was facing the reality, I thought that they would whip Dallas. And my son, he's a Cowboy fan, and I told him, because growing up, I was a Cowboy fan. Well, I hate Dallas with a passion. I think it's the reason was the attitude, the disposition they had toward the courts when they fired Tom Landry or whatever. It's one of the reasons I don't like the Saints. It's because what Benson did with his children, his wife's children. It's how you treat other people what we're looking at. That's what I'm looking at this nation when they're talking about slavery and the different things that's happening in the nation. Now I see what they're doing with the immigrants. the social injustice that's going on. See, we must start to act like God. That's what being in contact with God is that as we read and study His Word, we start to be like Him. We start to be like Him in enjoying and loving the things He loves. Went over where my son was the other day, and he was in there, and I don't know if it was a ruse or not, me going through the room or whatever, because usually when he hit me in the other room, he'll come in and speak and say, hey, daddy, what's going on, and say something. But to get him up, I wanted to congratulate him on the Cowboys winning or whatever. And I talked about the Cowboys because I was glad I was thinking about it. I texted him during the game because I was watching the game. Actually, it was a pretty good game. And we didn't have a conflict going on. So I stayed, you remember I told you I don't usually watch it, but I stayed until about the four quarter. It was about 10 minutes left in the game. But the Cowboys was actually playing a real good game. And I was pulling for the Cowboy Church. You remember I said, I don't have a dog in the fight. I just want everybody to be enjoying themselves. Everybody was enjoying the holiday. They was enjoying conversation. What we get out of Kelter is when as children of God, When we started to argue and bicker with one another, and treat one another wrong, and belittle one another, devouring one another, being competitive, wanting to one-up one another, that's what he told Cain. His attitude of disposition, he says, thou doest well, won't thy sacrifice be accepted? But when you get together with a lot of people, you want to be the crow of the show. You want to stand out. You want to down everybody. You want to show everybody else. You want to be the centerpiece. And that's what God despises. is that when we, it's all about us, it's no longer a team, it's no longer about us. So we have to build a proper relationship with God, and we have to build a proper relationship with our families and those around us. That's why in the Florence, my sister used to always respect my mother. We have to learn to honor and respect our parents. We have to find a way to get away from random or whatever instead of contradicting and launching out at them because just like with God, they are our parents. We have to watch how we approach them. We have to watch how we approach one another. And that's what the thing was Job. You remember Job says he wanted to contend, he wanted to find God and he would think about the argument that he would postulate with God, that he had postulated in his mind all that he would say. But he realized he needed a mediator between him and God because God is so powerful. But see, Jesus Christ removed that, and he died for us that we can boldly go before the throne of grace and petition the Father in his name. In other words, there's no middle man in between us. We have to learn God for ourselves. We can't blame the preacher. We can't blame nobody else. And when you hear other people, when they're depending on you to pray for them, you have a problem there. You need to be able to go for God to yourself because you can't blame mama. You can't blame nobody else for your lostness and being a know-it-all. See, sometimes you have to concede that you have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. I was talking to my nephew the other day, and he's zealous. He's a good man or whatever, but not according to spiritual knowledge. not according to God. So I kind of started or launched off into this differently this morning, but it's coming from the book of Hosea, the fourth chapter. God has a controversy with Israel. God has a controversy with his people. When he talks about Israel, he's talking about us. He's talking about the church. He's talking about his chosen people. They were used as an example in the Old Testament. That's why we have to hold on to the Old Testament. It has most of our illustrations and things in it that brings us back to where the New Testament was, because it was a shadow of things to come. is controversial with the people, the amplified version. I'm just gonna read the first four, six verses, but you need to read that whole chapter of Hosea. He says, hear the word of the Lord, you children, for the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land. In other words, he has something against Israel. He has something against the church. Jesus Christ came in the book of Revelation, and he says he has somewhat against the church. He told them of what they're doing good. I always tell my children and try to build them up. But see, that's the problem, though, that they don't, when you try to build people up and talk to them, sometimes that makes them think more highly of themselves than they ought to. And when you critique them, when you're telling them their faults, when you're preaching, when you're chastening, When you're homing in, then they get rebellious. They want to leave from around here because all they're used to is like the church is not telling them what's good. But you need to be able to preach repentance unto them, to bring forth fruit worthy of repentance. In other words, don't bring that in. He'll fuss it and fight with your brother because he told Cain, he said, if thy do is well, thy sacrifice will be accepted. But it's not sin life at the door. It was the attitude in which he offered. It wasn't with what he offered. A lot of people say because he offered something of the... He was a farmer, that's what he brought to offer. There were grain offerings in the Old Testament. So it's not what you're giving, it's your attitude in giving. It says, God loves a cheerful giver and not one that gives grudgingly. One that cheerfully gives to God, not begrudging. A person don't want you begrudging what you're doing. And that's what I was thinking about the other day at the Thanksgiving fellowship or whatever. You don't need to talk against somebody else's meal or whatever. If you don't want to comment on it, sometimes it's best not to say anything. Instead of saying the wrong thing, hold your thoughts to yourself. We have to make sacrifices of what we're trying to get through. That's why we need God to humble us and teach us and lead us and guide us, because he's not the author of confusion. He don't cause problems. He says because there's no faithfulness, no steadfast love, no dependability, a loyalty, a kindness, a knowledge of God from personal experience with him in the land. Loyalty and faithfulness, and that's what I've been telling you coming up to the Lane Kiffin's decision about being loyal, about being faithful. I said, that's what we have in the land. People are not faithful to their marriage. They're not faithful to their churches. They're not loyal to anything but themselves. What's gonna get me paid? That's what they say, you do what goes get you paid. You're making money the bottom line. You're making self the bottom line. You're making what's it all about you, what can you do? Covetousness. There's false swearing of oaths, deception, that is broken faith, murder, stealing, adultery. They employ violence so that one act of bloodshed closely follows another. Therefore, the land continually mourns and everyone who lives in it languishes in tragedy. Together with the animals of the open country, the birds of the heaven, even the fish of the sea disappear. Let no one find fault, nor let anyone rebuke others, for your people are like those who contend with the priests. So you will stumble in daytime, and the false prophet will also stumble with you in the night. And I will destroy your mother." In other words, I'll destroy the church. I'll destroy those that are teaching you these wrong things. In the book of Revelation, he says, Jezebel, because you've allowed that woman Jezebel to teach and seduce my children and have those that hold the doctrine of Balaam. The church has allowed all types of things into the church, all types of false doctrine and teaching. And he tells us to beware of the living of the Pharisee, the doctrine of the Pharisees, for it contains living. Here's the key of where I was headed, he says, my people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge. That is of my law, where I will reveal my will. Because you priests have rejected knowledge, I also reject you from being my priest. Since you've forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children. And so God tells them it's because of the lack of hearing the word of God, and that is hearing the word properly. hearing the Word in a way that God has given us to hear the Word, and teach it, and consume the Word of God. Because He also tells us in the latter days that they will flow into the house of God, and that they will all worship Him, and they will all know God. But it's different than as we have in social media nowadays, because a lot of people knowing, but it's self-knowledge. In other words, they accomplish it. Worse, they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. And that's what I was saying about my relatives and some other people. You know of God, but you don't have an intricate relationship with God, a talking and working relationship with God. So Jesus tells his people, to take my yoke upon you and learn of me. To deny yourself and take up your cross and follow after me. That means you got to quit doing some of the things that you're doing and find out what God says. You could have a zeal for God, but also my children, some of them are prospering or whatever. But listen what God says about Israel. See that we have to depend upon God, so we can't get our children straight sometimes. You train up a child when he's young, that means not sparing the rod. But that rod in latter days is the word of God. That's the sword of the spirit. But then it may be to some other preacher or some other teacher to teach them that, because they become resentful. And some of my children, I don't be preaching to them. I just kind of walk away. As I tell you deference, it says, follow peace as much as possible with all men. Don't provoke your children to anger. You know, you could tell somebody to go to church or ask somebody to go to church with you. But don't just keep harping on that. If they want to go, they can go. If they don't, because you have to want to pursue this yourself. I can't make, as a child, we make our children do things or whatever. But if they hadn't developed, if God hadn't turned them to hunger and thirst after God, to seek after God, they have the problem. And if you've done all you can, that's why I say, you do all you can or whatever. But your attitude has to be that God can accomplish it so you don't stop praying for your children. So you don't want to fight and wrestle with your children a lot of times he does like Israel. God did for Israel, the 16th verse of that chapter says, for Israel is stubborn like a stubborn heifer. Can the Lord now pasture them like a lamb in a large field? Ephraim is joined to his idols, so let him alone to suffer the consequences." Sometimes you have to leave your children alone. Your parents have to leave them alone. Did I say stop praying for them? Did I say give up hoping? See, sometimes when Paul says, turn that person over to the devil or whatever, you know, sometimes when people talk about going to fight or whatever, they might want to fight them. They might not can fight, but you tell them, turn them loose, let them go, don't hold him. And if he's not knowing what he's doing, it'd be like the children of Israel. The reason God didn't allow all of the Hittites and all of the enemies of the land to be taken out of the land. He said, I got to teach them to war. Sometimes you have to stop propping your children up. You have to let the consequences fall. You have to let it fall the way it may. You have to let those consequences come in. That's what happened to Cain. Cain says, if I do it well, will that sacrifice be accepted? But Cain rose up and killed Abel. So that showed that he didn't have an attitude of contrition, that he was disobedient to God. See, we're learning the Bible, but who's teaching it to us may not have our best interests at heart. Sometime we say our friends or the gang or the people that we mess with that they love us more than our parents or they love us more than somebody else. No, that's because the portion in you that's crooked. This son I was telling you about, he was the most thankful of all of my children. Now he's very seldom used that word, thank you. But used to be coming up, anything that you would do for him, he would say thank you. But around other people, around our relatives, our children, around those that influence us, we have to let them go. He's joined to his idols as Ephraim coming up. We can't speak ill of our people or the children or whatever it is around our children that's causing the error. They have to learn this for themselves. They'll come back and tell you, well, Danny, I was wrong. I shouldn't have said this. I shouldn't have said that. It's a little bit warm in here to y'all just because I'm moving around. But those things, they have to learn because that's the chastening, that's God bringing them. And we have to stop being so weak ourselves to when God is disciplined, as God was disciplined Job. His wife said, curse God and die. And Job knew that wasn't to be, that wasn't the right thing. So as our children are growing up, God uses some things to humble us. And I tell you all the time, God will make you humble if you're his child, because he's not gonna lose any. That's why some things happen more to one person than another, because they're hard-headed and they have to be disciplined more. They have to be disciplined more. The 13 years that Joseph spent in prison, that was the way God brought him, what the brothers had entrapped him and allowed all that to come. out in him, it was used to God to help discipline Joe. So we have to look back as we get older, we'll see that everything God had placed in our lives was working together for good. Nothing just came into our lives, nothing that just happened. God uses all of that, all of that is part of his toolbox. All of that helps humble us. He's gonna twist you and beat you until you say uncle. That's why I told you submission to God. That's why it says if my people would humble themselves, sometime it's good to listen. Because if God have to humble, tell your people, tell you, you don't want God to humble you. just like in prayer and I tell you have to learn and organize your prayers because a lot of times people don't realize be careful what you ask for because you're praying for patience and lord give me patience or whatever and you know Then is when God puts you in a situation that you make spontaneous decisions and things start coming at you a thousand miles an hour. That's when you have to say, I don't know what I'm doing. That's what got me in the problem in the first place. I'm just going to wait on the Lord. Now, what do you do while waiting? You learn that through Bible study. You learn that through coming to the house of God. That don't mean just sit down and do nothing. It's what we're doing while waiting. We don't know what our Brother Eisner told me. That's a friend of mine that's going on in the glory. It was one of the men that was there when I was baptized some 60 years ago, 64 years ago on 39th Street at Evergreen, Brother Eisner. But he says when they were marching around Jericho, they would march once a day and stop. But they didn't say what else they was doing. When we go back and fill in the details and find all of the details, that's why we pray to God, asking him the details, what should we do? We getting guidance from God or whatever. God doesn't just want us sitting there and laying there asleep or whatever. That's a bad sign. God doesn't show his people idol all the time. An idol of mine is the workshop of the devil. That's when you sit around here, everybody's giving me, my children don't like me, everybody treat me and doing this, and you start worshiping what you're seeing around. See, Peter, seeing the water, getting fishes around, he took his eyes off Jesus. If he'd have stayed focused on Jesus, he could walk on water. We could accomplish a lot of things, and we continually being filled by the Spirit of God, led by the Spirit. You could mount up with wings of eagles. I'm 69 years old, and I was standing there looking at, but Minister Miller was down on his knee, down there under the tractor, trying to get the wheel off or whatever. He's 90 years old. But here's where we pray for wisdom from God or whatever. He said, Brother Jackson, when I'm working on things like this, and I pull it from in the back of the house back there, I come in the front of the house. And he say, just in case I get out there and can't get up or something happens, I won't lay back there and people might be a day or two before somebody come out there and see me or whatever. you know, God has given us all kinds of technology and that's why we're not against technology or whatever because he has that one stop or that pass that you can take your phone and you have the thing if you fall or something if you have that thing you can say you've fallen or something has happened. So God instructs us but we sometimes not really listening at God and we're listening at ourself and that strong, enthusiastic, that attitude, that one way, that over positive attitude and that's why I say we have as a nation because they kept pounding in here about the election and what's happening, that they won the election but it's no facts, no thing. Just because you repeat things over and over, I think Norman Vincent Peale And Ron Hubbard came up with the power of positive thinking. Sometimes you could be thinking wrong just because you think something. It's not necessarily makes it true. And that's when they was teaching about speaking and speaking things in the existence or whatever. we have to be lined up in accordance to God's word. Our attitude and disposition has to be lined up with God. You remember I told you that instrument pound? Well, the Bible is your instrument pound, and you have to seek God's reveal will. In other words, God's word, but also what's God saying to you, what's he telling you? Because it's about attitude. Joseph was thinking to put away Mary privately, and he was really concerned. How shall I do this? How am I gonna do this? Because if I do it a certain way, she could get stoned to death. Because they're believing she had committed fornication. And he was praying, you see, you remember I said, including how to do things according to God's way, because the Pharisees, they feed the needy. They cast out devils. They do all this and they go come say, Lord, Lord, didn't we do all these things? Jesus says, I never knew you. They were doing things that made them feel good. Feeding the needy, casting out devils, all types of works are just that, they're works, but they not mean that you have been saved, that you're listening and obeying the word of God, because obedience to the word of God is like the rich young ruler, he says, sell all that you have and follow after me, because he's gonna get those things that's really, that's built into you to make you deny yourself, introspection, those things that's stopping you from growing. And see, the book of Romans, it says ungrateful, unthankful. You see, all of those things are attitude adjustments. Envy bitterness see those aren't aren't in the Old Testament Those are New Testament thing in which the church that will be without a spot of wrinkle You sometime you've done a whole lot for a person and that person is ungrateful Have a wrong attitude a disposition or someone does something for you. I was I had lost someone that helped me do things, helped me do some work or whatever, and they said that they would be out three to four months. I was talking to different people or whatever, and we researched it, and that didn't sound right. It's too long or whatever. But I don't know, you know, I just, you know, you remember I told you a difference in allowing things to develop before you? This person did good work. They were a good person and had a better attitude. I found someone else to do that job that they were doing, but they had a wrong attitude or wrong disposition. So the individual that was doing this, remember the two sons, the father actually says, son, go and work in my field. And he says, I won't, and he went his way. But then the other son, he told to work in the field, and he said, I will. and he didn't do what he said he would do, but the son that says he won't, he came back and went to work in the field? Well, this individual called me and says, how you been doing or whatever? I've been trying to get in contact with you or whatever. I'm back and I want to come to work this morning. I want to come to work and do it or whatever. I said, well, thank God. I said, I would rather you do it. You have a better attitude and people like you a little bit better. I didn't tell them that or whatever. But then this other person was scheduled to come that day or the next day. They called me and we had set up to come every other once a week or whatever. But they called me and it was money. I don't have enough time to go that far on that rabbit trail. But they called me and I didn't know how to tell them that I had found someone else. That person had came back. And so they hung up and they were supposed to be working. And I was thinking, I said, Lord, I know this will cause a problem because they did help me when I was in need. I said, but I don't know how to tell them that I don't need their services anymore or whatever. And I was thinking about, Lord, God works just that quick, just that quick within 20 minutes or so, they called me back and I said, well, you don't have to come the day or whatever. And it was saying, something she said, I'm trying to get it right. But she developed an attitude. And she was saying this, and I said, you know, I was trying to find a way to tell her that I couldn't use her anymore. But since she come with that little snazzy attitude, that disposition, I say, I tell you what, I'll pay you for coming tomorrow or whatever, but you don't have to come. I say, you don't have to come no more with that attitude, with the way you're approaching me on this. You see, that was my out. It didn't solve God. It didn't solve things up. So that put her in a position to say, you know, I have to watch my attitude or disposition. That has happened before with a young man. I'll tell you, you used to work around the house or whatever. When I told him you need to do it this way. And he said, well, no. And he was arguing about the way to do it. We have to do things the way God say do. We have to do things the way our plan. Follow instructions. That pilot that's flying that airplane, he has to be able to follow instructions. Not how you feel, not how you see things. He has to live by faith. We have to walk by faith. We have to be in so close of proximity to God that we know he's in us and with us and we have to depend on him. But we have to be like Peter to call out when we're sinking. Call out in prayer. Lord, help me. But you have to stay with your life cleansed and led up. Paul says in the book of Romans, brothers and sister, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for you is for their salvation. For I testify about them that they have a certain enthusiasm for God. but not in accordance with correct, valid, vital knowledge about him and his purposes. For not knowing about God's righteousness, which is based on faith, and seeking to establish their own righteousness based on the works, they did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law. It leads to him to a purpose for feel in him. That's why I told you we're coming in a time of year where we'll see a lot of things in this season happen to people. Did the midwives follow Pharaoh's decision to kill all of the Hebrew children? Did God bless them for that? Did God tell us to go tell the children of Israel to go to Babylon, pray for the peace of the land? Why did Daniel When they say not to pray to any other God, he kept praying to God. They threw him in the lion's den. Why did the Hebrew boys, when they say bow down to this statue and worship this statue, we ain't gonna be careful in asking you to do this, we not gonna do it. We'd rather throw it in the fire. Daniel wouldn't eat with his people. Book of Romans chapter 12, verse 13 says, submit yourself to obey the authority of the rules that reign of those that have authority over you. That's government. But here I've told you four or five examples of people rejecting what the leader says. What did Peter say? Book of Acts. He says it's better to obey God than man. The argument that's being fostered today is Mark Kelly, General Mark Kelly, who's been a soldier for 20-some years in the Army, I mean the Navy, 20-some years. Alexander Vittman, a Marine, many a years. He stood by the truth. He lost his job, some of his rank and everything else kelly still hadn't lost his job but the government seeking a way to destroy him and to try to bring him back to service so that they could court-martial him yes but you remember i told you in the physical these things playing out but it's actually a spiritual battle because it is times that you have to disobey illegal orders. And that's what it's about in the nation today. They say, do you have to follow a illegal order, illegitimate order? That's in the news. You see, sometimes it's not about you keeping what you have, it's standing up for that which is right. Daniel went in the lines then because he wasn't gonna stop praying to God. is your attitude and disposition to God. You may not concede this, but you have to keep your eyes on God. Didn't I tell you not to pray? Didn't I tell you not to preach in this man's name? But Peter says it's better to obey God. Man, now do you have to know God? Because you could be saying this of your own volition. That's what I be worried about Jimmy Kimmel and all that because Satan's gonna keep coming back for you because the people is behind you. And you remember I told you, sometimes we get so much prosperity and things going good that we accidentally say or do the wrong thing. He have to humble themselves and pray to God because the devil could keep tricking and coming back. We have to be aware of the schemes of the devil. That's why we have to know God. You have to pray to God because you have to give account for every idle word that coming out of your mouth. So we have to stay penitent before God. He says, think not what you have to say, because God's gonna give you in that very hour, that very moment of what to say or what to do. As he gave Joseph, he says, think not to put Mary away, because that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. So he was thinking to do the right thing, the God-like thing, and God gave him the answer. He says, no, it's not for man. That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. He directed him in the right way. So Jesus says, Matthew 11, 28 to 30, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. So my yoke is easy and my burden is light. You don't have to be legalistic. Because the law is just that, it's the law. But we are in the grace and truth. We walk by faith. You're not trying to please man. What does God tell you to do? Be led by the spirit of God. Don't try to be pleasing to man. Don't try to please the pastor. Don't try to please the church. You have to know God for yourself. Now you can't be rebellious because through grace, through faith, we help establish the laws of God. We've established a government under God because all of the kingdoms have become the kingdoms of the Lord. But that's prayer for those that are praying, thy kingdom come. You give me this day my daily bread, because some people are not having the word of God. They're getting the word, but it's twisted in their hearing. It says, as Hosea says, my people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge. Because they have rejected knowledge, I will also reject them, that thou shalt be no priest to me. They have spiritual ignorance, and it leads to ruin. Destruction that comes from this lack of knowledge isn't random. It's a direct consequence of turning away from what is true and what is right, and it leads to moral and spiritual decay. So he wants you to prosper and to be in health. But there's a way to do all things. Daniel gave deference to the king. He says, king, Oh, but if this was to your enemies, I would be feel better. But he says, no, Daniel, you, you go ahead on and say, or whatever. And Daniel told him that the vision spoke of him. It was about him. Sometime you have to give deference to parents. You have to deference to other people. He says, submitting yourselves to one another. What I said, submitting yourselves to one another. Even though Adam was punished for listening to his wife, God came and told Abraham that that was his problem because he listened at Sarah and went in to Hagar. Huh? Was that set in stone like the 10 commandments or not? Because like I said, we have to be in communications with the tower now. Now, if you go about precedence and say, well, God told me that once by listening to my wife or whatever, so I'm going to do this and I'm not going to listen to my wife. Didn't God come back and say, look, you listen to what Sarah tell you, you put Hagar out. It was hard for Hagar, I mean Abraham, to put his son out, Ishmael. Oh, that if Ishmael would stand before you. God says, I'll make that child a nation. I'll make him a nation. But you put him out, you listen to your wife. Sometimes you have to keep peace at the house. It lived as peaceable as possible with all men. I tell you, I said, well, Deacon, this is the church and everything, but don't cause no problems with your wife or whatever. You ask God how to meet the answer. Sister Jackson, as long as we've been together, you know, she has to have her autonomy. What? Then they said, B. O.B., and a lot of men said, why submit her to your husband? But didn't Abigail disobey Nabal? She told David that he, just like his name says, a fool or ignorant or whatever? Because David was coming back to destroy Nabal. The woman was smarter than he was. So he's given us our wives as helpmates. But you remember I was telling you, don't get too puffed up. You know, a lot of women, when the preachers, those sucking up preachers that have to keep the female portion of the congregation and always catering to them, don't get that ship out of Keltra now. Because sometimes you puff a person up, you puff the women up, and you get them to be a nag. You get them to where the man says, better to dwell on a housetop, on the corner of a roof, instead of a house with a nagging wife. You know, you get beside yourself and that's why I stopped watching sports because it's all about the Lane Kiffin's. Because if he come to LSU or whatever he come, somebody go beat him. You're not a superstar. You idolize. I never seen Michael Jordan play because it was always about Jordan. The ball always had to end up in Jordan's hand. You watching the game at the end of the game, the ball was going to be in his hand. It's about the superstar courts, the superstar quarterback. If this person don't show up, that person don't show up. I was talking to my son about the games the other day, Texas A&M undefeated. They had built up Ark Manning because of nepotism to be the Heisman Trophy winner and Texas wasn't doing so well this year. Me and my son, I said, well, who you think will win, Texas, Texas A&M? He said, A&M. I said, I agree with you on that or whatever. But you see, just when we thinking things our way, that's why I say positive thinking and thoughts is not all because God says that's why he destroyed the whole world, because the thoughts of men was evil continually. So our ways and our thoughts, they have to line up with God's ways and thoughts. It's a transforming of the mind. Texas won the game. It wasn't good. They did a wonderful job. But I don't have a dog in the fight. It don't make a difference what I say or what I think. I'm not making any money off of it. I don't have a vested interest in the world. We have to be able to be in the world, but not of the world. Don't get entangled in the world. So I watched a game the other day, Kansas City and Dallas, and it was a good game. And I was hearing this guy Mahone, one of the reasons was they tried to make Patrick Mahone such a superstar. When you start focusing on men and worshiping men, and that's all you can do about the individual, you're getting away. You worship your wife, she will walk on you. You worship your husband, he's gonna start going under domestic abuse. You let him go too far, he's gonna go all the way. You give a person an inch, it'll take a mile. That's why we have to buffet ourselves. We have to have that humble and that meek spirit, that meek attitude. It was only when Moses got puffed up, he was leading the children of Israel. His brothers and sisters had commented about the black woman, the Kushite that he had married, and God had kept him and protected him. But it was when God had worked all these miracles through Moses, and the people was asking him for a drink of water. But you see, sometime, you remember I told you, we have to be aware our attitude also is about the proximity of the things around us horizontally and vertically? Yes. Well, vertically, he's under the command of God. He has to look up to God. That's why when most people pray, they hold their head down. They hold their hands up. They kneel. They get in a posture of, I submit unto you, God. Nevertheless, thy will be done. It's not what I want. I have to deny myself. So the people that got on Moses' nerve, you know, people will get on that last little nerve you have. But if you're dying to self, he says, a death to self. It's not about me. But Moses, God had told him to speak to the rock. But he spoke to rock. You know, a lot of times God will give us what we want. But then we have the consequences with that. Just because you're in prosperity, just because you have stuff, that doesn't mean that God is pleased with you. That's why I say you have to check yourself, your attitude, or what's your mental attitude or your disposition toward God. He says a man shouldn't think of himself more highly than he ought to. When a man thinks that he's staying, take heed lest he falls. Moses smoked a rock. God said, Moses, that's it. All of that you've done. You can't go into the promised land. People say, God answered the prayer. God answered the prayer. But didn't you tell Moses, Moses kept asking to go in the Promised Land, and God told him, and that's what I say about persistence in prayer and praying to God in a humble attitude. Prayer doesn't change God. Prayer lines us up with the will of God. He said, Moses, don't ask me that no more. He says, you're not going in. You can get up about Mount Nebo and see it. I'll let you see the Promised Land, but you're not going in. It was buried in that very mountain. We don't want to disobey God. We want to get a humble and a meek attitude toward God and obedience to God. But we want to stay in contact with God, in close proximity to God. We're getting an answer from God. It's a key thing because the world is deceptive and the things of the world are deceptive. But we must be able to organize our prayers and that's why prayer is not an easy thing. We learn organized prayers. God says, don't come there with a whole lot of long prayers and vain repetitions as the heathen, as the pagans do, as the Pharisees did for their much hearing. The Pharisees says, Lord, I'm tired, I give offerings, I fast, I do all this. He came with what all he's doing. But instead of come meet mildly and humble at us too, as the public indeed this is more be merciful to me a son if we would just humble ourselves and see ourselves the way we are dot which starts showing us other things and i will watch this hindering us to be able to lay aside every weight it everything that perception of from running the race because all scene all Shortcomings is not sin. It could be a weight. Sometimes it's the people you associate with. It's not a sin to associate with people, but it could be a weight. Daniel 11, 32 says, he will flatter those who have violated the covenant and win them over to his side. But people who know their God will be strong and will resist him. Looks like the nation is going and prosperity is going good or whatever, but that's flattery. If you know your God, I don't know if Marjorie Taylor Greene is coming to a knowledge of God or whatever, if it's self-preservation, it is her turn because of God. Because I've never heard her say about God in the last few weeks when these things are going on or whatever. But as we see, looks like the devil winning, he's actually losing. And that's why the disciple says, Lord, Teach us to pray. Teach us to pray. And as God taught his disciples, he says, pray our Father. See, because Jesus directed us to pray our Father. Let all of our requests and prayer and supplications be made known unto God. The principle applies throughout history, mainly to the Christians today, because what was written in the Old Testament was written for our admonition. that we must make prayer and supplications to God and cease not to pray. We have to not fail to seek after God and apply biblical knowledge in our lives and take heed unto ourselves and be dependent as that little child. You may be able to do it now, you may be able to do certain things or whatever, but as with my granddaughter, God gets the pleasure out of doing it for us. Jesus came down here and did it for us. He said, it is finished. All you have to do is walk there in. He's walked away. He's made a way for us. All we have to do is follow after him. Take up our cross and deny ourselves. Find out how he did it. Get an understanding and wisdom of knowledge of God. And he says, he who lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, and he'll give it to you liberally. Because he wants you to ask him. If you have not, it's because you ask not. God wants us to ask. That's the way he designed this, is through prayer and suffocation. He's going to establish this through us humbling ourselves before him. Heavenly Father, as we come before you this day, Lord,