This morning's message, when corporate prayer will not work. When corporate prayer will not work. And, you know, sometimes there's a feigned togetherness, and when people talk about America, or what we are, or who we are, And that's good in a way, but we have to realize that we are the people of God, and we have to face our shortcomings together. We can't be hypocritical and gloss them over. We can't not admit or confess the shape that we're in or what we're going on. It seems strange me quoting Oprah Winfrey this morning. But she had an interview this week with the BBC over in London, and I was watching it on the internet. This is something that she was talking about, about our president. And she says the lack of respect that he's been getting and the things that's been going on with him, is a racial issue. They're doing this because of his race or who he is or whatever. And I say, well, that's good. I'm glad Ofra finally spoke out on that. There's a lot of people that follow Ofra, white and black, whatever nationality or creed. Hispanic, Filipino, whatever it is, she has a large following. And I think that's admirable for her to speak out on such an issue as this in this nation. where there's hatred going on of an individual because of their color, an individual because of their creed, their religious order, or whatever it may be. There's so much hatred in this nation. As I told you, it wasn't a Christian nation. And it wasn't founded on all Christian principles. It was founded on some Christian principles, and they'll tell you that some of them that was found in Fardus said that God was, that it was Deus what it is. Think, God had left the earth and left the world and created it, but left us to run it, left mankind to run it. But see, mankind can't run anything even though God had given them dominion. This is Satan's world. This is his order, he had taken over, a man gave it over to him. And so what man has been doing is, man has been trying to create God in his image, in his likeness. Given that lead way, we want God to hop to our way. We want God to look over who we are, what we are, that we say we're the children of God and that we should have everything our way. And that doesn't anything apply to us that we have the right to twist God's words. Jeremiah the 37th chapter, the first through the second verse, is such a one. This is a double-minded king, an unstable king, one that does not follow God. His father was a follower of God, but Jeremiah kind of seen the underlying principle there that it wasn't a religious nation. that it had a reformational Christianity going, but it was hypocritical. And there are so many hypocritical Christians today in this nation. I can't talk about any other nation because I'm not from any other nations and don't know that much, but only what I hear or read about them. But I know what's going on in this nation. In Jeremiah knew. God had to work with Jeremiah. Now this is after some 20 or 30 years of preaching and him crying and wanting to pray for the people that he had learned out why God said don't pray for these people because he was going to have to destroy them and start over. They had a prejudice that was inborn in them, that was ingrained into them. That's what Ophrah was saying, that it's a prejudice in this nation that's ingrained from the parents to grandparents, and it's a generational prejudice that has to pass away until this generation passes away. That God has to wipe the portion of this nation away that has ingrained prejudices. If that's in you, if you can't be converted, if Zedekiah couldn't be converted, whatever is not of God doesn't exist. You can't exist if you're not a child of God. That's why it says fret not thyself because of evildoers, because in the last days he was the sinner's messenger. He was going to send the people of God that was going to boldly proclaim the word of God and not be deceived by the word of God because nowadays Satan slips his people in using the word of God to deceive his people. We see where Zedekiah here, he says, and the king Zedekiah, the son of Josiah. I don't care who your father was. I don't care who the founding fathers was. We're talking about you here. He sent for Jeremiah. This man that vacillate, this man that was self-centered, this man that had a cabinet that was utterly corrupt, even though it was religious, it was utterly corrupt. If this nation, if this state, if this community is corrupt, it's corrupt, let's just say it's corrupt. If your family is corrupt, say they're corrupt. If your brothers or sisters or mother, whoever it is, he said, if you don't hate, you understand what I'm saying? If you don't hate that, you can't be my disciple because you can't get it straight. If you're not straight, you have to realize who I am. I don't equivocate. Get it straight. Jeremiah took a while to get this straight. It says, Zedekiah reigned instead of Coni, the son of Jehorakim, whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had made king in the land of Judah. But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land," that's what I was telling you, neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land, did hearken unto the words of the Lord. So what does that tell us by God's word? If we wanna be put in remembrance of God's word, we would remember that if it says this man, if he don't speak according to the word of God, if he don't fear God, don't fear that man. Don't fear those people. Don't you even be acquainted with them. And he says, I pray not for the world. I pray for my disciples. I pray for that you keep them away from the evil in the world. They didn't hearken unto the word of God. If someone's out there not listening to the word of God, you better watch your association. Evil associations corrupt good manners. Watch the company you keep. You need to do the speaking. When Jesus was going out in the world, I'm sure Indian people didn't preach to him. I'm sure he did the preaching. He did the teaching. He was in authority. But they'll tell you, well, we all have to listen at one another. No, not if you're not knowing what God's word is. Not if you're not a follower of God. We're not fit to let God's word be synchronized, come into all religious faith, and just everybody is working. We worship God any way we want to. No, we're not going down that road. They didn't hearken unto God's word, which he spake by the prophet Jeremiah. You hadn't been listening to what I said. Now you call for me? Zedekiah the king sent Jehuchah the son of Shelomah and Zephaniah the son of Mashiach and the priest of the prophets Jeremiah saying, pray now unto the Lord our God for us. Now Jeremiah came in and went out among the people for they had not yet put him in prison. Hold on, why is that scripture in here? They hadn't yet put him in prison. You see, that's what the world hold over you. They hold your job over you. They hold your children captive like Pharaoh wouldn't let the Egyptians go. He wanted to keep their children. So you go over there and worship and we'll keep your children here. See, they hadn't yet got you to that point. That's going to be the last fig leaf. That's going to be the last thing to go. That they hadn't put you in bondage of the world yet. And see, that's what we're afraid of. We're afraid of losing. That's why we can't pray. And that's why we can't pray for nobody else. Because we're bound. How you going to lose somebody if you're bound? If you want the world, if you want the things of the world, And see, when Jeremiah spoke against them, if you keep reading this chapter, I know we done read this, and I know you done read the 37, 38 chapter, because that's what we preaching. We've been talking the last two weeks, that you know that these people turned against him, and that's why they put him in prison, because he told them what he had to tell. But see, that's what had happened. Somebody come up to you and ask you to pray for them, and you tell them about their lives. You tell them what's going on. Then they reject you. But see, you will try to let them waste your time if they're not right. They couldn't waste Jeremiah's time because he knew they weren't right. God had showed him that. So there's no use in him praying for them. He's wasting his time. God has said, don't pray for them. Then the word of the Lord came under the prophet Jeremiah saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, thus you shall say to the King of Judah that sent you unto me, asking you to pray for him, asking you to inquire of me. Behold, Pharaoh which has come forth to you to help you shall return unto Egypt his own land. That those people in the world you're counting on, Egypt is a type of sin. It's a type of the world. That what you're counting on in the world to help you out, it ain't gonna be no help for you. He will go back. See, a lot of us, just like Zedekiah, what the people did was, when they was in a bind, they let the servants go. But when it lighten up, you see a lot of people, a lot of your friends, a lot of people come to you when they got it in a crash, when they're in a burn. They come to you, but let them get some money in their pocket. Let them get back on top of things. You don't hear from them jokers no more. They go on about their business. And see, it's fine until you get in a band. Then you want God's word. When you're in jail, you want to pray. When you don't have anything, when your children done run off on you, when your job is gone, when you done lost something, now you so much want God, you want somebody to pray for you. But God's telling them, that which you can't know to get you over the hump, it ain't gonna help you over the hump. and the Chaldeans shall come again and fight against this city and take it and burn it with fire. Thus said the Lord, deceive not yourselves, saying that the Chaldeans shall surely depart from us, for they shall not depart. This trouble ain't gone. You might get a little relief from trouble. But just because you got a loan, just because you got a little windfall, a little increase in pay, just because you got a little finances from here, just because your children change heart for a while, just because the wind blowing your way, don't think this thing is over with. What was Jeremiah doing? Jeremiah was telling him the same thing he'd been telling him, that he's going to judge that nation and that the Chaldeans was going to take over. It was the same thing. No matter what you do, this was destined to happen. He'd pray for him. He told him the same thing. When Jonah tried to escape from God, from going to tell Nineveh what he had to tell him, and God put him in the belly of the fish, and then when Jonah decided that he was going to go preach to the Ninevites, where did Jonah go preach? Read Jonah. Read the book of Jonah. You know what Jonah did? He went back and preached the same message God gave him. God doesn't change. Keep saying the same thing. That y'all need to repent, you need to turn from... Jeremiah, we studied that last week. He said, tell them this, perhaps they will listen. And perhaps they'll turn from their way. If you don't turn from your prejudice, just because you get over the budget crunch, just because you get from under health care, just because you gloss this thing over and say, peace, peace, it's not going to happen. I still got to get that prejudice out of you. Either I'm going to kill you and you're not mine, or else this nation will be one nation under God. This world will be one world under God. But until that time, this is what I'm preaching and teaching. In the end times, nation will rise up against nation. That it's going to be these end time racial wars. All of this is end time. But it's going to end because I'm going to kill you all who live this way. If you prejudice and you teach it to your children, I'm going to kill you and your children. I'm going to do you just like I did Zedekiah. I'm going to take you out and let the king of Babylon take you out and I'm going to kill all 10 of your sons right there while you're seeing me killing them because you have taught them this way and then I'm going to gouge your eyes out and you will live this way the rest of your life knowing that you're doomed to die in this captivity. And your children have died because you should have taught them right. That's why I told Eli, Eli restrain your sons. And Eli, he says he wouldn't strain his children. He wouldn't talk to his children. He wouldn't tell his children. My son came by yesterday. I was up here. He said, Dad, you up at church? He had been looking for me. I said, yes, I'm up at the church or whatever. Stay right there. I'm coming to you. He had been trying to get to me all day, but circumstances had divided him. He had got him a new truck. This is another one of my sons. He had got him a brand new truck. And he said, well, look, I want you to drive. Get in and drive. And we drove around and whatever. He straightened up there with me and everything. And I said, son, this is good. I said, I'm going to pray for you. I said, but whatever you do, you take care of your wife and children. Go get a little Marcus and let him see daddy got a truck. We'll go right around You don't allow the world or the things in the world to get in your way You praise God and thank God for this. I knew it was in you you had been down a long time God answers prayers. I've been praying for y'all pray for my kids all the time. See that's what Joe did He prayed for his kid. He said perhaps my kids have seen I pray for my kids all the time, and I always want them there around me. I was going out to the JC Penney Mall, and I called my son, and he said, well, he was at work. He had to do something. And I said, OK, because I don't like going to that mall that much by myself or whatever, but I just like my kids around me. So I was looking around or whatever, and I was upstairs with my wife, downstairs there at Penney's. And then coming up. That's my daughter there. That was Stacy. She had met my mom, my wife downstairs and said, hey daddy, you know, we walked around in pennants and everything. And then we went to the food court to eat or whatever. She took us, I said, where the food court at or whatever, you know, so she took us over there. And I always try to keep God in it. I can't say look, pray, thank God for whatever you have. Don't hold predators in your heart. Honey, I didn't know she had been in the truck before I had, but you know usually they come get me to take a little ride in their vehicle. I love to see them get things. And they had been together that night, and one of my sons come in the middle of the night last night. You seen Margo's truck? He ride in there. Because I don't want, even in the church, I want y'all to rejoice when one another gets something. Don't be jealous of him. I'm glad you got something. You rejoice, the prodigal son couldn't rejoice with the other son. The older son couldn't rejoice with the other son. Rejoice when something goes good for someone. Don't discourage them, or don't, he owe me, or he do this and that, don't talk them down. Be glad for them, be glad for one another. But, as I said about following God, that God get your credit straight, that God get your life straight, but you need to follow God in all the blessings. Don't forget God. You start thinking another way. You have to get a new set of friends. You have to change that out around you. Zedekiah wasn't about to do that because you'll see that these same men came and they put Jeremiah in prison because he didn't want to tell them what they wanted to hear. People will want you to tell them what they want to hear. He says, in that time, they will heap the preachers having itching ears, saying that which they want to hear. But you can't pay God's preachers off as such. The reason he said that a priest wouldn't go away before David and that they would minister him all the time is that they was bringing all the tithes and the offerings in the storehouse because that was the way that they got their blessings. They was putting God in remembrance that he said he would open the windows of heaven unto you. and that they would flow out to you. But just as it was then, it is now. That some of the true preachers of God are having to work, having to be busy because the people aren't giving. During those days, they wasn't giving to the ministry as they were supposed to. That's why this curse came in. The priest wasn't being ministered to. Now, that's why I say sometimes you're gonna have to direct these people back to their churches. Go over there who was preaching to you. Go back over there where you've been spending your money and your time at. You go back over there. That's who you wanted to follow. And the priest wasn't getting their allotment because they were suffering from a lack of income. Now, you probably not gonna realize this, but I want you to get a today's paper and read it. Giving is way down in the churches. The reason they don't look like that, I tell you, this was a hypocritical nation. The illusion that you see is LA preachers, all of the preachers and things, with money coming in all over the place, and wealth, and popularity, they're seeking. That's because those are Satan's ministers. And it's going wonderful for them because Satan said, if you would bow down and worship me, I'll give you all these kingdoms of the world. It's his to give. That's why they're prospering hand over feet. That's why their churches are mega churches. because they're doing Satan's bidding. But God's preachers was being placed in jail. God's preachers was being persecuted. And how do you think that God's going to take? Don't pray for these people's good. Now there were prayers that you prayed. When you say pray for your enemy, We've been so enlightened today by the churches of today. We only know how to pray for blessings. We only know how to pray for material things. But do you know if you pray that thy will be done? God, bring about in their lives what you have to bring about. It may be necessary that you have to kill them because they ain't going to act right. That's why Paul said he'd turn them over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. When you pray for somebody, well, if it's in you, he's going to kill you. But you better chop that off. Jesus said, it's better that, if it's your eyes, it's better that you gouge your eyes out and enter in life with your eyes gouged out, than the whole body perish. If you a tightwad, he may need to pray that that person stay broke so that they can serve God. He may need to pray that this person don't have a spouse, or this person don't have this because, you know, that woman, that man change a lot of people. Your friends changed you. You were better without that person. See, there's some things you do better without. That's why he says, what we read open in scripture, laying aside every weight and sin that's besetting you. So everything that might be hindering you from running is not necessarily a sin, but it's a weight. Some friends can weigh you down. Some things, it may not be said, but it's stopping you from functioning right. I tell one of them, the one that got the truck, that he operates his own little business there. And I said, son, make sure you keep yourself hygienic. In other words, brush, goggle up, hair comb, cut, clean shave and everything when you're going around the people and everything. Well, I can smoke if I want to. No, you can't. Yes, your body, you can if you want. But the thing is, you servicing other people and nobody wants to smell your smoke for your breath or whatever. This may be a weight. It's not necessarily a sin. It may be harmful to your body or whatever. Well, if you're a drink, I'm going to drink if I want to. I'm not saying my son was doing this. I'm just saying something that could be weights that could hinder you. And that, well, yeah, but your drinking is incapacitating you from operating the way you need to be operating. Drink alcohol as an inhibitor. And it stops you from functioning correctly. There are some people who couldn't drink. That's why they have a limit with alcohol, because some people can function well after one or two drinks. Some can't function after drinking one beer, they go staggered. But some can drink a whole keg, they're still looking for more. Alcoholics look for beverages all the time. So the thing is, some things that's weighting you down, 30. Some things that's weighting you down, you can't allow them to hinder you from running this race. You have to put it aside. You have to stop doing it. So you have to call on God to help you, Lord. After I drink to this night or whatever, I can't get up in the morning. You know, I have a hard time getting up. You know, alcohol stops you from getting up. A lot of people say it puts me to sleep. But it also stops you from getting up wild alert, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed. It makes you sluggish. It makes you think. See, a lot of things that can hinder you is weights. If a friend's not encouraging you, he may be a weight to you. So you have to come to God, and a lot of people say, come just as you are. He meant you have to come with that, but He's going to make you strip. He's going to strip you. He's going to change you. You have to be willing to lay these things aside. You can't go in the kingdom with these things. That's why it says, hardly a rich man shall enter the kingdom of heaven. Because these things have to be taken away from you for you to serve God properly. But this nation hadn't put aside anything. Zedekiah hadn't put aside anything for serving the Lord. What was motivating him? His life, saving his life. And we can't just worry about our lives. We have to worry about the benefit of everybody else. See, that's why I have to live right because I want to teach it to my sons and daughters. I want y'all to see that. I want everybody around me to see that. We are witnessed, we are encompassed by such a great cloud of witness, let us run this race with patience. The ones that have went before us, the ones that have went ahead before us to tell you of the trials and adversities they have gone through, and we see the things that weighted them down. So it's gonna weight us down also. That's why it's detrimental if you get rid of the Old Testament because there's where all your examples of saints that tried to run the race and the things that encumbered them from serving God. We know God here is not a sinner. So to go before God for Him to hear your prayer, we know that we have to be in line with His words. 1 John, 1 John, the book of 1 John, the fifth chapter, he tells us this about knowing that what we hear from God, see, because if the king couldn't get a prayer through, if he was asking someone to pray for him, We know that he must have not been living right. And we could be living right, but we can't be a tool whereby people could just come to us and pray because sometimes I pray for people's salvation, I pray for their health or whatever, but if it ain't working, maybe it's something in your life. That, you know, I tell you about the word of faith. Preachers of some say it's a lack of faith in your life. The reason is sometimes it could be a lack of something in your life. It could be a lack of repentance in your life. I'm praying for you, but the answer hadn't came because you still living this bad life. I don't have to be a fruit inspector. You don't have to confess these things to me. But you may be doing something wrong because I know God is impartial and He show no favors. And if you ask Him, He's wanting to do that which is good for you. He wants to do good for all of his children. He has no respect of persons, so if salvation hadn't come to you, maybe there's something more that you should be doing. But we know that we have the request, it says, for we know that we have the request of Him, for we always do that which pleases Him. because we obey his commandments. We obey his orders. They are not grievous unto us. So if we know we have these things, when you pray to God, you know it's being answered. You're seeing your prayers being answered. So if I could effectually pray for you, we know he doesn't ignore the fervent, effectual prayer of his saints. So if I'm praying effectually, fervently for you, and this is not happening, It's not your battery. Maybe the alternator. It may be some other electrical flow, but it's not right here. So I'm praying for you. I know it's not the word of God, so you may need to examine yourself more closely. You see, because we can't change God's will. A lot of people say, well, pray I'll change this thing. But it's not gonna change God's will. God was going to destroy Israel. That wasn't going to be a hesitant moment. Listen how definite he was about this was going to happen. A lot of times we want to have a little possibility of things not happening. Listen to what he said. Verse 10. For though you had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up, every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire. That's just how positive it is. If you kill all the strong men, if you wipe out all their tanks, everything that they have, the ones that's wounded go rise up and destroy and burn this city. God's word is certain. It is sure. That's why we need to count that more sure word of prophecy. So what's the use of him getting tied up praying for this guy because it's curtains for you, chief. And we don't want to speak God's word to people. You know, sometimes you see somebody not living and they tend to you or whatever, but you don't want to hurt their feelings. You need a little bit more help yourself. You need that moat picked out your eye because it ain't about feelings and emotions. If we're dead to Christ, if we're dead to the world, we don't have any feelings. We speak the word. Sometimes you have to tell people it hurts. What he said in the book of Corinthians is about the people that are around you are some of the preachers and teachers, just like I told you in this nation, that we have a church that has apostatized. It has went away from God. So he says, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 11, 13 through 15. For such men are false apostles. counterfeits, deceitful working, masquerading as apostles or special messengers of Christ. And it is no wonder for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. So it is not surprising if his servants also masquerade as ministers of righteousness, but their end will correspond to their deeds. You know, that's what the nuns was telling us last year about this Catholic faith, a lot of them in the Catholic faith, when they was telling Paul Ryan, he's a Catholic. He's one of the house members. And Rachel Maddow was doing a thing on the members of the house last night. Their net worth, most of them make over a million and something a year. That's their median income. One guy in there that's a House of Representatives married into money has over a $500 million fortune. And you think they're going to level with you? You think they're going to level with the average person? Not hardly. They're going to oppress. They want to get rid of the minimum wage. Not raise it, but get rid of it so they could pay you what they want to pay you. God has to knock the foundations down. See if the foundations be destroyed. He has to knock everything down. they was telling Paul Ryan that this is not Catholic doctrine. So that's why I say, I'm not looking after the denomination, see, because I see these Catholic nuns in here are telling or preaching the gospel that they helped the poor, the oppressed, but what Paul Ryan was doing was exactly opposite, and he was doing it in the name of religion. So that's why he says he would deceive the elect. That's why those in the church, it could be a lot of God's people that fall. Didn't he tell you that? That he would turn them over to this Antichrist. It could be a lot of true Christians that die in this end time because why? They're lazy. They don't study God's word. They will get trapped. But that's all the further they were going anyhow. That's what they were meant for. They wasn't going to rise any further. But then he's going to pay those people back that trapped them. He's going to pay those back that deceived them. He's going to pay them back that killed them. But somebody had to kill them because they couldn't go no further. They had wretched their lives in. They wasn't going to prosper anymore. They wasn't doing it. They were going to be in someone else's way. They were going to hold somebody else back. That's why I said God knows when to take you out. Your time is appointed by God. If you don't have drive, if you don't have that option, God gives you all that. You see God. See, that's why a lot of people are saying prayer. This guy stopped me in the middle of Winn-Dixie yesterday and said, you're a preacher. He's an older man. I said, yeah. And me and him talked for a while or whatever. But he came to tears talking and asking that this not happen to him and this and that. So you're not far from it. You're not far from it. God's on your trail. You will be where God wants you for long. You see, because what he didn't realize, though, is when he was saying this and he was talking, he was trying to say how good that made him feel. But brother, you don't know. That's why it says we help one another. Because I had been praying all week. I had been at a low point. I said, Lord, should I do this? Should I do that? See, people, even sometimes your own people around you don't know what you're going through. See, that's what Jesus, his disciples, when he was at Gethsemane, he said, what, you couldn't pray for them in one hour? The flesh is willing, but the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. They didn't know what he was about to go through or what he was going through. They were asleep. The church is asleep. He says, watch and pray. Watch and pray. Pray is hard work. You know, praying is, praying, that's some hard, hard work. But this guy was telling me how much I made, how good I made him feel about this and that. You don't know the half of it, sir. I told him, I said, you made me feel good by you coming and asking me that and saying this to me. I said, you confirmed God's word to me. You made it where I can go in and preach tomorrow. See, sometimes we doubt ourselves. And see, God sends someone to confirm that in your life. They confirm those things. It was happening all day. I was coming from the mall, and Mr. Harris had called me. And I said, well, no, don't worry about that. We can't do it over the phone. I'll come by there and tell you about it. So I came by here to pray before I go by there. And that's when I met my son over here. He came over. He said, well, take care of your church members first or whatever. But I came in and said, let's pray and everything. And we prayed. Remember I said, I just finished praying with him or whatever. I went over there because, man, I'm on a roll here now. Because I said, well, yeah, Sister Harris, this is right. Within your charts I gave you this week, there are some Greek and some Hebrew words and things in a change of status. And I usually edit that out because things like that's gonna be for classes of critical analysis. In other words, as we grow and we get people in that's really concerned, that really want to pray. You know, we will get people in in a corporate group. That's why I say when corporate prayer don't work, we will have men that come in and say, let's pray. Let's go want to have a prayer night. It's hard to get those things. We will have those that want to pray at night. We will have those that want to learn the Bible critical essay. In other words, we will get down here reference books with commentaries with concordances and with all this to break down every word and how it comes from the way it comes from the study it is. That's why you're seeing a lot of the larger churches, they have churches every night. Because I don't watch that, my wife, I don't watch that much TV. And I want to, the word of God, that's what I have a hunger for. And I want to see people, I want ministers in, I want to get elders in, and I want to sit here and teach people. Because we got people that we need to teach remedial things about evangelical, evangelizing the church, the little things that we went over before. Remember I said we had a whole lot of prayer sheets, I need to find them for you? Because there are things that we didn't went over, and as I'm teaching it to y'all, I want you to be able to teach it to somebody else so you could have a class here to teach other people, to have other people teaching others. See, it's not just on me. It's not on any pastor. Any pastor gonna have other people up under him. This is not by one person. So if y'all can't teach what I'm teaching y'all, well, beware now, because we're supposed to be a witness. We're supposed to be teaching this at our home. We're supposed to be teaching to our children. That's what God has given His Word, so the whole earth will be full of the Word of God. See, Jeremiah was preaching God's Word, and it was going to those who God selected. So, as I was saying about that, I hope I didn't get on a rabbit trail and lose nothing I was saying. I'll know when I go back over the tape and I'll preach it to you another time. But we have to be people who hunger and thirst after God's Word. That hunger and thirst after God's Word. So in explaining some of this, I say I have a whole lot of notes and I have to pare my notes down so I won't overburden you. That's why I say I wanted to get it to where everybody has an email address or whatever. And it's a whole lot of stuff I shoot to Sister Jackson or shoot to some people that has an email address. It's a whole lot of stuff that it's no use printing all this up and I'm just bogging you down with a lot of paperwork and do you read all that stuff if you're getting it? Well, maybe I'm wasting my time and wasting your time. Maybe that particular thing is not for you. But we need to be able to find Satan's agents. And let me hurry up to getting close on these things. That people may look converted. They may talk like they converted. They will come to you with Christian lingo. And they will seem often pure and righteous. But Paul tells us that they can transform themselves up into that. Nothing really rises the hair on my back more than a person come up to me spouting religious jibe. Nothing rises my head upon my back more than as some might say the spirit of the Lord told them. That's when I really start examining and watching that person. That's the sign I say, oh, watch this. But that's the subtlety of Satan. He was more subtle than any other creature. That's what Genesis say, the subtlety of Satan. These evil enemy agents, as good as they look, a lot of them look like a... Have you noticed? All the televangelists look extremely well. They really work out. They're really attractive. That's to keep the world. That's what they do. I don't know... You see, Satan grooms and picks the people. If you notice the televangelists, Satan is not crazy. That's why a lot of people don't realize sin, if sin was repulsive, we wouldn't have to worry. But sin looks good. Sin tastes good. You ever wondered why fried chicken, blue bell ice cream, watermelon, all of the things that make you fat, that put the weight on, aren't good for you? But how many of us like barley cakes? fig cakes, whole wheat bread, baked catfish, I didn't say fried, baked tilapia. Do you notice that they have all of the models and the supermodels, all of the people on television? But see, when man starts to go a certain way, Satan is smarter than man. Who knows that? Satan caters to what you want. So he says, I'm getting all these guys here, but I'm missing a few, you know, cause some guys like big women. So he said, what's her name? The lady used to have all the shows. Parker used to love Parker Monique or what? Uh, You know what I'm talking about? It was here and then, and it's got a big lady that's now Mike and Molly or something. She's making the rounds or whatever because, hey, I got to get the guys that like the big women too. They got the big chops and all this. See, because Satan wants to catch them all. It used to be you had to be a starved out model or whatever. You know, the models were super skinny on the runways and different things. Oh, but now we need to get the plus sizes too. We need to get them all. Satan leaves no stone unturned. It's his world. He's the God of this world. He knows your desires. He knows if you're sitting here not listening at me, he's able to get you when you walk out that door. He knows when you're napping and didn't hear exactly what I say, but heard some of it. You know, John Montgomery was preaching that one day, and he said, a lot of people don't stir up to right at the end of his sermon, and they come alive because he's hooping and howling, and he's got that rhythm and thing going. They ain't gonna preach it, brother. And they're howling and screaming. Hey, but I'm at the end of the sermon. You didn't miss what I was trying to tell you. But see, it's those dancers that come in the church. They had come for the music. And after the choir had stopped singing, they would sleep all the way through the sermon. But they know I said something like that. They couldn't tell you what the preacher preached, though. But I know it was good, they say. You see, so Jesus has his people in this latter day time that are known by prayer. Have you noticed it wasn't to the end of the prayer, to the end of his life that he taught his disciples, he said, when thou pray, pray our father, which are in heaven. You know, it's a lot of people that don't qualify to pray the our father prayer. If you're not converted, if you're not born again, you can't pray our father prayer. You still, under the God, you must be born again, adopted into his family. Now you see me teaching you that our father prayer, because if God was your father, you wouldn't have prejudice and hatred in your heart. You would love me. You would love your enemies. You would love your brother. You would love your fellow man. So you can't pray to a God that you don't know. You can't call him father. I didn't lecture everybody else's sons and things about equipment or stuff that they get. I don't lecture them about their life. I'm not their father. So when he say pray our father, he was saying now pray our father. See, it wasn't until after the resurrection that he allowed Thomas, when he said, my Lord and my God, but they didn't say that before the resurrection, he pointed them to the Father. The Father has to draw you to the Son. We can't answer that prayer until I can tell you what God's words say. I can preach God's word. Now, how your life turn out after that is up to you. And if I don't have the spunk, the spirit, the preached God's word, I'm gonna give you a misunderstanding of it. We know that unless we repent, Jesus told the Jews that, and they were saying, he said, do you think that the men, that that tower of Siloam fell on was sinners above anybody else or everybody else? Do you think that things that happening to these people out in the world aren't things that happen to us also? See, but he says, unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Unless your sins be blotted out and you be converted and be forgiven. So if that's not happening, there's no use us keep praying for this and praying for that. We got to get you into the family first. That's why it says, seek ye first the kingdom of God. Then these things will be added. Even long life can be added unto you until you seek first the kingdom of God. Because what gives long life is that 5th, 6th commandment, 7th, 8th, 9th. But which one? The first one with promise is honor your mother, father. That's God's representative in your life. If you don't honor your parents, that's definitely not going to give you eternal life. You're short-circuiting it right there. That's your problem right there. You're not honoring your parents. Oh, I'm glad my son come to me. I wouldn't want him to go into anybody else. You know, that's why it says, I'm going to turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons. I wouldn't want to leave. You always tell them the reason I'm telling you that I don't know what might happen to me, but I want to be told you this son. We're going to have Luke classes. Every time I get with you, I'm going to tell you something right. Something about the Lord. I'm turning the hearts of the fathers to the sons and the sons to the fathers. Glad my children come to me. I want them to be able to come to me. But when they come to me, I don't want them to worship me. I punch them toward God. I punch them toward God's word. I punch them toward what you should do right. Don't you hate nobody? Don't you develop all these kinds of phobias in you? What's for a person? Go get them. You will get that, so it's no use to be jealous or envious of anybody. So until you get those rights, you're using us praying. Until you lay your gift on the altar and go get right with your brother and then come back to the altar and pray. Don't come up in church and then leave out of here and you hate that brother that you're working with. Don't come out of here and then go out there and talk against somebody because they're not of the same race you are. Don't go out there and talk against somebody because they don't live in the same neighborhood you live in. They hadn't had the same education you had. They might have had misfortune in there. Don't do those things because you're supposed to love those people. Don't show partiality in anything. Until then, these prayers won't work. They're conditional. They're conditional that you've been sanctified through My Word. My Word washes and cleanses you. Now, when you line up with My Word, we know that God hears us. in that we know we'll have the protection that we desire. I'm trying to get you to where you can pray for yourself. Anything that you ask the Father in Christ's name, he'll give to you. You don't need me as a mediator. Christ was your mediator. Pray for yourself. I want to embold you that that's why he died. That guy in the store last night, he said, why did Christ die? died to open up a way for you to be reconciled to God that you can boldly go to the throne of grace and petition God for yourself. That you don't need no man to go to God for you. That you can get on your knees. You can humble yourself before God and pray. He'll hear your prayer. He promised. He said, put me in remembrance of my word. What my word says. He said, if you will turn from your wicked ways, Then I'll hear from heaven. I'll pour out such a blessing, you won't be able to contain it. I'm waiting to hear from you. God is waiting. He said, but look, if you do all these things, I won't hear you when you cry to me. I won't hear you when you come telling me that something's going on in your life because you didn't want to hear anything going on in that guy's life. You could have loaned him $20. That's your brother, and you won't loan your own brother $20. How you come to me asking me for a truck? How you come to me asking me to pay your rent? How you come to me asking this? I forgave you all of that debt, but you had it in your power, and you say, brother, I'll pray for you, but you couldn't help this guy? What is wrong with you? We have to be able to tell people that. That's what's stopping it is that we're not a Joseph. When Joseph was in prison, these two guys come to him. One guy say, look, this is what I dreamed. This is what's going on in my life. Joseph, I can tell you what that was. Tomorrow, you will be restored and you'll be placed back pouring at Pharaoh's cup. That was good. But see, the world is a copycat. It's an immigrant. It's a counterfeiter. This butler, he wanted to hear itching ears, something good prophesized to preach to him. And he said, Joseph, what's going to happen to me? By this time tomorrow, Pharaoh's going to take your head off your shoulders. We don't want to hear the hard word. See, when Jesus said, you must eat of my body and drink of my blood, we don't want to hear that. That's a hard saying, you say. You see, when he said, pray without ceasing, you don't want to do that. When he said, in prayer, in supplication, let your request be known to God. You don't want to do that. That causes sacrifice of self. You see, but Joseph told him what was required of him. Balaam wanted to hear God say something differently. Everywhere he would go, Balak asked him to curse him. He'd go over there, he did it three times, but Balaam told him, I can only speak what the Lord give me to speak. But he says, every time I've asked you to curse him, you've blessed him. We have to do what God say do. Speak what God gave you to speak to somebody. If you know something's wrong, tell them something's wrong. If you know they're living a life, look, I can't pray. You need to get that husband out your house. Marry him, then things might straighten out. You living with this man, it ain't gonna turn out right, honey. It just ain't gonna turn out right. You can't do that. Jesus did, didn't he? What he told the woman at the well, he said, go get me your husband. He said, well, he said, I know. You're living with a man. He ain't yours. You didn't had a husband before them and they ain't yours. Ain't none of them been yours. Let y'all see a man who told me everything about my life. He's a prophet of God. See, cause he was the first preacher that came and told him, you got to stop your whore. You know, we don't want to tell our daughters and sons, you got to stop living that lewd life. You got to marry somebody. You got to preach abstentions to them. You can't keep running around with Tom, Dick, and Harry. You can't follow Nancy, Sue, and Helen, and all these people. You need to marry or you'll burn. And it's no use in us praying about this. We've got known sin in our lives, and we've got people holding these offices in church, and you know they're living in sin. There's sin in the camp. Joshua said, what's happening, Lord? You're not answering our prayer. We don't have any victory. Sin's in the camp. If you got sin in the camp, how God go here to church? Don't bring sin in the camp. If you got sin in your life, you've given it to Deacon. You've given it to my wife. You've given it to this sister. You've given it to that brother. You've given it to one another. The whole lot of parents, please don't bring your sin in here. Ask God to wash your sin out of you. Because he said, you all shall likewise perish. We can't harbor a sinner because church discipline. You don't hear of church discipline today. It says, Paul said, you all ought to be ashamed. You're covering and thinking that you're magnanimous by letting this guy stay in that door. You ought to put him out, disfellowship him. He's sleeping with his dad, his wife. You ought to put him out. Don't let sin stay in the camp. Don't care who doing the sin, don't allow it in the camp. That's the only thing. Oh, do we have sin in our life? I can't hear you. If you got sin, I won't hear you. Turn from these things. Then I'll hear your prayer. Heavenly Father, as we come before you this day, Lord God, Help us to purge sin from among us, Lord God. Help us to walk worthy of the calling where we were called, Father. Help us to lay aside every weight and sin that's besetting us so that we can pray to You, Lord God. That we can pray for ourselves, our loved ones, and those around us, Lord God. That we can pray for our enemy, that we can pray for our nation, our city, our community, our homes. Father, help strengthen your minister this day. And each and every one of us that's in here, open up our eyes of understanding that we may see and hear your word. In Jesus' name we pray, amen and amen.