This morning, I want to sum up what we've been teaching in Bible study this week. We become what we worship. We become what we worship. If we noticed in the Old Testament, and that's why we would have to get more proficient on the Word of God and in the Word of God, because the preachers not always summarize what's going on and that we expected that we all become fluid in the Word of God, that we would know the Word of God, that He would write it upon our hearts as we studied the Word of God. That's why He'd tell us to continue to study the Word of God, meditate upon it day and night, that that be our necessary food. The reason He wants us to meditate upon His Word consistently and think upon His Word is that we become what we think about. A man's thoughts, what we meditate upon. I heard Brother Jackson talking about dreaming. But with dreams and daydreamings, all of our thoughts need to be toward the Lord. Because as a man thinketh, so is he. Like I said, he destroyed the old world because Man's thoughts were evil continually. Man continued to think upon himself. And if we think upon the world or the things of the world, we become like the world. We become covetousness, idolaters, and all things that are not like God, and that would be deviancies. We will create it beings the way we will create it. We're destined to worship Something that's in the human nature and that's why we have to overcome human nature and Part of that overcoming human nature is overcoming the world Overcoming the thing of the world and we read in first John where God wrote He said he was writing to the older man. He was writing to the younger men and that we should overcome the world because you cannot love God and love the world. To love the world, you become an enemy of God. You become an enemy of God. Tomorrow is World Worship Day. When I came up a little bit younger, we would go out there and play ball and do different things. come in about three o'clock or whatever, so maybe watch the Super Bowl then, and after the Super Bowl's over, sometimes we'd get out there and play a little bit more or whatever. But now it's become the world's idol. Massive numbers, and the millions gather around to watch the Super Bowl. Their whole day tomorrow, it will absorb their whole day. Churches won't deny this, they won't stand up against it when they see a Dollar Tree forming. And all of these idols, and I have a son probably start off tomorrow morning watching the lead up to the Super Bowl, watching the events and everything. And people have Super Bowl parties and all of the advertising. I think they said the advertising for the Super Bowl is for a 30-second commercial, so it'll be $8 million. But with all of these things, God knows that the things that we think on is, like I said, as a man thinketh, so is he. And God had created us to where we should live by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of idols. So the football heroes and movie stars and musical stars and things of the world, the cars and all of the things that they'll be showing tomorrow don't become what we meditate on and think on because all it does is breed covetousness, covetousness. Three or four hour game takes up time and he tells us redeeming the time for the days of evil. But last week, you notice I said from the book of Colossians, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, meditate upon these things. We should meditate upon the word of God. We should teach it as we go out into the fields or our place of employer, wherever we should be. A godly jealousy is a good jealousy. If you're jealous in a godly way, and I was listening to Deacon this morning talking about my nephew there sitting there, and that he felt that his son should be here, and he told his son about it. Because what happens, the church is a place for the family. It's a place where the older people teach the younger people. The older women used to teach the younger women, the older men teach the younger men. But now we have a church full of fools, a world full of fools that no one's teaching the other. Everybody's doing what's right in their own eyesight. Everybody's doing what's wrong right in their own eyesight. And I said told you coming up. I Within my family. I said something's wrong here. We have to steer the course back to God We have to get back to God because that's why he wants us to worship him when the children of Israel was in Egypt they were in Egypt and They had forgotten God's commandments because Egypt was a type of sin, a type of the world, just like Babylon of this world is the world. And he tells us, love not the world. They had forgot about God's laws. They had forgot about God's word so much so that when God did bring them out, they wanted to go back in. They thought about the leeks and the onions and the garlics and all of these things that were in there, but they had also forgotten God, which was key. So through a period of time. He was preparing Moses just like God's preparing warriors today. I hope God prepares someone within my family or within someone's family that's hearing or whatever to come into the church. A younger person to come in, the young people to come in. to minister, to preach, to lead, to establish the church, rebuild the fallen walls, the desolateness of the church, the ruinous of the church, because the meta-churches have all of these things, but they have a false worship. A lot of our children and our relatives and people in churches, that there are no difference between them and the world. And God told us it would be that way in the end time, but it has to be a small church. It has to be a church that's the total line for God. He says, narrow is the way that leadeth unto eternal life, but brought be the way unto destruction. So he sent Moses back, and notice that he had Moses' brother accompanying him back. Moses' brother was the mouthpiece, and that was a bunch of people, a bunch of relatives that was only 70 people when they first went to Egypt. They had multiplied in bondage, and God had multiplied them as the sons of Jacob into a multitude of millions. God has multiplied us into multitudes here, but we're just like the children of Israel. God needs to bring us out. God has to awaken someone. That's why a lot of times I see my nephew, I see different people and I ask them, how's it going? I'm trying to find out, is God speaking to anyone and calling them out? Because when God calls you out, you will hear that voice. You will hear his voice because he's going to call you to a central place of worship. He's going to call you to the church to where we all get on the same page. That's why part of his word, anyone that knows the scriptures knows that he says, forsake not the assembling together of yourselves. In other words, in a central meeting place, that's the theme of the church. And it's not good for man to be alone. It's not good to be out there fighting and fighting in battles and fighting by yourself. you know, and a part of our family or brothers and everything, we don't know what kind of backbiting or what they're doing or whatever, but they think the whole world is against them. Maybe if they would sacrifice themselves, sacrifice their time and take time to hear what the Lord is saying, they would have their eyes open. They would begin to be awakened from their darkness, from their deceit. and God would quicken them, he would make them alight. So when he sent Moses back to Pharaoh, Moses told him, says, God says, let my people go so that they could worship me. so that they could worship me. Now they need to go out in the wilderness because you might not appreciate all they do to worship me. So we need to let them go, let my people go. And that's one thing Farrer didn't want to do because he was praying, P-R-E-Y. I.N.G. He was preying upon them. He was using them, just like the world is using us. The people, the governments, and the nations of the world are using God's people, and he's holding them in bondage and shaping them and molding them in their image, in the world's image, because that's what they worship is the world and the things of the world, the cause. You know, they're gonna worship the food tomorrow and so many Super Bowl parties and they're gonna spend more on food and throw away more food that can feed a multitude of nations. It'll be tailgating and doing all of these things. But what God's looking for, those that are mourning and sighing for all of the destitute, all of the starving in the world, what's going on in the world, you then got so complex. And that's what Edom had did. They had forgot about their brethren. There's a song that Solomon Burt used to sing. That was one of the ones on an iPad pod that my son had bought for me. And it's, none of us are free long as one of us are bound. If any of us are bound by Satan, none of us are free because as children of God, we were born in Christ Jesus. And that's why Peter, he says, Peter, when you are overcome, Go back and tell your brethren, preach it to your brethren and teach it. That's one thing when I got free, that's one scripture that came to me. The same thing that Jesus had told Peter, that Satan has a desire to see if he is weak. But I pray that your faith would overcome And when you come through, when you defeat this, go back and strengthen your brother. And I've been doing that. I've been doing that. I've been standing here. I've been here preaching and teaching the word of God. So if any of those are lost and go to hell, it's not my fault. I told you. You could make fun of me. You could say what you want to say about Emerson. But uncle told you, your cousin told you. I've told you what the word of God said, and I know what the world says, what you telling other people, what image you being shaped in. If you being shaped into the world and you had come to yourself and said, well, you know, uncle was just trying to tell me what God had said. And if I'd have did like Moses, if I'd have just stopped, and listen I don't notice the bush burning that God's spirit can burn within me and I can become like God if I become worshiping and if I start looking at God if I start praying and talking to God If when I'm in the room by myself and alone, when I'm all of the places and think things against me, I'm not Superman. We want to overcome ourselves. We want to say we're America, we pull ourselves up by our bootstrap. No, you can't pull yourself up by your own bootstrap. Some of us didn't got older, sometimes we need a hand to get up. We need a hand to do things. God says it's not good for man to be alone. So when we start, he told Moses, he says, Moses said, you know, I can't speak good. I can't really talk. I can't tell him what you said, God. He said, well, look, there your brother Aaron is, he'll be your mouthpiece for you. He can talk for you. You see, the problem was with Aaron is that he didn't see the vision of God that Moses seen. And you know, we all have our own struggles. I were brothers and sisters. I was talking to my brother last night and like, you know, I like to talk to him sometime or whatever to kind of put a little bit fear in him because, you know, I can feel your religion whether it's right where it needs to be or not. You know, as you get closer to God, God gives you a discernment, a strengthening to whereby you can speak those things, exhort those things, to cause others to say, well, that's something that I don't have. That's something that's admirable. That's why I stopped watching the world. I don't watch much of the news and the things in the world because it's gone to hell in a handbag. It's lost. We know Babylon is falling. United States can't come back from what it is because you have liars for politicians and for preachers and for the church. The whole world is lost. And the only help is Jesus Christ. but those Christians that have a little money and that have a little something, tease my brother a lot of times, he's talking about how much work he's doing and what all he's doing or whatever I said, but you know, all of this has to pass away because Jesus says the world is passing away and he's gonna establish a kingdom. You see, that's what's wrong with the people. They wanna have their homes, their cars, and the things that they have, not knowing it's all gonna burn. God's gonna send fire upon the earth, and now what he does, he's gonna reward every man according to his works. Now, have you been laying up treasure in heaven, or you been burning it all down here? You know, if you don't put no money in the bank, when a rainy day come, you can't pull none out. You can't get none at the savings account. You hadn't saved anything. Are you laying up treasures in heaven? God tells us to lay up treasures in heaven where moth and rust can't get to and corrode. And that's cause for doing works of God. We're doing a lot of works down here. And God's people that are toiling down here, God puts a hope in them of another world, of another day and of another time. You see, because I don't care who win the Super Bowl. I don't care about all of those things, because it's gonna go from year to year. You can't tell me who won the Super Bowl five years ago, six years ago. And it doesn't make a difference. And these heroes, you know, they was talking about Joe Montana said something the other day, whereas one time everything was about Joe Montana or Joe Namath or this person, but heroes come and go. But Jesus is always. Jesus is eternal. If that's who your focus is on, you have eternal life and you have a way. But he told him, he said, you don't lose my people so that they can go and worship me because he calls us out of the world. But some of us, when God breaks us out of the world, we fight to get back in. We fight to get back in the world. We remember the leech, the cucumbers, and the garlics, and everything we had in the world. You know, the sexual liaisons, and the entertainment, and the different things that we've done. Those things that appeal to our flesh, and the love of the flesh. And that's why, if we're made in the image of Jesus Christ, we're being made spiritual entities. He's making us again in His likeness. We are already in His likeness. But notice the difference is in His image. Because man was made in the likeness of God, but man fell. Man fell and now he belongs to Satan. Satan is the God of this world and that's the God that they worship. The God of stuff. The God of mamma. And that's what they've become. That's why I say, you notice how we have revisionists here in the United States now also that tells a different story than the way it actually is? Nothing but liars. I was looking at the quarterback from the Kansas City Chiefs or whatever. He had to straighten out a modern day lie that they was talking about Senator Tupperville or something. And Tupperville, no, he didn't have no party in it, but he went along with the lie. He started saying this, and Mahomes said, well, no, he wasn't there. I was there, he was there left at 2010, and I came in 2013. He didn't recruit me, and I don't know nothing about this, him and the president lying. But right here, we'll accept that. But what it says in Psalms, it says, those who make idols are like them. They're absolutely worthless, spiritually blind, deaf, and powerless. We become like that we worship. If you vote for a person, they say a lot of them get by you as we're immersed. Well, you was in his corner, you stick with the ship that you got on. The one that brought you here. You put him in there, you stick with him. No matter what happens, you stay with your man. I'm sorry, yes, sorry don't shine no shoes though. So what comes about, you powered the beast. A lot of us in churches this morning, were you putting in that collection, you giving power to that voice to go throughout the world, you voted for that, you empowering that church. And then when that, I know that preacher wasn't, didn't want this and that, when that person, you know, When we find out all of these images and things we have are flawed images, they just like us, they're another man. God tells us not to worship man, not to worship any created being. The only one that's not created is God. He's the only one worthy of worship. You get a certain age when you find out that your daddy puts on his pants just like you, one leg at a time. Sometime you'll stand up and go against. You start voicing your own opinion or whatever. You leave home and you start making your authority or whatever. You seek your way. That's how brothers and sisters fail in each other's area because that movie star, that football player, that person that we idolized, that woman that we had to have, we had to marry her. We had to marry this man, we loved her. But when you found out she was just like every other woman, he was just like every other man. When you have to lay up there with them all day and all around them and everything, y'all start fighting one another. I wish I hadn't married her. I wish I hadn't had nothing to do with him. When you start seeing that your brothers have the same struggles that you are, unless you worship God because God tells us how to treat one another, we should treat one another with respect. We should treat one another as brothers. Am I right? or my nephew that talks to him or whatever. But then we had a family reunion at, I told you about that. I told the church about it. We had a family reunion in Mayfair back at the back at the party or whatever. And one of my nephews, I said, well, Brian, I've been at you a lot of times because your lifestyle and different things or whatever, but you, my sister's son, I have to love you. I may not agree with you, and you may not agree with me or whatever, but we need to love one another, and as we clear the beans out of our own eyes, we should see that we're here loving and helping one another. That's what Moses and Aaron was doing, but Moses had weaknesses where Moses had murdered a man, and that's why he had stayed away for 40 years. But Aaron also had a weakness because when Moses left for a time after he brought them out to worship, Moses had left for 40 days, and the people said, well, we don't know what's happening to Moses. We want somebody else to lead us and make us gods to go before us. Aaron, in his weakness, he made gold and cast for the people. He caused or allowed the people to sin. You see, so we should be praying for one another. And all of your weaknesses and failures and everything, you know, that's why I was telling you a couple of weeks ago, I said, well, you know, my nephew tried so hard or whatever, he didn't had two or three homes or whatever. And I just wish he could have kept them or whatever and had those or whatever. But God continues to bless him, and I believe he'll bless him in this life. I believe he'll bless him with even a nicer home because he is doing good things and struggling. But we need to get the Lord on our side to where the blessings come, and it gets a little bit easier. He wants us to prosper and be in health. But he wants us to do it the right way, with the right motives. Now those virtues he has, God removes the vices, the hindrances, those things that bound us to where we say, well, Lord, I have, I'm doing this, but it's by your grace. You had given me power to get wealth. So you notice, I told you when my brother came into the church, he came in and he left. He said because he had talked to Brother Parker or something and said, I don't think I'd be able to tie it or whatever. I don't think I'd be able to do these things or whatever. But you know, after you've been in the church a while, you become like Sister Harris. You very seldom missus-tie it. Because in the book of Malachi, God says, you're robbing me if you don't give me the first fruits of your earnings. And you find out that you have more when you worship God by giving God back to God that which is his. Give him his first. That's the first fruit. We give the first of our time. We give the best of our time. We give prayer. We give study. We give unto God. Because as they say, you can't beat God giving. And you need to do it carefully. And so it becomes a part of your life, a part of what you're doing, and that's what you need to do. Like Sister Harris, she used to fuss at me if I didn't remind her. She'd forget to give her time to do something or whatever. Well, Pastor, why you didn't tell me? I said, well, I thought something could have happened or whatever. I'm not a legalist. Things happen. You might not can come up with this, and I'm not holding you in bondage here or whatever. Well, I just forgot, Pastor, but don't let me forget that anymore. It becomes part of your life. Do you feel like you're naked? Do you feel like you're naked if you get to, it's four or five o'clock in the day and you hadn't prayed to God, that you got up so early you forgot to pray or you didn't have time to pray, something went on and you didn't pray, you didn't read your scriptures? Do you feel like you don't have, the emperor don't have clothes on? I need to get right, you know, I need to find God. The whole day, that's who's talking with me. You know when Brother Jackson was talking about dreaming or whatever. Are you dreaming or are you thinking about good things and pure things? Because there's nothing wrong if we meditate in the word of God because he says that young men would dream dreams. You see, the visions that the old men should have, they should pass it on through the younger men, but it comes from a life of doing right, a life of purity, a life of listening to God's word. God uses clean vessels, but if you hadn't cleansed yourself, God's not gonna give you a vision to build upon because it has to be a true vision, one that won't be torn down by trial and tribulation. So as they say, well, let's make America great again, MAGA. But you're building it up on worse lies than it was built on the first time, the reason it may have been torn down. God told Gideon that he was a valiant soldier. But one thing you must do, Gideon, you must go down there and tell your father's altar there. You tear down what your parents worship and everything because they were bear worshippers. That's why the part of our life we have to tear out is physical because Abraham came from a family of moon worshippers. When he called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans, Abraham was a moon worshipper. You know, that which is in you, you got from your parents, that part of your DNA, that part, you have to hate that which is evil. So you have to build up on that. When I attempt to do good, evil is right there. You know, nine times out of 10, if your father or your mother changed women or men or whatever, you will change women or men also. So that's a propensity that you have. It's just like being an alcoholic or a drug addict or anything. We inherited these things. God tells us what we inherited. That's why the regeneration comes in repentance and God grants us repentance. We start looking at ourselves and we ask God to build us anew. We owe him a debt that he birthed us again. We're being shaped and made in his image, and we're just like the ones in the book of Romans that worship the beast that used to do. And the consequences of that unbelief, listen to this, he says, for God does not overlook sin, and the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness suppress and stifle the truth. Because that which is known about God is evident within him That is, it's in their inner consciousness. So before I tell my nephew to get right, before I tell the church, before I tell anybody to get right, I have to be getting right myself. He said, if you have art against your brother, before you come off up an offering, you go get right with your brother. I have to turn from my old life. I have to turn from that which is not right in me and get myself straight. God's gonna straighten everything else out. God's gonna cause your enemies to be placed at your feet. If you ask anybody that know God and been doing good, don't you see your brothers and sisters doing just like Joseph's brothers and sisters? Joseph had been a godly man throughout his life. And do you notice Joseph brothers came to Joseph? Because if you let your light shine, and a true person that God grants repentance, that person's gonna acknowledge that they've been wrong, and they've been fighting against the program, and now they wanna join God's program, they want some of what you have. But if you a hypocrite, if you a liar, if you doing anything that's wrong, if you a fornicator, if you have any flaws, they gonna see those flaws. That's God showing them because God's not gonna allow you to lead if you can't follow. We got people that have built idols with feet of clay, and there's gonna be a fight down the road. They said Time Magazine has a covering coming out with Elon Musk sitting at the presidential desk. They say it's gonna be a fight falling down the road because when you have two narcissists, they can't get along because each one of them is the center of their own universe. You don't have that many universes, do you? You just have one universe. You can't have two Batmans, you have to have a Batman and a Robin. Nobody wants to play second field, everybody wants to lead. So if you suppress the truth, if you know what's the truth, but you're scared to go up against government because government is trying to make you lie. What the United States was built up on was helping people, helping build other nations. But now we want to conquer and take over other nations. We shouldn't covet that which our brothers and sisters have. We should build them up. We should continue to help them. When they are in distress and we see them in calamity, that's what Edom did, that's what Esau did. When you see your brother struggling, you need to help him. When you see someone else struggling, but to help them or to lend a hand, we have to find out though. I'm not gonna help him if he's continuing in his sin, if God's not leading me because I'm not one to go give God's blessings away for you to go get a drink and keep getting a drink to live in sin or whatever. You see, they have to, you have to be spirit led. You have to be led by the spirit of God or you'll be helping, you'll be doing things that's not required of God because you want to praise for yourself. You've become a God unto yourself and you like to hear people say good things about you. You like the praise of men for people to say, oh, he's helping his mother. He helps his brother. You know, he helps the community. Those that came before Jesus says, didn't we feed the needy? Didn't we cast out devils? Didn't we do all of these things in your name? Jesus said, I never knew you. Why? Because they was doing it for the accolades of man. for the praise of men, to hear people say, you know, he's such a hard worker, he does all of these things or whatever. He's so patriotic. Do you know what the mark of the beast is? Those that make. idols, those that make world governmental system. As we are ambassadors to Christ, our allegiance has to be to God. It's not to United States of America. It's not to the flag. Our allegiance is to God. Now, if you pledge allegiance to that flag and that flag does something that's unconstitutional, that's not right, what happens? You got a problem. That's what we're talking about this morning, the three Hebrew boys in the book of Daniel. God had told them to go to Babylon, to submit to the king of Babylon, and to pray for the peace of the nation. That's what him and Daniel and all of them did. But when you get in a nation, when you get in a home, you get anywhere, and you submitting yourself to God, don't violate God, do as Peter did. They noticed that Peter was a changed man that denied Jesus three times. You remember the matrons, those servant girls that had said Peter had been with Jesus and Peter denied that he had been with Jesus? But if you notice, when the Holy Spirit came up on Peter, Are you listening over here? The boldness of Jesus Christ. They say this man's been with Jesus because he said man ought to obey God rather than man. So when the king told him to bow down and worship him, there was like Leah's Chaney or Adam Kendrick. They said, we're not going to do it. They're like Vickman. Vickman says, I'm not gonna lie for my government. I'm not gonna love for anybody. I'm not gonna bow and worship any man because he's just like I am. He's another man. We give honor where honor is due. We give respect to where respect is due. We're not a chauvinist. It says, husbands, submit yourselves unto wives, just as it says, wives, submit yourselves unto husbands. We submit to one another. But God does have a hierarchy there. And that's why the Hebrew boys say, well King, we love obeying the rules and everything, but you can play all the music you want to play. But we're not afraid to answer you in this. We're not gonna bow, we're not gonna bend. You just gonna have to throw us in the fire. It's like the... delivering maidens to the people of Egypt, the midwives of Egypt, when Pharaoh had said, throw all the Hebrew boys that are born, kill them and throw them in the Egyptian river, throw them in the Nile river. But they didn't do that. They did with God because it's not right to take a life. Thou shall not kill. What's the first commandment? Thou shall love the Lord thy God. Secondly, thou should not make a grieving images. Well, I'm not bowing down to any grieving images, and I should worship the Lord thy God, for he is God, and you should worship no other. We should worship no other, but a lot of us worship in our children. We worship in things. All they have to do is cry or holler, and you'll get them what they want. Parents, I hear parents say, oh, look, I'll buy you a toy if you come over at the store, or you do these things. I had a mother. She didn't have to buy me anything. She was an usher in the church and she could look or whatever. If I was doing something wrong, you was gonna get it right. She wasn't gonna do that no more. She was gonna come over there and give you something. If you clown me out in the street, that's where I'm gonna get you at too. See, we don't raise children like that no more. We don't tend to children like that no more or whatever. Children has become our idols. And you know, it's not good to let them become your idols. I told you the hierarchy that you should love your wife or your husband before you love your children because your children is a product of them. Your children is a product of your marriage. But you should love God more than you love your spouse, because God is your creator, and you don't worship your spouse. So we have to make sure, as I was telling you about the hierarchy, if a parent's telling you something to do, that's why it says, love you, hate your mother, father, sister, or brother, because those are glitches, those are things that you can honor your parents, but you may have to get away from around your parents. because they can't tell you, advise you against God. No one can advise you against the things of God. You have to take up your cross and follow after him. You have to stand, you ask God for faith to follow him and he will strengthen you and as you study the word of God, you pray to God, those that hunger and thirst for righteousness. How many times have you prayed to God to do the right thing or you've gotten an argument with somebody or whatever and you went away and prayed to God and talked or whatever, God might have led you to a scripture or given you something to show you where you were wrong or where you were right and to stand. See, that's the kind of leading you need, but you can't say, well, I'm not going to back down from nobody. And that's what this nation has got. They've gotten too big to say they're sorry. You know, when you can't go back and say I was wrong, and that's why I say we headed down the road of idolatry and you're not coming back. See, when you ask Jesus Christ, you didn't see him trying to save the Pharisees because they are children of darkness that love darkness rather than light. That's how this nation has become because we have been deceived by the wicked one. God turns the nation over to a reprobate mind, and now we have those that are one up in one another, the sea who would get the praise and the worship from their crooked leaders, from their crooked churches. See, all God, all Satan needs is a minister that's gonna bow down and worship him. He says, if you worship me, I'll give you all of the kingdoms of the world, because they're his to give. So if you wanna make a church, all you have to do is preach this doctrine that has living in it, that has a little bit of corruption in it. I'll give you jets, I'll give you everything that you need, but we should live by every word of God. Now Satan's gonna fight you for that. Once you start to stand, once you start to worship God, he's gonna throw you in the fire, the wrath of man. Have you ever noticed how sweet and lovely your spouse is? until you cross them. Have you crossed them before? Have you ever crossed your wife or your husband and noticed that their envy and their jealousy, their wrath? They could be obstinate, they could be cruel, they could kind of manipulate you. See, that's what within us, that parts of us that we have to suppress, we have to put to death. That's why he says we have to mortify the deeds of the body. We're in control, but that comes from worshiping God. I'm gonna go back to 1 John again. hadn't tangled up my papers too bad. 1 John is where we find out that God had wrote to the young people, and they were fighting with that during the time. 1 John 1 and 5, it says, overcome the world. Everyone who believes with a deep abiding trust in Jesus Christ, that he is the Messiah and is born of God, that he is reborn, born again, spiritually transformed, renewed and set apart for God's purposes. Everyone who loves the father also loves the children born of him. They love the child of the sons of God. By this we know without any doubt that we love the children of God. That's why God says love one another. But see within that scripture there we have to encompass what Jesus Christ says. Love your enemy. You see, if you just Old Testament only, you say a two for a two, a I for a I. But that's a whole different teaching. Because that was saying, don't be overcompensatory. In other words, is when Netanyahu last year, a year and a half or so ago, when Hamas captured the Israeli people, the Jewish people, I think it was 1,200 of them or whatever, and they pillaged and raped, Netanyahu extinguished almost a whole people that now this nation talking about they will go in and possess the land of Gaza and send the Palestinians somewhere else. We've paid for and supported that. That's why I say everything the government does is representative of the people, but there's a certain people that don't agree with that, and God sees those that are mourning and sighing for those that are going on in the nation. In other words, if you're praying for those that our nation is mistreating, If you praying for those that are in other families that are in the Sudan or in Ukraine and other places, are you praying for the wickedness, the injustices that are going on in the nation? God sees all of these things and he rewards you for those things. You're not a part of it. But they've been killed over 70 or 80,000 Palestinians. Well, that's not a eye for a tooth. That's extra exorbitant punishment. They've went too far. They've destroyed nations with bombs, buster bombs and two-ton bombs and everything, destroying and murder. You didn't went too far. God has, the crime has to fit the punishment. The punishment has to fit the crime. That's why, you know, when you let people go to making up laws, they have that three-strike laws. Whereas after the third time, they label you a habitual offender and you stay in prison maybe for the rest of your life. But what if you just stole, they had a guy on 60 Minutes that had stole a pair of blue jeans, that had stole some minor things or whatever, but now you sentencing under the Habitual Offender Act. And he's in jail a lifetime for stealing a pair of blue jeans. That's over much righteousness. You didn't carry this beyond the penalty. It's no longer eye for an eye or tooth for a tooth. The punishment doesn't fit the crime. It's just like in this nation. We're supposed to be a nation of laws, but we allow certain people, certain classes of people to break laws without any punishment, without retribution, but you punish certain others. The crime doesn't fit. That's why it says an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. And I was telling you about overcoming the world, because we've come like the world, and now we don't have any mercy. We've become unmerciful. We've become unpluckable. And so we're going along with those that are doing evil. I have to try to stay with my notes. As I get older, sometimes I forget and I don't go back to where I need to go back. But in overcoming the world, we have to not become as the world, we have to follow God because our instructions has to come from God and not come from man. Our counselors and advisors may be advising us wrong. And so those that we surround ourselves with, we can be led astray by them, and now we're not overcoming the world, we're becoming as the world and a part of the world. And as I was telling you, with the aid groups and everything, the United States has been known as a nation that helps others. that extends the hand. And God says, blessed is the peacemaker. With you hungering and thirsting for righteousness, God says you shall be filled. And so you're trying to walk in the commandments of God and worship that as the way God says worship and not through the flesh. But when you find your brother or sister transgressing God, you have to rise up against your brother or sister. Now, how can you love God, you says, and hate your brother or sister? Well, your brother or sister may have sinned a sin unto death, and that's why I say you have to be led by the Spirit of God. You have to get so close to God that it is God leading you through a walk of faith. Because when he came down from the mountain, and he seen Aaron had allowed the people to run rampant, What was his command to Aaron? I mean his command to Moses. He called Moses, he told Moses that, stand back, that he would destroy all of these people. And Moses says, no, Lord, don't destroy them all, because then they'll say that you brought all of these people out to kill them, and if you was gonna kill them, that that was the motive, the intent in the first place. But then God says, well, I'll tell you what, each man draw out your sword, and each man kill your brother. Sound kinda like contradictory when he tells you to kill your brother, huh? Notice in the book of Deuteronomy and throughout the Bible, where your mother, sister, or brother goes into idolatry and a false worship, that's the death penalty. That's capital punishment. But we under the New Testament, though, pastor, That's right. So you be led by the Spirit. So God may kill them by some other means or whatever, but you are to remain steadfast against that. You can't offer your approval of that just because of nepotism. That's your mother or your brother or something, and you go along with them or pacify them or whatever. You have to tell them it's right or wrong. That's why I say, now, if you want to come up here and preach the gospel, If you want to live the gospel, you have to be like Joseph. You know, Joseph had to tell the guy that was dreaming that your dream is that you're going to be restored to fellowship with Pharaoh within three days. But your dream is that you will have your head chopped off in three days. You have to be able to deliver the bad news along with the good news. You can't paint outside the lines. You have to stay within the line God gives you the perimeter. He had made you a watchman. So as you worship God and become as God, remember I said you become as you worship, you be in his image and his likeness, you start doing things as God doing it because you're led by the spirit of God. So you don't act without a scriptural basis of being led by the spirit of God so that there's no condemnation that those that are in Christ Jesus, you waiting to hear from God before you act. That means you have to not forsake to assemble together yourself because you have to know the scriptures. You have to know, not with somebody else telling you and you didn't heard and you operate, but do you know this for yourself? Are you willing to put your life on the line that this actually what you believe? Not what somebody told you, do you believe this? Have you lived this? Have this been inculcated into your life? Have the word of God become a part of you? In other words, you're willing to go into the fire for that. You're not gonna change your mind. You don't have to think about it. You know that, no, I'm not gonna bow down. I'm not gonna lie for you. Have you ever told your children you're not gonna lie for them? Have you ever compromised for your children? As I said, we're making them little idols. But the Bible tells you to beat him with a rod, he shall not die. Because it says, train up a child in the way he should go, and in later years, he shall not depart from it. But if you gave him a ride on a bed of ease, sooner or later, somebody's gonna put the repel to the metal on him. In other words, a lot of them, you hear somebody didn't kill out there, somebody didn't did something to. Why? Because that little good boy that you call him good, that good girl or whatever, they didn't went out there in the middle of the night or some other time and pull it on somebody that wasn't sympathetic to them, that wasn't like them, and they kill them. They robbed them, they brought them to shambles. This is, again, LSU football game years ago, just like Super Bowl this year. They're a businessman. was killed here in Baton Rouge from Georgia, and they arrested two or three women for it. Now they didn't rest and tow down the building things where this guy was found dead at or whatever. And I'm not belittling him, I pray for him, and I don't wanna do damage to his reputation or whatever, but it was two different ethnicities involved. And I don't know if they got charged with murder or not, but when he was away from home, he went out and he was involved in drugs and things, and he did something that got him killed. Now back in Atlanta, they were saying how good he was and what a nice businessman he was and everything else. That same thing has happened again. There's nothing new under the sun. It happened this week coming up to the Super Bowl. There was a Hispanic reporter from Kansas City that was killed down in New Orleans. They found him dead and they blaming a young black woman for it or whatever. They hadn't blamed her for the murder, but they said this is the kind of things that she does. But the same thing, I don't know if you're against this race or this people, but now that you're away from home, these are the type things you do. And like I said, ultimately, you have to pay for the deeds done in the body. But if you are a worshiper of God, if you follow in the ways of God, that which you worship outside the home is the same way you worship inside the home. The Hebrew boy says, we wasn't gonna bow and we wasn't gonna bend. Are you doing that inside your home or are you a racist wherever you go? Are you an image worshiper wherever you go? Because somebody might not know that you're drinking all your habits, but God knows your habits. So to worship God, worship is a way of life. You understand what I mean? This is the way you are all of the time. Those that worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth. But if you give an over to idols, if you, when you're in another place or whatever, you kind of bend the rules or whatever, God's wherever you're at. God, it's light wherever God is. You may be in darkness, but it's light to God. So worship is a way of life, and those that worship the Lord must worship him in spirit and in truth. So wherever you go, you were created to worship and praise God. That means at all times, your life is accountable to God, and that's what I told you about redeeming the time because the days are evil. So the time you spend, you have to give account for that time that God had given you. Let us worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. And if idolatry wasn't so prevalent, how can I conclude this from the New Testament? Here's the conclusion. Let me end this before I put everybody to sleep here. What he says, 1 John, the fifth chapter, the 21st verse, he says, little children, guard yourselves from idolatry. What is idolatry though? You remember I said teaching? It's false teaching from moral compromises and anything that takes the place of God. Have you compromised morality? Have you compromised anything or went along with anyone that did something that was against God's precepts or statutes? Because remember I told you, covetousness is idolatry. As I warn y'all, as John warned you, Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Idols is not necessarily a wooden statue. Idols could be those children you have there. Idols could be that spouse, that car, that job. We have to learn. That's why Jesus says, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. So to become a disciple of Jesus Christ, we must learn of him. and how we become like Christ, to be made in His image, in likeness, that is, worship Him. Worship Him in spirit and truth, and we become like that we worship. That's how we're gonna be made in his image. He's gonna draw us closer to him. If you're hungering and thirsting for righteousness, he's gonna see that you are fed and you will be fed with spiritual food. That's why he told him, he says, Peter, do you love me? Peter says, yeah, I love you. He says, feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. If I keep feeding you with spiritual food, and you go somewhere and you eat at some fast food joint or some other place or whatever, and you choke on it, That was the calorie thing. There was a story that a guy that had introduced calorie counting or whatever, and that's why certain doctors tell you, you are what you eat. So we are what we think about, that we meditate. That's why God says, meditate in my word day and night. Heavenly Father, as I come before you this afternoon, Lord God,