Once upon a time there lived an angry man who justified his anger as a righteous anger. It didn't matter what others thought, for obviously they were wrong and, well, he was right. Pride was killing him, and he didn't even know it. Blinded to the truth through self-deception, This young man had grown up in church, he was saved at an early age, but trained through the example of his church that anger, bitterness, resentment were all acceptable as long as you looked the part. Well, it's a little bit of how I was prior to understanding what the Word of God truly says on the topic of anger. When I got married, my wife and I, we had our first child. We had an argument about how to discipline. Her way? God is love. We discipline in love. The rod? Absolutely. But always for the child to help them see their sin and correct their behavior. My way? Oh, we're going to correct some behavior. God is full of wrath and he must judge sin. I need to make my children fear God. Fear and anger led the charge. After all, this is what my childhood church taught me through their example and their preaching. I was introduced to Brother Terry Coomer through my pastor. I had scheduled an academic training course for the week of August 2015. I was planning on attending and needed the certification for my position at the church. However, late one night, my pastor called me and told me plans were changing. We'd now be going to the National Hope Biblical Counseling Training Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas. I thought, who me? Why do I need counseling training? I know what the Bible says. Upset and angry, but respectful on the outside. I canceled all of my plans and booked my rental car and the other rental cars. Our hotel accommodations were made. Our plane tickets were purchased. Little did I know that my life was going to change drastically. You see, just prior to this, in January of 2015, I had had to send my oldest daughter to a boarding school 1,500 miles away because she refused to listen to me. She had gotten herself caught up in sin. My wife couldn't help her. She refused her. She refused our pastor's counsel, would lie straight to his face. Anyone else? Simply, somewhere along the lines, I had lost her heart. I don't know when it happened, but somewhere in the past, I lost it. I could be like many people and won't blame it on others. Yet the truth was, I was not the man that I was supposed to be. Anger controlled me. Proverbs 25, 28 says, He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls. That was my life. What I didn't know was I was on a fast track to lose everything. My walls were crumbling. My city was broken. My marriage, my other children, my ministry were all going to crumble. I didn't know when it would crumble. I didn't know when it would happen or how, but I now know it would have. You see, God was not the Lord of my life, I was. I was blinded to my own sin. Through God's grace, I went to the conference and I came back a changed man. I truly learned what all the Bible says about anger, not just the select few verses I wanted to hear, be ye angry and sin not. I learned how to have a real and intimate, personal, passionate relationship with Jesus Christ. When I read Dr. Coomer's booklet on how to have a real relationship with God, I broke down. Truly repented and changed. You see, sure, I knew the Bible. I read it every day. I memorized it. I could quote it. I studied it. I grew up in church. But it wasn't truly changing me. In some ways, yes, it was changing. But see, only the areas I wanted it to change. Once I understood Pastor Coomer's method of Bible study and really started asking God to search me and know me, before I jumped into the Bible, God speak to me. And I started to grow and I started to overcome. The key was I started listening to God instead of blocking him out. Listening to God, allowing him to lead me, allowing him to point out areas of my life that didn't line up with his word. Through tears, I wrote a five-page letter to my daughter asking her for forgiveness and really pouring my heart out to her. I pleaded with her to tell me what I did wrong, how I could avoid the same mistakes with my five other children. Through this and many other times, I began to repair our relationship. Though we were 1,500 miles apart, I really focused on changing, showing her I was a different dad. My life was different. My family was different. My ministry was different. Because I was different. It wasn't other people, it was me. I was now walking in the Spirit, not fulfilling the lusts of my flesh, which in my case were anger and pride. Since this time, My daughter graduated high school as salutatorian. She's enrolled in our church's Faith Bible Institute program while taking additional college courses online. She sings in our choir. She teaches in our Master Club's program. She's a teacher's aide in our school. She's active for Christ. She's got a burden for lost people, a desire to glorify God with her life. Just a few years prior, she didn't really care about God at all. She was saved, yes. She had no doubt, and I had no doubt. She received Christ by faith, but had allowed sin to corrupt and thwart the fruit God was trying to bring. She knew God was convicting her, she just didn't want to listen. Now she's different, because I'm different. because of Brother Coomer's conference, because of Brother Coomer's counseling, because of the guidance and the wisdom that God has given to Brother Coomer. I'm so thankful for Hope Baptist Church's National Biblical Counseling Conference. Greatest week of my life. So thankful to Jesus Christ, my Lord, for his grace and his mercy. God bless you. Isn't it always a wonderful thing to see somebody change their life? Amen? And so I went to Josh's church and spoke and during Sunday school, after Sunday school, I normally just sit down like over here on the side and pray for the morning service and had my head bowed and was praying and I heard a noise in front of me and I looked up and it was this woman who was crying. And I thought, okay. And she says, Dr. Coomer, my name is Missy Lehman. And she said, I wanted to come up here today and thank you. My husband is a changed man. And she was crying profusely. And I didn't stand up because she was wanting to hug me. And I don't hug anybody but Kim. But the reality of it was, and she told me, she said, I am thankful because he came back from that conference and he was a changed man, just different. So thank God that we can make biblical long-term change in our life, amen? And we'll talk more about that here today. So let's, I want to mention to you, though, one of the books here. I know that apparently you guys have went through this, some of the ladies have went through this, and we thank the Lord for it. It is called Rearing Spiritual Children to Serve the Savior. And we'll talk a little bit more about children today. But you can see the person here that is, the pictures on the front, looks a whole lot like my oldest daughter, okay? and she was always very intent on her coloring, and now she's 47 years old. So, you know, Rearing Spiritual Children to Serve the Savior, and it's a manual to help you learn how to have a real relationship with God, and how you convey that to little Billy and little Susie, okay? So we encourage you to take a look at that. All right, now, what I want to do this morning is I want to do a basis of where we start from and then move forward. So let's take our Bibles, and I want to have a word of prayer before we get started. And I know Pastor mentioned this section last night. know that he is probably preached on it. So, but it's such, it is so important. So I want you to turn to Romans chapter 15. Romans chapter 15. And I want to look at verse four and let's have a word of prayer. Our kind and gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity today to present your word, and I submit myself to the Holy Spirit right now. I pray that the Holy Spirit will be our teacher today. God, I ask that you'll fill me with your spirit, and I pray that you'll help me to be able to focus right now, and I pray, God, that you'll help the people in the building to focus. I pray, God, for your power, your presence, and your help. I pray, God, that you'll make your word real now. I need your help, and I ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, got to switch the mic on. Got it. All right. Notice in verse, I want to start with verse 1 in Romans 15. And the Bible says here, we then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves. Okay, so the reality of it is, is that this is the passage of scripture that got us into counseling. So the things that we've learned, and one of the things that I determined in my life as a young man, you know, when I went to Bible college for my undergrad work, I'd only been saved a year. I wouldn't recommend that but that's what happened. God called me and I went and so I found myself there and I found myself way behind everybody else. And so I asked God to teach me and help me and I wanted to learn and so I was a ferocious ferocious reader. And so there was a period of time, a 10-year period of time that I read a book a week. So, you know, and just focused on reading. So, 520 books, you know, and of course devouring my Bible. And as we continued, as we got started in our ministry, you know, I want to say this to you. We started a church in southeastern Ohio and what would be called in the United States Appalachia. We were 12 miles from the West Virginia border. And three weeks after we get started, a woman came and said, Pastor, can I talk to you? And I said, yes. And she says, if you don't give me a good reason in the next five minutes why I shouldn't, I'm going to kill myself. Now, my first thought was they didn't talk to us about this in Bible college. Okay. And I'm not, I'm like, okay, wow. Now you don't want to do that, you know, and, but I'm stumbling and fumbling. And finally I convinced her that she shouldn't do that. But I told Kim, I am going to find out the answers and so that I can help people that are in this position and in other positions. And so I became a, I told God, I want to learn. I want you to teach me, and I want you to make your word real to me." And so, this is the passage of scripture that he led me to, and so this is what brought us into biblical counseling, you know, intense biblical discipleship. We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves. Okay, so we're here to help, and this week we're here to help. We're here to help people learn some things that maybe they haven't learned. We're here to help them to be able to make some changes in their life, help you to make changes in your life that maybe you didn't even think were possible. So, and then look at verse 2. See how it starts with, what's the first word in verse 2, folks? Let. So it says, let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification. Okay, so in essence, the goal of our life ought to be to encourage others, okay, not to please ourselves. Amen? Alright, now, and for His good edification or His good for building up, okay, so that they can learn and grow and be all that they can be for God. Now, notice in verse 3, for even Christ pleased not Himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach Thee fell on Me. Jesus Christ went to the cross of Calvary. On a cruel cross He died for my sins and for yours. And He was buried and He rose again the third day so that we might have life and that we might have it more abundantly. Okay? So Jesus Christ gave His life for you, for me, on the cross of Calvary, that we might be able to have an abundant life, John 10.10 says. Now, notice what, verse 4, very important. For whatsoever things were written aforetime, that's where you and I got here, okay? Were written for our what? Learning. So God wants us to what? Learn. That we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. So whenever we start our counseling with someone, we have them read this passage. Okay, and we ask the question. Okay, notice what it says. For whatsoever things are written aforetime are written for our learning. So what does God want you to do? What do you want you to do? Learn. Okay, then that we through what? So what does God want you to have? Patience. Okay, and what's the next thing that God wants you to have? comfort and the Holy Spirit. One of the names for the Holy Spirit is Comforter. There's at least 70 different things the Holy Spirit wants to do in your life. One of His names is Comforter. We'll get to that, okay? And notice it says, "...and comfort of the Scriptures might have what? hope. So I ask our counselees when we read this, okay, so God wants you to have, He wants you to learn, He wants you to have patience, He wants you to have comfort, and He wants you to have hope. The people who come to us have either lost hope or they're losing hope. Now God wants us to have hope and He wants us to learn, He wants us to have patience, He wants us to be comforted, and He wants us to have hope. Now, look at this passage with me now and tell me where the answer to your life is. Where's the answer in the scriptures? So we teach people how to have a real, intimate, personal, passionate relationship with God through His Word. Now, most pastors will say, read the Bible through in a year. You know, three chapters in the old, two chapters in the new. Now, how many of you, and don't be shy, how many of you have read a chapter in the Bible, got down to the end of it, and you had no clue about what you read. Right. Okay? Do you know that that's extremely dangerous? It's extremely dangerous. Now, I'm not going to go back there at this moment, but I'll come back to it in a minute, okay? But I'm going to show you a passage of the scripture that tells you this is extremely dangerous. So we want you to learn through how to have a daily time with God. You know, we encourage our counselees to get a notebook. And at the top of the page, they put the date and they put the passage. We always start people in 1 John. Okay, because I want you to hear me now. This is the book, 1 John is the book that tells you how to have fellowship with God. So that's extremely important. And it is also the book that tells you that God loves you. If there's anything that this world needs to know right now, and you need to know, is that God loves you. And in 1 John, it's very interesting, five little chapters, there's at least 44 times that the word love, loveth, loving is used. So, I want you to know today that God loves you. He loved you so much that He sent His only begotten Son to come and die for you. so that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly. God loves you. Now, you may be sitting here this morning and you haven't thought a whole lot about God loving you. But He does. And He's made a way for you, but He's given you the answers from His Word. He's also, you know, we'll get to this a little bit later, but God, when Jesus Christ went back to heaven, He had some interesting things to say about who would come next. Now, the Holy Spirit is here right now. And if you're saved, He indwells you. And He is here to help you. So God loved you so much that He sent His Son to die for you. And God, the Holy Spirit, came to help you. And He wants you to have hope, joy, peace, comfort. But the reality of it is most Christians don't have that because they don't know how to have it, first of all. And secondly, they don't pursue it. So the answer is in the Scriptures. And remember, God wants you to, in this passage, He's saying He wants you to learn. He wants you to have patience. He wants you to have comfort. He wants you to have hope. Now look at verse 13. And the pastor quoted this last night. This is a powerful passage of Scripture if you get it. Now it says, Now the God of what? Hope. And He is the God of hope. Now the God of hope fill who? You. So the God of hope wants to fill you. That's what happened with Josh. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace. God wants you to have hope. He wants you to have joy. He wants you to have peace. Of course, when we ask our counselees to read this, do you have hope, joy, and peace? Now notice this, it says, very important, in believing. You've got to believe that God wants you to have this in your life. And notice it says that you may abound in hope. Okay? So I always ask the counselors, what picture comes to your mind when you think about abounding? You know, here's my picture. When I think about a bounding, you know, I grew up in Indiana and we grow corn in Indiana, miles and miles and miles of corn. And in the summer it is beautiful because the green corn is up, the wind blows, you can drive down the, you know, drive down a road in the middle of it and it's just gorgeous as it goes back and forth and back and forth, you know. But in the fall they cut it all down. and smiles of just looking out fields, like some of the places around here. Flat land. And you know what? I always thought about abounding as running across that field, jumping up in the air, and not having a care in the world. That was my picture. Now you may picture it differently, but I want you to understand this. God wants you to abound in hope. Do you see that here? You see it? abound in hope, that ye may abound in hope." Now, here is the big player in the room. Through the power of you? No, through the power of who? The Holy Ghost. So, in essence, now, He is the big player in this room right now. He wants to be real in your life. He wants to encourage you. He wants to help you. In the back of the booklet, Do You Have a Critical Spirit?, there's a list of 70 different things that the Holy Spirit wants to do in your life. with the scripture references. And so what I ask our counselees to do after they've read, do you have a critical spirit? And they write down 30 things that they learned and thought was important. Then I ask them the next week to go back and I ask them to look at this in respect to, okay, here's the 10 things that the Holy Spirit wants to do in your life, or find 10 things here and ask God to show you what you would like Him to do in your life. Write down 10 things. It's amazing because most Christians couldn't write down more than a couple. So I make them write down ten. Okay? So what does that tell them? It starts showing them that there's a whole lot that the Holy Spirit wants to do in their life that they're missing. Okay? Now who's the big player in this room now? The Holy Spirit. Now. Okay? So let's go here. Let's take our Bibles now and turn to Philippians 4. Satan is the prince of power of the air. He's the god of this world. So every day, now everybody look up here at me right now. Every day, multiple times a day, Satan is going to try to disrupt your joy. Do you understand? He does it with outside pressure. We are, man is a trichotomy, body, soul, and spirit. Okay? God works from the inside out, Satan works from the outside in. So, Satan is going to try to take control of your soul. Okay? And if you're out of fellowship with God, and I'll talk about that in a minute, if you're out of fellowship with God, he can do that. And what transpires then is that You know, he wants to take control of your soul so that he can control your emotions so he can control your decision making. We have a little booklet on the back table that says, why do I react all the time? In essence, something happens and, you know, here you are, you're ranting, yelling, screaming, throwing stuff, you know, children are running, your wife's hiding and you're, you know, and she's trying to say don't do that and you're saying shut up woman. Why do I react all the time? It's because that I am submitting to satanic influence and I don't even know it. Josh was talking about anger here. Anger is a wicked sin. And yet, many Christians live their life in anger. It's a wicked sin. Very wicked. We'll get to that and the depth of which it goes. Okay. And so here's a person always critical, always angry, always upset about something, yet they don't understand that they're out of fellowship with God and they create havoc in other people's lives. Now, I want you to notice this. Let me tell you what, let's turn back to 1 John first, okay? 1 John chapter 1, then we'll come back to Philippians 4. Now, when someone got saved in our church, churches, We taught them how to have a real daily time with God, and we would have them get a notebook, and they would write at the top of that the date and what they were reading, and then we would have them put down how to have God's message to me today. Go five lines down. A promise from God. Go five lines down, a command to keep. A command to keep, I'm sorry. And then go five lines down, my application. Five lines down, additional thoughts. Now, so when they were reading their Bible, we would tell them this. You need to make sure that there's no sin that stands between you and God. And once you've done that, you need to ask God to teach you through His Word today and make His Word real to you and give His message to you today. Give me the message that you want me to see today. Show it to me. Make it real to me. Now, so we start everybody reading in 1 John. Why? Because it's the book that tells you how to have fellowship with God. It is also the book that tells you that God loves you. All right, so let's take a look at verse 4. Now, remember what we just read in Romans 4? Yeah, Romans chapter 4. Look at this. Romans 15. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be what? So God wants you to have what? joy. Okay? Do you see it? And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be what? Full. Now, look down at verse 6. Notice the first word in verse 6. What is that? If. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. Now, so, contextually, he's talking to Christians here. So, everybody look up at me right now. Are you saying that you have fellowship with God and you're an angry person? You're a bitter person? You lie. You have wicked thought life. And you say you have fellowship with God. So if we say that we have fellowship with God and walk in darkness, what are we doing? We're lying. Everybody with me? We're lying. Who are we lying to? We're lying to God, we're lying to ourselves, and we're lying to others. We lie. You say, is it possible for a Christian to lie? Yes. Because we don't have a real, intimate, personal, passionate relationship with God. We're just going through the motions. So it's okay to lie to my wife. It's okay to lie to my husband. It's okay to lie to my children. And if I do that, I'm going to raise children that grow up in what? Lie. So if we say that we have fellowship with God, we better have it. And we better make sure that we understand this has to be real in our life. There is no other option in this room. No other option. I'm going to have to have a real, intimate, personal, passionate relationship with God. There is no other option in the room. And I tell our counselees that. So, if you say that you have fellowship with God, you better have it. If we say that we have fellowship with God and walk in darkness. Now think about this. Do you see what that said? Walk in darkness. So then it is possible for a Christian, because they don't have fellowship with God, to walk in darkness. So at the moment that I'm out of fellowship with God, so I need to make sure every single day, every moment of the day, that I'm in fellowship with God. Because the moment that I allow some sin to stand between me and God, guess what? We're out of fellowship with God, and Satan has direct access to your soul. Yeah, Pastor just said that's serious. You think that's serious? I can tell you it's serious. I've seen marriages blow apart. I've seen people come to our counseling program living wicked lives, but say they're saved. But you know what? You can live a lie. You can come to church and say, oh, praise the Lord. I love the Lord. And go home and live a life that's ungodly. Why? And so the reality of it is that we can ask God to forgive us for it, but we're going to have to do something about it. Okay? And I will talk more about that here in the rest of the week. But I want you to understand, notice it says, walk in darkness, we lie. And do not the truth. In essence, we're not practicing the truth of God's Word. We're not practicing that. Look at verse 7. It says, But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have what? Fellowship, one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us, present tense, from all sin. Now verse 8 says, if we say that we have no sin, and he's talking contextually to Christians, if we say that we have no sins, what are we doing? We're deceiving who? Ourselves. And there are many Christians that will walk into church and deceive themselves. Now when I'm out of fellowship with God, is Satan a deceiver? Well, yeah, he is. He lies to you. He's a liar, the Bible says, and the father of it. So will Satan seek to lie to you? Yes. Now notice, Verse 8, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Look at verse 9. You notice that, what's the first word in verse 9? If. So that means we have to make a decision here. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So we tell our counselees every day, You know, before I came over here today, the first thing I do after I get up is I go to get my Bible. And my notebook. And I open it. And before I do anything, I want to ask God this question. Is there any sin that stands between you and me today? I want you to show it to me now. Because I don't want to be deceived. I don't want to live my life in deception. I don't want to deceive anybody else. I certainly don't want to deceive my children or my wife if we deceive ourselves. So I'm going to ask God to make sure that there's no sin that stands between you and me today. Make it real to me. Show it to me. Do you think if I ask God to show me if there's any sin in my life, He'll show it to me? Yes. pop right here. You know, Terry, you weren't totally honest about that. Or you did, you know, you did this or you did that or something else. You know, one of the real ways that we deceive is by the way we lie. You know, we may say, you know, it's one of the things that I've always told people. You know, there's always folks that are going to say mean and ugly things about us, okay? But I've always practiced this, is that, look, if somebody walks up to me here today and says, do you know that Pastor does this and this and this and this? You know, you can say that, but you know what? My first question is going to be, have you talked to him? Now, you can talk about him, but have you talked to him? And the, you know, 99% of the time, no. Well then, don't be talking to me if you haven't talked to him. Got it? So when somebody comes up and says, did you hear? Did you talk to them? Well, no, but Sister Thus and So told me and she's a godly woman. No, if you haven't talked to him, shut up. I don't want to hear it. You understand? Gossip is a wicked sin. It is a vile sin. And a lot of gossip just comes from pride. So the reality here is, is that if I haven't heard or I haven't talked to him, I'm not going to be talking about him. Got it? Now, or anybody else, it's always interesting. Did you know what Sister Thuston so did? Did you know what she said? And you can even see it in the body language. Can't wait to get to church to tell something I heard. We used to have a lady in one of our churches and she, before cell phones, she had a phone cord that was long enough that it could go to every spot in her house. So if she was doing the dishes, she could put the phone right there and be talking to everybody at church and telling them, you know, this, did you know that? Did you know what she did? Did you know how they did that? Do you know what they did there? You hear this? What? You know, and so. So the folks got his telephone, telegraph, telemoral. You know. I need to be extremely careful about what I say. Amen? Because it can put me out of what? Fellowship with God. So I need to be extremely careful about what I'm saying. And I better be a spirit-controlled person. Now the reality of it is that many times people will say things to be able to justify their sin. But they don't tell you the whole story. Now, so then we're out of fellowship with God, right? Now, notice it says here in verse 8, if we say that we have no sin, we what? Deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. You know, when we got saved, and I want you to get this, when we got saved, wouldn't it be wonderful if God had taken away our old nature? But He didn't. But He gave us the Holy Spirit, and He's given us tools to be able to deal with it. And, you know, one of the things that we find with our counselees is that one of the great things that God has given us is a free will. The opportunity to make decisions. Now, the sad part is that many people make bad decisions. Because they're not Spirit-controlled people. And the reality here is this, I've had people that say, in fact, I've just been dealing with someone who was angry at God that He had given him free will. Why would God give us free will? Well, I say it's because God's going to let you make a decision as to whether or not you're going to get saved or you're not. It's your choice here. It's your choice if you're going to walk with God or not. Praise God for free will. Every single day then I have a choice to make whether I'm going to let sin rule and reign in my life or whether I'm not. OK, I have a choice to make. But God has the God, the Holy Spirit is here to help you. And God also has given you his word. He's also told you exactly how to do it. But the reality of it is, is that most people are ignorant of how to do it. And, you know, one of the things that always bothered me, especially in my undergrad work at Tennessee Temple Highland Park Baptist Church, was it was one of the largest churches in the world. But it was a church that used worldly methods. And it always bothered me that the preaching would be that you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that, you shouldn't do this, you need to do that, but never tell you how to do it. We are spending our time telling people how to do it. Okay? Now, okay, wouldn't it be dumb if somebody walked in and said, all right, Is it Austin? Austin, I want you to go out and build that house. Now, if Austin has never been trained on how to build a house, it's gonna look pretty bad, right? Gonna be looking like this, and these boards don't go right, and this doesn't work, and what's gonna end up? That's gonna be a mess, isn't it? That's how people make of their life because they've never learned how to live a Christian life. They've never been taught, or if they have been taught, they've ignored it. Now, so if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, here's the big deal. Here's one of the things that God has given us. If we confess our sins. See it in verse 9? If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from what, folks? All unrighteousness. You know the reason why if is there? It's because of free will. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us. So every day I'm going to make sure that there's no sin that stands between me and God. Amen? I want you to show it to me if there's any sin. Now don't sit here and tell me that you have never sinned. Believe me, I work with people who live their lives and we can sin. And 99.9% of them are members of a church somewhere. If we say that we have not sinned, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. So every single day I'm going to ask God the question. And by the way, God wants us to learn to submit. Now just for the purpose of what I'm saying here, I want you to take your Bibles and turn back to James 4. And look at verse 7. And by the way, we tell our counselees they've got to learn the fours. Philippians 4, Ephesians 4, and James 4. I've got to stop here. I'm out of time. Look at verse 7. What's the first word in verse 7, ladies and gentlemen? Submit. What's the second word? Submit yourselves at the point of impact. And there's going to be multiple impact moments every single day. Satan is going to make sure of it. And so when there's an impact moment, I have to stop. I have to stop. My wife likes to tell women this. She will say, I am not going to put my head down that hole because there's nothing but darkness down there. So in essence, rather than sticking your head in a hole and just living a life of darkness, you know, it's a dangerous place anyway. And so what we're going to do is that we're going to stop right there. We're going to submit. I'm going to submit myself right now. to the Holy Spirit at the point of impact. Submit yourself. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God, and by submitting yourself, therefore, to God, you're doing what here? Resisting who? The devil, and he'll what? Flee from you. Y'all see it? Get that, y'all? Y'all come, you know? Get it? Boy, you know, when I first, I was educated in the South of the United States. Boy, I tell you what, I learned, you know, when we come back home to Indiana, you guys' speech has slowed down. You know, huh? Do what, honey? Change, yes. You know, five and nine, and y'all come, You know, and we had a lady who was on, I worked in a warehouse, and there was a lady on, she'd say, red dial 59. And you're like, come on, get it out, get it out, get it out, you know. So now, okay, so we're going to submit ourselves to who? To God immediately. I'm going to submit myself to God. Submit yourself to God, and by doing that, you're resisting who? the devil and he'll what? Flee. And I want you to hear me. 1 John, again back in 1 John, 4-4 says that greater is He, the Holy Spirit, greater is He that's in you than He, Satan, that's in the world. So Satan's always going to try to disrupt your peace. So he's going to try to disrupt your joy. And the reality of it is, is that, you know, he also works up here. You know, He's always going to try to place something here so that you will react to it rather than submit to the Holy Spirit. So I have to learn to submit immediately at the point of impact. And the moment I say I submit, I have the Holy Spirit's power. Amen? Greater is He that's in you than He that's in the world. So I don't have to live in defeat and discouragement and despair. I can be a spirit-controlled person. I want to submit myself to you right now. I want to be a spirit-controlled person. What do you want me to praise you for? What do you want me to thank you for? All right, let's pray. Father, thank you for the opportunity to present your word. Pray you'll bless the next hour. We ask for your help in Jesus' name. Amen.