He says, you're going to make all them people think you're a mean preacher. And all them people, you're just going to hurt somebody. You're going to be mean. And that's what the devil does, amen? I talked about the spirit of fear yesterday. And I'm a nice preacher, amen? I'll preach a nice one at some point. And this is nice, amen? But here's my thought. This is the morning crowd. You've got a wonderful pastor. I don't think I'm preaching to the most shallow people out there. I think I'm preaching to some people that pray, some people that know the books, some people that can live it. And listen, I'm just going to say this. I know a preacher preached on evangelistic and how we got to get Satan before we can even get the sinner and preached all that on Sunday. And he talked about the modern day evangelistic movement and drawing on emotion and drawing on intellect and those different facets of man, if you will. But I'll tell you one thing we're doing when you do that, sometimes you preach the shallow, all you're doing is pumping people up and then Monday morning they need pumped again. And then they come back Wednesday and they need pumped. And what that does is create a cycle of an immature Christian. It creates a cycle of people that cannot do it on their own. They're going home and they get down. They follow the flesh and they mess up again. and the preacher's got to pump him up Wednesday, because they're sitting there looking like droopy. Then Sunday morning, they're sitting there looking like Eeyore, and he's got to pump him up again. Hey, listen, the Christian life is not built like that. You should not, listen, if you're in your Bible and in your prayer closet, you shouldn't come to church needing pumped up and primed all the time. You ought to come here for growth. You ought to come here ready to pump him up and prime him up. You ought to be sitting there ready for God to move in the right place with God, ready to help him and back him and help the church. Am I right? Say amen right there. All right. So I want to preach, and I've been focusing a lot on the spirit-filled life lately. And I got all kinds of them I've been fighting with in my iPad or whatever you want to call it here, about crossing Jordan and living a spirit-filled life, talk about the transgenic tribes going back and forth. I don't know what we'll do, but I feel like God wanted me to come to this to talk the core elements, if you will, of that Spirit-filled life and what is really going on inside of you. Now, I'm going to read Galatians 5, and then I'm going to preach off of that, but I'm going to use Genesis 25 as a running illustration, best illustration you'll come up with, preachers, is ones out of your Bible. Wait a minute. I used to get jealous. I used to have to find them stories when I first started and all that stuff. And I'd hear some old seasoned preacher, every illustration he started telling was some Bible story and he told it like I was sitting there during that story. I said, I want to be that. I want to be able to do that, amen. But Galatians 5 and 16 says this this morning, this I say then, walk in the spirit. He didn't say, I'm gonna make you walk in the Spirit. He didn't say, I'm gonna do some miraculous thing to make you able to walk in the Spirit. He told you, walk in the Spirit. And you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now, here's what we're preaching on. It's what's going on inside of you. The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. So I want to deal with something so important to you having real revival in your home. So important to you living a successful Christian life. And it seems like the devil's winning this battle. I mean, I've preached this at youth camps before and looked at teenagers that are evidently losing the battle every day over and over. And then I come and look at Christians in the church house, and I think there's grown up Christians that's supposed to have been saved 30 years, but they're doing the same stupidity that these teenagers are doing. They're messing up in the same exact way. They're losing the battle over and over. And I'm more invested being a pastor, I'm more vested in this thing, seeing what people are having to counsel, having to help people, and having to help move them forward. I've got three teenagers. Brock will be a teenager here very shortly, and I have three teenagers at one time. and I'm watching the struggles that they have, that the devil is using. And let me just throw this in here for free. Listen, our devil, we don't fight against flesh and blood. We fight against principalities. And I ain't worried really about my teenage children under my roof and living under my fist and my authority. I ain't worried about them going out and being drug addicts. I know I did it. I ran. I was so rebellious I ran from my parents and fought and did everything I could. I was crazy. But my kids, I ain't worried about that. I'm worried about the demonic battle that the devil's playing with in their mind, the fleshly desires that the Disney Channel's putting in their mind. Sorry about that. All the garbage that the world is pumping into them, pumping into their dress code, pumping into their mental thought, pumping into everything they do. And the devil's got all these tools. And then they gotta make decisions based on flesh or spirit and go the right direction. And when you only go to church three times a week, 1.8% of your time or whatever it is, what do you think they're gonna decide to do? because the world's pumping in them 24-7. You can't walk in a regular mall without seeing nudity. You can't turn on the television without hearing disrespect towards parents and everything else in the world. I mean, that's what's being pumped in them to follow the flesh. And I was just thinking, what a struggle it is. What a struggle the Christian life is. I just got to thinking when I come up with the title, thinking about regular life, man. I mean, I quit a six-figure bank management job to come pastor a church that had 20-some people when I got there. So, just write it down, I ain't making six figures no more. I had to sell my Dodge Charger with my 350 Hemi. Had to sell my Habusa, fastest production motorcycle ever made. I sold my house, got rid of everything. Went out, jumped, plunged myself out in the ministry. And if you ain't never put a wiener on a slice of bread and called it a hot dog, then you don't know the struggle's real. You ain't ever put cheese on some bread, Brother Tyler, called it a wish sandwich, wishing there was ham on that thing. You don't know the struggle's real. Life gets hard. If you ain't never drank Kool-Aid without sugar, you don't know the struggle's real. You ain't never cut a paper towel roll in half and called it toilet paper. That's ghetto right there. Y'all might not have been there yet. Let me equate it to the children. If you ain't never had to hold your phone and to get it to charge, you got to hold it in a certain way and just sit there and hold your phone to get that thing to charge. Then you don't know the struggle's real. REGULAR LIFE IS HARD. WOULD YOU AGREE WITH THAT? I'M GONNA TELL YOU, LIVING THIS CHRISTIAN LIFE CAN BE VERY DIFFICULT AT TIMES. WHEN YOU LOOK AT ALL THE INFLUENCES AND ALL THE THINGS OUT THERE, THE STRUGGLE IS REAL. Now now now this is a strong church y'all know your Bible so I'm gonna scoot through this introduction I just got to lay it out there. There is a fight taking place in your inner man It is happening right now as we speak right now. Your mind is trailing off somewhere right now You're thinking about your Facebook right now. You're wanting to check yet. I mean, that's just how it is. There's a constant battle that is going on. And let me tell you how it works. See, the day you got saved, there was sovereign acts of the Holy Spirit. Baptism, sealing, earnest deposit, indwelling. The Holy Spirit did these things in you. Now, the feeling of the Spirit's not there with that sovereign act when it happens. That's something predicated on your actions, which we're talking about today. but you are indwelt immediately the moment you get saved with the Holy Ghost. God, what? Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own. So when a man calls on the Lord, when a man is convicted of his sin, God draws him, and the man believes the gospel. When he calls on the Lord and gets saved, he is indwelt with the Holy Spirit of God. Am I right? Your dead spirit's made alive, and God's Spirit is placed in you. So you've got the Spirit of God in you. Now, where's this struggle come from? Well, the Apostle Paul teaches that in Romans chapter number 7 and 18. For I know that in me, this is a saved man, this is one of the best Christians you've ever known. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me. The Apostle Paul wanted to do certain things, but how to perform it, that which is good, I find not. He had a struggle going on inside of him. See, there's two births in the life of a believer. The day you were born in the flesh and the day you were born in the spirit, born of the spirit, as Ms. Crosby would say. And due to the fact that every born-again believer has two natures. Yes, sir, she was right when she said you're bipolar. Yes, ma'am, he was right when he called you two-faced. There's two people in there. Hair one up while you wake up and it's like you're in bed with a different woman. You wake up in the morning, is she mean? Like what in the world happened? We've got an old unregenerate nature. in us that we were born with, and we call it the flesh. I don't know what terminology you use for different things, but that's the nature that cannot do right that the apostle Paul told us about. And then we also, if you're saved, have that new nature, that divine nature that's rotting us by the Holy Spirit of God, that nature's incapable of sin. And these two natures are at war in you. constantly battling, constantly struggling for the influence of your life. And when a believer, here's where terminology comes in, when a believer allows the indwelling Holy Spirit to have his way and is filled with the Spirit, if you will, we call him a spiritual man, you know, we can say he's walking in the Spirit, however you want to say that. And when a believer allows the old flesh nature to have its way in their life, that man, I call them carnal Christians. Now, I know there's a glacier wherever it is talking about carnal, but I'm talking about a carnal believer, a carnal Christian, somebody that ain't filled with the Spirit and ain't living like they're following the Spirit of God in their life. Now, I'm afraid we live in a day and age where the majority of Christians are the carnal and not the spiritual. Do you agree? Come on now. It's a morning service. Y'all got up and came. We talking about other people. Let's just pretend that this morning. Let's pretend every one of us is as spiritual as can be. I know none of y'all fought on the way here. I know none of your kids smarted you off and then you got a little bit angry when you was getting them dressed, huh? I know none of that happened. We're all uber spiritual, aren't we? So we'll just say we're preaching to the internet. I'm a TV preacher, amen? I'm preaching to the masses. We're living in a state where people are stifling the guidance of the Spirit of God in them over and over, and they're living as carnal as they can, it seems, and they are ignoring what the Spirit of God wants them to do, and their families are suffering, their children are suffering, their churches are suffering, and it's carnality everywhere we look. I'm here to tell you the life of the saved man is a spiritual battle. And here's a quote. If we don't get a hold of the carnality in our lives, the carnality in our lives will get a hold of us. Somebody make me one of them evangelists, I'll pose for you and you can put a quote on there and post it on social media and put that quote right there. I'm just kidding, I don't want that. If we don't get a hold of the carnality in our lives, the carnality in our lives will get a hold of us. You cannot think about something for so long without it directing what you do. You cannot put yourself around something so long without you becoming like it. You cannot want something for so long and it not influence who you are and how you operate in your life. Here's what Dr. Phillips said, the things that we cultivate in our lives are the things that ultimately control us. If we cultivate a taste for unsafe company, impure literature, a worldly lust, then those are the things that rule us in the end. I want some church people, listen, we want revival. It's a revival meeting. I want some church folk to walk out of here saying, I want to do everything I can to live in the Spirit. I want to be convicted of when I move towards the flesh, when I get fleshly with my family, and I get fleshly in my thought life. I want some people to walk out here and say, the struggle is real, but I'm going to win it today. It's a daily thing. Now, I'll probably use it in a little bit. I can't remember if I got in here or not, but it's a Paul equation to drinking alcohol. It's a daily thing. I'll do use it at the very end, but not that part of it. You're going to have to continue Every day you get up and say, the struggle will be real today, but I'm choosing to walk in the spirit. Even if my wife's rude to me, I'm not going to be rude back. Even if my kids smart me off, I'm going to love them. I'll correct them, but I'm going to do it in love and I'm going to go on about my day and I ain't getting angry. You see, it's a daily choice y'all. And if we can live in the Spirit, we can see real revival in our homes. We can see real revival. We can see God move. But as long as we're getting angry and we're getting upset and we're moving to the flesh, every time it's just a setback and you, here you go again, you're trying to have revival, then boom, you set it back. And it's contagious. It's all around your home. So I want to look at these two natures of the saved man and every saved person in the room, I believe, can live the victorious Christian life over the flesh. You don't have to be the carnal Christian. You don't have to be the dirty joke guy at work. You don't have to be the carnal guy that laughs. You don't have to be the person that gossips and talks. You don't have to be the next divorce statistic. You don't have to be the next one with your children falling out of church. You don't have to be the Christian that falls into sin. But you gotta know some things about this struggle. Verse 17 says this. Let me pray real fast. Father, I pray, oh God, today that some folks, God, they're here and God, it signifies they're wanting to serve you, they're wanting to do right. But God, I've tried to exemplify that the struggle is so real, the struggle is so hard. Even your strongest, even your best, Even the ones who won't, I mean, Paul said he had that struggle. And God, I'm praying these good Christian folk that today would go home with even more desire, even more passion, God, to serve you with everything they've got to live in the spirit, God. I pray they'd be victorious over the flesh. God, I pray they'd conquer their flesh today. God, I pray they'd wake up tomorrow and say, I'm conquering the flesh today. And they'd wake up every day of their life saying, I will win the struggle. today. Help us father in Jesus name, in Jesus name. Amen and amen. First I want you to notice there is a duel. There is a duel for dominance in your life. There's a duel for dominance. Here's what it says in 17 for the flesh, lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. There is a literal, if you believe your Bible, a fight inside of you. I mean, and it ultimately, whoever wins that fight ultimately guides your decision making process. It guides your choices. And there's a good picture of this struggle in Genesis in the story of Isaac's family. Now Isaac's family, if you study this out, most dysfunctional bunch of people you ever met. Every one of them had something carnal going on. I mean, we had a surplanner. We had a mama training this boy to lie to daddy and do all this stuff. You had one boy that didn't care nothing about worldly stuff. All he cared about was worldly stuff and fleshy stuff. I mean, this family was so dysfunctional. But what we see is an underlying theme of carnality all through the family. But in your Bible, you're gonna see a type you're gonna see Esau from the birth being a type of the flesh You're gonna see Jacob at different times. I know he messed up but in our story He's gonna be a type of the spirit if you will now I want you to listen to this Genesis 25 and verse number 21 says this and And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife because she was barren and the Lord was entreated of him. And Rebekah, his wife, conceived. And the children, here it is, struggled together within her. Here's these twins in her womb, fighting each other. These two different people. pictures of the Spirit and pictures of flesh. A duel for dominance in that womb was taking place. What a picture of what's going on inside the believer. What a biblical picture of what's going on inside of you right now. There is a door for dominance in you that the spirit and the flesh are lusting against each other Fighting against each other one nature is battling the other and listen It's not that the Holy Spirit of God ain't powerful enough to just whoop that flesh, but let me tell you the fact the fact is The fact is you're feeding the flesh and whatever you feed, you got two pit bulls that are getting ready to fight and you put them dogs in there, you take one and don't feed him for a month and you take one and you feed him steak every day. Who do you think is going to win the battle? That pit bull is cheating, man. But you put you on the Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 13 and 14, we might preach this tomorrow, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. I'm an ex-drunk, you think I'm gonna go to the bar with my buddies? You've lost your mind. I tried that when I first got saved. I watched fighting all the time. We like to fight. And I watched it all the time. And I've got saved. And next week I went over there, Brother Daniel, and they were snorting cocaine and drinking liquor and everything else I did. And I went for about a month. And every time God laid so heavy on me, I had the Spirit of God in me. And it was like that fight and that flesh was growing. And I'm sitting there trying to fight with that Spirit. And I'm making provision for that flesh. and the battle was on inside of me. Thank God the spirit won it. Thank God I said I ain't going back no more. Don't you make provision for the garbage in your life. You got a porn problem, just stay off Facebook, cause the devil gonna make it show up. Don't get me preaching on all kinds of stuff this morning. The things of the flesh feel good. Do you agree? The flesh feels good. Oh man. And when you got saved, that sinful flesh had control of every falsehood. It had control of every part of you. It had your mind, it had your heart, it had your will, it had your senses, everything that controls you. That's why Brother Daniel's saying that God had to come to you, you're wicked. Flesh had to hold everything you are. And they feel so good. Oh man, I mean I don't know about y'all, but you may not think it when you're mad, but it really does feel good to get mad sometimes. Cause it's like a means to an end. You got a problem and your answer is anger. Oh, it feels good. Oh, we went through a list yesterday on bitterness and gave you some examples. I ain't got a bunch of those, but I got a couple. I feel so good to say these words. I told you so. Anybody know somebody that does that? That's the flesh. Listen, that is your flesh being struck. I knew I was right. I knew I was right. I told you so. I just said it earlier, didn't I? I mean, you got kids and teenagers act like this don't happen in your house. One kid smarts the other kid, says something rude to the other kid, that's in the flesh. The other kid gets mad, that's in the flesh. Parent comes in, says something to the kid that said something, the parent looks at them, or the kid smarts the parent off, that's in the flesh. The parent gets mad at the child, that's in the flesh. The other parent comes in and corrects that other parent, they get mad at each other, that's in the flesh. And you're on your way to church Sunday morning. That preacher done prayed for hours, begging God to move and doing stuff. And here you are in the flesh 15 times before you even get in the parking lot. Am I right? Listen, I ain't being judgmental. I'm saying it happens to me too, man. This is the battle. Welcome to the fight. That's the flesh. With some of us men, we took all them men up there to Myrtle and I just got a different crew of people at my church and the guys I run with because where I come from and how I lived and all that stuff, man, I got... I make this dude travel with me. He benches 600 pounds. He's my bouncer, amen. It makes me feel like I'm big time, amen. I got a bodyguard that travels with me. We had four, five collegiate football players down there at Myrtle when we was praying. That's just guys we run with. But you know what's so thick in us? The flesh, our pride, our ego. Listen, I'm telling y'all, that's how it is, man. I had a guy that I was counseling. When I wasn't counseling him, he called me. He came to my church for a while. He got out of church for a year, got back on drugs, got on all this stuff. He calls me one day and he said, preacher, I've got a gun to my head. It's 10 o'clock at night. He said, if you don't come over here and help me right now, I'm going to kill myself. I had no choice. I couldn't get a hold of nobody. I just took off. I went over there. I'm walking up in the lion's den. He's high on dope. Look like he's on meth. He's got a gun in his hand. He's talking about blowing his head off. I'm rolling up in there. I'm saying, God, protect me. I don't know what's going to go down, but God, I need you. I got up there and we started talking to him. I got my deacon finally to come up there and we're talking to him about different things. We're talking to him about Elijah and different people in the Bible that were so depressed and went suicidal and all that stuff. We're trying to help him and encourage him. We're praying with him. We got him to lay the gun down. We talked to him for hours. Everything seemed fine. He hugged us. He did the best he could. I mean, it seemed like he'd come off his high. I went home and I laid in bed, didn't I, honey? Got that Facebook Messenger. On that Facebook Messenger, they can tell when you look at a message. I'm halfway asleep at 1 a.m. I reach over, I hear it, ding, and I'm half asleep and I grab it. And I just look at it, and it's him saying, Preacher, I need you again. And I'm half asleep, and I just kind of lay there, and I start praying like, what am I supposed to do, man? And I'm laying there praying, trying to figure things out. Got nobody to go with me, nothing like that. And he sees that I read it. He then begins flipping out on me. cusses me, calls me every name of their son, says, you little punk, you won't come here. I ain't gonna kill myself, I'm gonna kill you. Starts talking all this smack to me. I'm getting up, pacing around my room, I'm like, Carter, take me back 12 years, I'm gonna break his jaw. And I'm in there madder than a hornet, boys. My flesh is rearing up. I'm ready to thump this dude. It's just who we are sometimes, some men. It's who we are. I mean, I had a fellow come into my church not too long ago, causing problems, doing some weird stuff. And he was a crazy fighting kind of dude. And the word was he goes to bars and fights people coming out all the time. And they said, if you say something to him, you're going to fight him. And it's like I grinned in my soul. I'm like, I'm going to say something to him. I'm not supposed to be a striker, but I can defend myself, right? But then I said, it's the flesh. It's the flesh. You know what, I gotta love him. I gotta love him. I held myself down. The spirit won the battle that day and I didn't get in the flesh and confront him immediately when I thought he was doing something that really, if I told y'all the whole story, you'd probably jump bad on him too. And I said, I can't do this. I can't do this. And you understand, his son kept coming to church. And within two weeks, three of his son's friends got saved. or at least two of them. One of them got saved maybe right before, but I mean, they fell on an altar weeping and crying as God saved their soul. Now if I'd have flipped out on him in the flesh, they'd all been gone. I don't know what would have happened in their lives, but they'd all been not in my church. You see what I'm saying? God, I followed the spirit and God handled the situation. Now that man's gone and the kids are still there. Now listen, our flesh, listen, when it strokes our senses, You ever, why do people want compliments all the time? Do I look good today? I think me and my wife said it to each other today. Just look all right, do I look good? My hair look good? You're stroking the senses, am I right? I understand we don't want to come at us with a cigar. Dan, your pastor calls me Steven Cigar, I don't know why. But don't you think that can be your flesh? I know we don't want to come out looking like a fool, but don't you think that's your flesh when you're really worried about how you're looking? I mean, before I got to preaching, when I was in college, that's all we did was lift weights. I mean, I was 205 pounds, benching 350, and probably 9% body fat. I did not own a shirt with sleeves in it. I didn't. God called me to preach. Preached over at Spring Fort. I went to Kmart in Kanawha City. Some little 80-year-old woman walks up. I'm checking out in my sleeveless shirt. God had already convicted me about it, but the flesh was winning. And I just put it on and left the house. She looks over at me and said, aren't you Preacher Sparks? I'm like, oh yes, how you doing, sis? And she wasn't being judgmental or nothing. She just looked at me and said, I just didn't recognize you dressed like that. It went all through me, man. Conviction. I ain't worn a sleeveless shirt since then. I actually got on eBay and bought 15 baseball shirts so they come all the way down here. So I don't want nobody seeing my tattoos either. And listen. People, we're following the flesh in so many things in our life and we don't even realize it. About like that bitterness yesterday. There's so many things that tingle our flesh and our senses. Do you know how many Christian couples I know that had a weight loss surgery or got on some type of weight loss stuff? I mean, they're completely carnal. All you see, I'm talking preachers, and now all you see is posts in the gym of them working out. It used to be scripture and used to be all this stuff. And from the outside, you're sitting there looking at it saying, man, that is flesh. You ever stop, take your mind back to things you used to do before you got saved? Do you? Now I'm going to tell you that when you start doing that, you know what, like when I first got right, I thought, what's wrong with a little bit of music? What's wrong with a little bit of secular music? That's what I thought when I first got saved. And then my preacher said to me, he said, it's where it takes you. There is power in music. That's why I worship music. God will take us somewhere, and God uses that. Y'all don't want to get me on music. I believe God instituted that. God uses that, and the world, the devil's put it in your car. He's put it everywhere, and now you're just deluded, and we use music for completely different than what God created it for. But that music, you listen to that and it takes you somewhere. Listen, if I drive down the road and I hit the rock station, if I'm even hitting seek, I don't even like doing that. I've done it some and I was in the flesh and forgive me, family, for ever doing it in front of you. And I'm running through seek and letting them songs play. I don't know if I ought to sing it. I'll get off to the side. But man that one song come on by white snake here I go again You know I'm talking about that'll come on and you know what that does that takes me right back to the day when I was 19 and I loaded up a 91 Mustang GT and I moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida with a drug dealer and moved in with him and I began to deal dope and I parted and I drank and I did all the wicked stuff under the sun and just one stanza of that song takes my I'm buying back, and I'm 100% in the flesh. You might as well say it. You get in your car, turn on that music, start listening to it, and you start thinking about stuff. The flesh done won. And it happens over and over and over. You ever wonder why it feels good for some kids to make fun of other people? You ever wonder why your heart's longing for things that ought not? That's the flesh. You ever wonder why it feels cool? Listen, there's a, there's a... Hey, listen, there's a group of people that like to cuss and use words. I preached this and had some of them in the room one time. These little young preacher boys, flipping each other off and using cuss words, Brother Daniel and all this stuff. I'm telling you, I got to preach to them. I said, you know what that means? Why would you ever do that to somebody in my family? What's wrong with you? That's flesh. That's complete flesh. But you know what? For them, it makes them feel good. You ever wonder why it feels good to gossip and to hear the gossip, to know what's going on? That's your flesh. You ever wonder why you have such a strong will to go to the gym or to play golf or to do whatever you do, go hunting, whatever your little peeve is, but somehow you ain't got the will to get that one-year Bible plan read. You ain't got the will to read your Bible. You ain't got the will to get in that prayer closet, but you got that will to watch that favorite show every single night. You know that's flesh. We'll just move on. For as he thinketh, for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Eat and drink, saith he to thee, but his heart is not with thee, but his heart is not with thee. Here's what Dr. Phillips said. Once given lodging, impure thoughts are virtually impossible to evict. You hear me, young folk? pornography one time. Once given lodging, impure thoughts are virtually impossible to evade. They lurk in the hidden recesses of the mind and make their presence known at the most unexpected times. They may show up when we are trying to worship or even when we are in an innocent conversation with someone who has no idea that we're subtly entertaining lascivious thoughts. If a person once lets his thoughts wander down some impure path, hidden legions joyfully emerge and stampede, pushing the mind into all kinds of sin. You hear that? You look at the wrong stuff. You look at the wrong stuff and do the wrong things. You can be in the midst of worship and the devil is attacking your mind and your spirit starts slicing at your flesh and because you fed your flesh looking at it and listening to it and watching it, whatever it is, I don't want to start naming TV shows. I don't want to be a legalist. I'm just saying whatever it is that's controlling your flesh and then you're going to church, that stuff, boom, hitting your mind. You wonder why we can't have revival? Because we are catering to our flesh over and over and over. Make no mistake about it, it's destroying homes, it's destroying families, it's destroying marriages, it's destroying churches, it's destroying teenagers, it's destroying youth groups, it's doing it all over the place. Whatever you make provision for in your life, is what you're giving power to. A person that centers his thoughts on the flesh and his lust will satisfy the flesh through things like pride, self, greed, pleasure. A person who centers his thoughts upon the eyes, these are the three major sins, and it's lust, you'll satisfy the eyes. and its lust through such things as immoral behavior, pornographic filth, television, exposing the human body, dressing to attract attention, and looking a second time. A person who centers his thoughts upon pride of life will satisfy his flesh through desires of recognition, honor, position, and authority. A mind set upon the world and the flesh is what leads to anxiety, worry, emptiness, restlessness. The worldly mind never knows peace. I believe that's Dr. Fremont. You believe that? Put you on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh. Does that, do y'all move that live stream or is it just right here? Zack and Brock, come here. Come here. I've got to take it to the next level because Brother Tyler used a, what's it called, a prop. So today I've got a prop and a role play. I've preached since a teenager so y'all bear with me. This is Big Zach. He's my bodyguard. This is my son Brock. Y'all turn and face each other right there. You're going to be the spirit and you're the flesh. We've been reading our Bible. We've been praying every day. We've turned off that television, all that garbage. We've decided we ain't going to look at that stuff. I mean, we're seeking God. We're coming to revival every single service. We're studying our Bibles, we're listening to the preacher, and we're applying what the preacher preaches, and we're doing everything we can. We're feeding that spirit. But there's a door for dominance. Spirit. Throw him! No, I'm just kidding. All right. So you see that? Now, what happened? He's the one getting fed. He wins the battle, am I right? Now, listen, everybody close your eyes. Just close your eyes, don't look. Don't look, close your eyes. Now, you stop reading your Bible. Everything gets busy. You start working overtime. You start doing all this different stuff. You quit reading your Bible. You skip a couple nights of revival. You stay out of the prayer closet. You do all these different things, and all of a sudden, you're feeding the flesh. You turn the wrong radio station on. You turn the wrong television station on. You sit down and say, well, certainly this could not hinder me. Certainly this could not mess me up. I'm going to go ahead, and I'm going to do that for just a little bit. And then all of a sudden, you look up, and when you look up, open your eyes, this is what's happening in your life. All of a sudden, big man is hurting little man. Say, all right, y'all can stop. This is a battle of the titans right here. Y'all want to see him really fight? I say we just let him loose, brother Dan. But that is exactly what's happening in your life. You start feeding at first, you had full power over everything going on. Your spirit was so strong you got saved. You're reading your Bible. You're studying. You're praying. You're doing everything you can. You won't listen to that filth. You're doing everything you can to stay right. And that spirit is so big, so strong that that flesh ain't got nothing on him. And you get up living that day in the spirit, walking in the spirit, doing the things that you want to do for God. But then that one little thing, those two little things, you start letting that stuff into your life. You start catering to the flesh in your life, and before you know it, that flesh, and you're not looking, your eyes are closed, and that flesh raises up and gets so big that it starts to overpower the spirit, and you make bad decisions, and you lose a marriage, and you lose a child, and you lose your health, you lose everything you got. Because you're making that carnal decision. That's good. Make no provision for the flesh. Will you walk out here today and say, no more provision. No more provision. I ain't listening to it no more. I ain't doing it no more. I ain't thinking no more. I ain't acting like that no more. Secondly, the difference is detectable. For the flesh, lust against spirit, verse number 17, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary one to another. Those two different natures are complete polar opposites. One of them is all flesh, all sin. One of them can't see. When a man operates in one or the other, guess what? It is completely detectable. Anybody with any spirit of God on them at all. And what's tough for preachers, for us, is when that person that's so carnal, when they can't even tell. They're coming up and asking if they can teach a Sunday school and trying to do all kinds of stuff when they're living so carnal. You can look on their Facebook and see garbage of the world and everywhere else. And they're coming to ask you to serve and do different things that's going to put them in a place of authority. That's plumb, stupid, crazy. And I'd probably say that person might be lost. Because they don't even understand the things of the Spirit. They don't even understand. They're blinded by the devil of this world. That's where they're at. And that verse, Genesis 25 and 23 says, two nations are in thy womb. Two manner of people. Two completely different people were in Rebekah. And let me point this out real quick. Esau, the carnal one, was born first. Jacob, the spiritual one, was born second. In that first birth, you received that carnal nature. In that second birth, when you got born again, you received that spiritual nature. They're completely different. He saw this hairy sportsman, daddy's favorite, Jacob, family man, whatever, mama's boy, smooth skin, that carnal nature. And nature and spirit are polar opposites. And when you act in the flesh and follow that carnal nature in life, Most people around you can tell. You ask a carnal Christian's wife or husband about their life. You start asking some things. And I was going to do it, but I'm going so long I ain't got time. I mean, it's just, I was going to have Daniel and Lauren come up here and I was going to say, I was going to have you close your eyes and say, Lauren, heard you want to teach a Sunday school. And I was going to have Daniel say, yes, I am. And see, even though they're sitting here saying they're one thing, you can tell 100% once they start talking and once they start doing things, you can tell it ain't them. You can tell something's different. All it takes is common sense, y'all. Y'all remember my old bracelets, what would Jesus do? Well, would Jesus talk to other people the way you've been talking to your wife? Would Jesus run around with that lost crowd like you are? Would Jesus watch what you're watching on TV? Would Jesus, would He do what you're doing? Would He react in those situations like you are to your family? Would He talk about people the way you are? You see, a lot of times if we inspect our lives, we look polar opposites from Jesus. It's because we're living in the flesh. What's sad is when it's not in yourself. You know what we try to do? We try to trick everybody around us, but then we didn't try to trick ourself, Brother Tyler. You ever caught yourself, I wonder if this movie's too rough to be watching. I'm sure I should probably not tell you this, but I'm gonna tell you because I think it's important. I wonder if it's okay, I'm gonna skip church, just man, it's the biggest game of the year. I wonder if I should have said that. Man, they made me a little bit mad. If you got to wonder about it, I'd say it's because the dual's going on inside and the Spirit's saying, you probably shouldn't have done that. Because if the Spirit ain't trying to correct you, why is the flesh going to say don't do that? You hear me? When one of the greatest revivals that ever took place happened, Welsh Revival, they said the second point of Evan Roberts' message was put away any doubtful habit. If you've got a doubtful habit in your life, it's doubtful because the Spirit of God is probably trying to tell you that you ought not be doing it. And the only reason it's doubtful in your mind is because you're trying to feed that flesh and let it happen. You walk out of here today and you say, I'm not going to make no provision for the flesh and any doubtful thing in my life, I'm going to get rid of it. You're two steps closer to seeing real revival in your home. Lastly, next to lastly, the damage can be debilitating. If you look at the end of verse 17, it says, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. You see, the damage it does at that flesh in you, you can't even do what you really want to do. What you know you ought to do. No matter which way you want to look, I mean, because of that fleshly nature and our propensity to sin and do wrong, we can't even do right without the Spirit of God. In Jacob and Esau's story, Esau the flesh, from that point forward, they became the Edomites, and they were the enemy of God's people. They're enemy of Israel. They were enemies from then on. And when you allow that fleshly nature to take control, listen, that's the side that messes your mind up, pulls you out of church, makes you hate the people of God, gets you out of your Bible, gets you out of your prayer clothes. and you will live the most miserable Christian life you ever could. And here's the thing, here's what we call it, whatever you want to call it, man. Conviction, the Holy Spirit saying, don't do that. That's part of the battle. And when you ignore that, you're making huge decisions when you ignore that Spirit of God. You hear me? Here's another quote. When the feeling of conviction fades, Cause it does. I mean, you tell God no long enough, it just seems like, hmm, I can get away with this. God must not care no more. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. When the feeling of conviction fades, the future of chastisement fosters. See, God's probing you to try to get you to get right. And if you just get right, you're going to save yourself a whole lot of damage. But when you okay that sinning, you're saying, God, I'm okay in this, but I'll take whatever you got for me. Now, I read it in an old booklet by some old men of God. It's don't get mad at me, get mad at them. And I ain't saying this is what happens, that every single one of these is chastisement. I preached this and somebody messaged me. My mama got sick and you said it's chastisement. I ain't saying that. But I'm saying God uses things as forms of chastisement. I can take my Bible and show you a loss of health. You understand? So let a man examine himself, so that he may eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, he that eateth and drinketh the damnation of himself, not concerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you. These folks were taking the Lord's supper in a way they weren't supposed to. And I can show you in the Bible, over and over, I've literally, I ain't very old, I ain't done this long, but I've seen men turn their backs on God and go against a preacher three different times and catch cancer within one year. Do I know if it's related? No. But I'm not touching it. You ain't gonna catch me going against a man of God. If I got a problem, I'll just roll out. Whatever it is, I'll handle it the right way. Don't you go against this man of God. That's crazy talk. When you understand the word and you understand, that's crazy talk. Man, I was crazy. I done told y'all that when I was 18, 19, young. This boy had one of them go-ped scooters, had a 50cc motor on the back of it. To me, it was the coolest thing in the world. Coolest thing in the world. And I stole it from him. I didn't even know I did it, but I would have punked him out. I took it from him. I thought I was the coolest man on campus down there at Marshall University. Here's all these rich kids in their Corvettes and Mustangs. I'm on this little scooter. Going to the weight room, got my weight belt on my shoulder. Hadn't had that thing very long. And out of nowhere, a drunk driver, a man with four DUIs, comes over 15 foot of grass as I'm riding to the weight room and blasts me so hard I'm completely unconscious for 10 minutes. I wake up and start fighting. I don't remember none of it. They duct taped me. They said I even broke some of the duct tape. They handcuffed me to a board and took me to the hospital. And all I remember is waking up a day or two later should have died. They said my creatinine levels was lower than dead people's. They said, all you got is a severe concussion. Don't drink no alcohol for six months. I went right back to my life, but within six months or so, I started getting the most ferocious migraines you could ever imagine. After I'd already settled and took my 15 grand and wasted it on worldly living, worldly goods, I got rid of the scooter, that's where I bought my Mustang. And then, them headaches was so severe on me. I told y'all when I last preached here last time how God healed me of that fibromyalgia and all that pain. So till then, from the age of 19 till then, 20 some years I guess, migraines nearly every single day. My jaw started popping. Every time I talk, every time I preach, I oftentimes go home and have to put on an ice pack and everything else because my jaw pops ferociously like that. Right after I got hit by that, I was an athlete, I lifted weights, I loved all that stuff. Two bulging discs in my back and I couldn't hardly even walk. I wouldn't be surprised if all that played in the park with that fire mouser that I dealt with for 20 years of my life. Don't tell me sin don't have some repercussions. Don't tell me it don't. Don't tell me it don't. Take your health. He can take your property. We see large examples all over the place. Amos and the vineyards and the fig trees. We see Peter went back to fishing and he couldn't catch nothing. Yep. I remember after I got saved, a month or two, Carla, wasn't it? Brand new baby. All I had was that Mustang. I had stupid man's insurance, liability, and nothing to pay me back for nothing. I walk outside my house one day, it's gone. She thought I was gonna flip out. I just walked in and I just got saved and I realized some of this stuff. I said, well, honey, we gotta find a way to church tonight. I deserve it. I robbed a man before. I deserve it. You know, some Christians need to realize this kind of stuff. Say, maybe what's happening to me, maybe what's going on, maybe I deserve some of it. And I ain't got time, I don't want to belabor, but you can go on through the list, man. Loss of joy, we know that, we ain't got to preach on that. You living in sin, David's sinning and judging people on the throne for nine or ten months, he's probably going crazy. It'd take your joy. Look at some of the Psalms written during that stuff. You'll be the most miserable person on the earth and premature death. I ain't gonna tell you I ain't heard of and seen several preachers that turned their life, turned their back on God and died in their 40s. And listen, I'm just telling you, people's lives are falling apart because we're falling to flesh. But here's the thing, and I'm done. Deliverance is in a decision. Just like yesterday, he said, walk in the Spirit. He said, I'm not going to do some crazy thing to make you boom, super Christian. Not going to happen. Walk in the Spirit. What you do is you are obedient to God's yielding, what He probes you to do. You make yourself available to Him every moment, every situation, every decision. You question yourself, should I be getting mad right now? Should I be acting like this? And step by step, you follow God. And God leads you through your Bible, through the Holy Spirit conviction, through your preacher. Lord, come help me. Do that, I just want to please the Lord or I can serve you today, whichever one. How You Walk in the Spirit, Ephesians 5 and 18. I've preached on this before. Be not drunk with wine or in his excess, but be ye filled. What I was saying earlier is it's something continual. You gotta do it every day. I'm gonna walk in the Spirit. I'm gonna walk in the Spirit. I'm gonna walk in the Spirit. You gotta keep doing it, just like a drunk has to keep drinking or he's gonna get a hangover and he'll be sober. It also makes you completely different. I done said that, but you ever seen a happy drunk and a mad person drinks and becomes happy? Or a happy person drinks and wants to fight everybody? It'll completely change who you are. But here's the one, it's a deliberate choice. You can't go to a bar and just sit there and get drunk. You have to choose to drink. That's what Paul's using the illustration, not me. You can't just come to church. You can't just come to morning services that revival to be filled with the spirit. You hear me? What's Colossians 3 and 15? Say 3 and 16. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. Take what I'm telling you today. It's the Word. Put it in you. Say, I'm gonna walk out of here this morning and I'm gonna conquer that flesh. I'm walking in the Spirit today. Oh, I'm gonna go home and read my Bible, listen to some more preaching. Meditate on the Word. I'm gonna follow God. I'm gonna confess sin. I'm gonna get on an altar right now and confess things to God. I'm gonna get up here and make a commitment to God. You cannot sit in a corner and pray for God to fill you. Here's what D.L. Moody said. I believe firmly that the moment our hearts are emptied of pride, selfishness, ambition, and self-seeking, and everything contrary to God's law, the Holy Ghost will come and fill every corner of our hearts. But if we're full of pride, and conceit, and ambition, and self-seeking, the pleasures of this world, there is no room for the Spirit of God. I believe many a man is praying to God to fill him when he's already full of something. before we pray that God would fill us, I believe we ought to pray him to empty us, Dr. Moody C. There must be an emptying before there can be a filling. And when the heart is turned upside down and everything is turned out that is contrary to God, the spirit will come. Here's the call church. You're all the cream of the crop. But man, we gotta get filled up. We want revival. And to get filled up, you need to get emptied out. If my daughter sings, I just want pleasing the Lord or whichever one she's gonna do, why don't you come empty everything out in your life you need to? That pride, that envy, that bitterness, that unforgiveness, all that stuff, that worldly ambition, that desire to be, all them things God ain't called you to be, God don't want you to be. Empty yourselves out this morning and let's get filled up with the Holy Ghost of God. You hear me? Empty yourself out so you can walk out of here and walk in the Spirit. Will you do it this morning? Let's pray, church. Father, we love you. Oh, God, help us today. God, I forgive you for times this morning already. Father, that I... To be lost in his presence, found in his likeness, I want to hear him say, well done. had all been made. Sins die already cast. The world was at my fingertips. I'd arrived at last. But the cry could not be pacified from a heart about to break inside. Then the Father showed himself to me and said, just look what he's I just want to please the Lord, be in His will in every way. To be lost in His presence, found in His likeness, I want to hear Him say, well done, someday. at his feet. All I was and all I am, all I ever want to be. I just want to please. He lost in his presence, found in his likeness. I want to hear him say, well done, someday. Success is there to claim, and some would sell their very soul to reach Earth's highest plane. But to count a gain would mean my loss if I laid down commitments, crawls. So I set my eyes on things above, searching with a heart the Lord. Be in His will in every way. To be lost in His presence, found in His likeness. I want to hear Him say, well done.