In the book of Isaiah, the 29th chapter, we read, he's talking about Jerusalem here, and he's calling Jerusalem Ariel here. He's using the name Ariel. And he says, woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt. And ye, year to year, let them kill sacrifices. Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow, and it shall be unto me as Ariel. And I will camp against thee round about and will lay siege against thee with a mount and I will raise forts against thee and thou shall be brought down and shall speak out of the ground and thy speech shall be low out of the dust and thy voice shall be as one that had a familiar spirit out of the ground and thy speech and shall whisper out of the dust. Moreover, the multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away. Yea, it shall be an instant suddenly. Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and with great noise, with storm and tempest and the flame of devouring fire. And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel Even all that fight against her and her munition and that distress us shall be as a dream of a night vision. It shall even be as when a hungry man dreameth and behold, he eateth. And but when he awake at his soul is empty as when a thirsty man dreameth and behold, he drinketh. But he awake at it and shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion. Stay yourselves and wonder. Cry ye out and cry. They are drunken, but not with wine. They stagger, but not with strong drink. For the Lord had poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep and had closed your eyes. The prophets and your rulers, the seers had he covered. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed. which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, read this, I pray thee. And he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed. And the book is delivered unto him that is not learned, saying, read this, I pray thee. And he saith, I am not learned. Wherefore the Lord said, for as much as this people draw me, near me with their mouth and with their lips to honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. Therefore behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work in wonder. For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudence shall be hid." So here he's talking about spirit of drunkenness upon the prophet because of the people's actions. The people were going to the feast and the festivals and celebrating God, but their hearts were far from God. What they were portraying to be was not what they were, and it was from drinking of the wine of the raft of Babylon. It was from actually rejecting God's Word in action. It was lack of doing God's Word, lack of repentance, lack of a commitment of conversion. I'll tell you, the word intoxicate means to excite or stupefy by alcohol or a drug. especially to the point where physical and mental control is markedly diminished. It's to excite or elate to the point of enthusiasm or friendly. You can intoxicate also with music, with preaching, with various things. There's a lot of people intoxicated by love. It's a lot of people that are intoxicated by many a thing. But here he's talking about intoxication by the spirit, a religious spirit. A spirit that's not of God, a spirit that's the wrong spirit, a spirit of idolatry, a spirit of adultery, of spiritual wickedness, of spiritual lethargy, of drunkenness. It has an influence over your life, it has an influence over everything. That's why he says, don't be drunk with one, but be drunk with the spirit. But it has to be the spirit of the Lord. They use a terminology now for when you're driving. They say that you were driving under the influence because of the rapid spread of drugs. A lot of people are not maybe alcoholically intoxicated, but they're under the influence of drugs or something that changes their behavior or have some control of what they're doing. They're not in full power. The word influence means the power of capacity of causing an effect in direct or intangible ways, the act of power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command, corrupt interference with authority for personal gain, and number four, an emanation of spiritual or moral force. We see where the country, the nation, has been drunken through a spiritual power here that's been exalted, a cult-like power, where the Christian association of the word of God, where he had blinded the minds of the people, of the preachers, teaches in the people their attitude and disposition. And like I said, we've seen it carried forth mostly in these last five years of the spiritual mindset of the attitude of the people or the character of the people is not of God. And this is only discerned by those that are in the spirit of God that God is working. He says a wonderful work, a marvelous work where he's allowing the people to be deceived away. There's a multitude of religious teachings and beliefs out there and the people have been overcome by it. God describes the world as being drunk with the wine of Babylon's fornication. There are people who are in no condition to serve God because they cannot think straight spiritually. They don't have a correct spiritual insight to this. They think they're in control when they are not, so they cannot be holy. They attempt to serve him in immorality and unethically. It's like we married, but you're not married according to the Word of God. The Word of God stipulates about one man and one woman, or what marriage truly is. A lot of people hold to the fact of polytheism, polytheistic belief about man just as they do about God. So a lot of men say that they can have a number of wives that they quote about different people in the Bible that had more than one wife at one time or whatever, but this wouldn't describe the perfect situation before God as the example God set forth with Adam and Eve. And in any other situation, we see where any one man that had more than one wife more than less likely had complications that didn't work out so well or whatever. So with God, we have to look at the precept. What's the statute? What's the premise of what God's saying? It's like we're talking about racial issues or social injustices or whatever. You can look at the whole and see where the whole is wrong or where the whole is veered away from God. But the narrow way is among those groups, it's only a few out of each group that's doing the right thing, that's doing the godly thing or whatever. So the whole group is kind of stereotyped the way God placed Adam said they've all went astray He classified all men as being condemned and going away from God went astray because they were condemned in Adam So man as a whole what condemned in Adam. He says there's none good. No, not one so we're looking at What does man necessarily need to do to get on the right track? And that's when Jesus Christ died, to reconcile man back to God, to put man in right or correct standing with God. And it can only be by God's word. That's why in the Old Testament, God gave ways that the people could sacrifice to him. It was a shadow. of what was to come or whatever, because he didn't desire sacrifices and offerings and things, but he only said that since, you know, and this is a long ways up the religious ladder before you can understand this, but God says, well, if you would do this, at least do it this way. There was a pattern he wanted you to follow in sacrifices and offerings. and in life. And until he revealed his son in a more perfect way, this was to be the way that you would do it. As mankind did that and you grew in God or whatever, then God started manifesting more to man because he was working on a man, working on man in a process to make man in his image, in his likeness. But since the beginning, though, that that was another seed in the earth. That was those that was being shaped and formed by their father, the devil. who would follow after, who would have that nature or whatever. But among that whole group of mankind, God would buy back, God would redeem or choose some that He would make His and His family, and He would redeem them and regenerate them and give them a new way of thinking, a new thought life, and they would practice, they would walk in doing those things that are pleasing to God and be shaped in His image and His likeness after the pattern of his son. But then that old way had been there from the beginning, from Cain, when Cain killed Abel, he was of his father the devil. Those characteristics, that attitude, that disposition of the world was there. that world of Babylon, a different world, of this world, and in the end time he calls it Babylon again. He uses the word Babylon. It's a confusion, it's a metropolis, but it's a worldly way of thinking. It is the world. But he's come to call his people out of the world. Now, he has a general call. Everybody, a lot of people hear that general call. It's not a, what can I say, factual call. It's a call, but it's a call to generality. A lot of hear that call, but it'll only be a few chosen. There'd be many a call, but only a few chosen. These are the select ones. That's what I say. Among each nation and each people group, God will bring a remnant out of there representative of what his nature, what he is or whatever. The rest of them would be lost or whatever. We need to find that. They would be influenced by this world and this world's system. and this world's spiritual system, which is Satan, the god of this world. They'll have the spirit of the world. They'll follow worldliness. They don't follow the truth. They defend from a personal perspective, not from the perspective, a godly perspective, that there's no partiality in God. He condemned his own when they didn't. This is Jerusalem he was talking about. It was his own people that was going to be cast out. You have to have that ability to hate your mother, father, sister, brother, anything that's not of God that's the right thing to establish the things of God. In the book of Hosea, the fourth chapter, the 11th through the 12th verse, we see the influence of the world. It says, whoredom and wine and new wine take it away the heart. My people ask counsel at their stocks and their staff declared it unto them. For the spirit of whoredoms have caused them to err and they have gone a whoring from under their God. It reads in the amplified version, prostitution, wine and new wine take away the mind and the spiritual understanding. You notice that it says wine and new wine. we've discussed wine on several occasions or whatever. But my people consult lifeless wooden idols and their diviners one wave ones giving them oracles for spiritual prostitution has led them astray, both morally and spiritual prostitution. In other words, eating of both tables. In other words, you're eating, you're spiritually compromised. In other words, following two or three different religious beliefs or belief system or whatever. He tells us to try the spirits, whether they be of God. If it's not of God, you need to leave that alone and resist it and remain steadfast against that, but not delve into that or help build up that spirit. That's what Solomon did. He married wives and he started building them temples. He built temples to Chemosh, to Asterix, to Moloch, and to all of his wise foreign deities and to their gods. It's like Ahab that he followed his wife Jezebel in Baal. He didn't establish the true God, so he did an evil of higher than other people. And this was during the time of Hosea and Amos. These were prophets that lived in Jerusalem in the south, but they came up to testify, prophesy against the northern kingdom that God was a about to take them into captivity because of their way of life. The same thing he's doing with us nowadays. He's sending his people to speak before us, that we speak. We were just not telling you, we were just talking before Bible studies. about certain things within specific communities and whatever. Do you really get tired of seeing it on the news and everything about this church is having this drive for this and the community is going to get together and do all these things? There's no power they're having in doing those things because the crime rate among the black community, we're killing more of one another with what we are doing within our own communities or whatever. At a time when wickedness is at its most, he sends prophets. They are true preachers within the community, within the church communities that's actually speaking against this, but they are more that has spiritual drunkenness and have a worldly perspective. The churches are worldly churches and they are mega churches and everything, but it's a spirit of idolatry. It's a drunkenness that doesn't have a conversion factor. With all of the churches, all of the religion I see here in Baton Rouge, but there seems to be no spiritual power to it in God. They have a form of religion. But we don't see the love of God in this. What we see largely is a people that's drunken. spiritually drunk. Undoubtedly, the Israelites of Hosea's day were literally getting drunk and involved in holiday, but for us today, the application is spiritual. Not that they're not doing the same thing on drugs and alcohol and their hormone. The greatest percentage of churches and things accepts these things. How many parents allow their daughters to stay at their houses and things with young men that they're not married to? Oh, well, we engage you. That's my boyfriend or whatever. It's still fornication. They're still under that roof or whatever. They're not married. It's fornication. How many churches have partners and people that are in those churches that are not married and they're not standing up saying, well, look, this is not biblical and it's presenting the wrong idea throughout the community for the church to embrace these things. So, not only was spiritual fornication and adultery prevalent, it was manifest in the physical. And that's what I tell you. You see things in the physical before you could see it in the spiritual. But it's going on in the spiritual. That's the demonic activity that's behind the scenes. The spiritual blindness, the demons, the angels, the demons of Satan has transformed themselves into ministers of light. So that's what's running the communities and the churches nowadays. Those that are spiritually drunk, intoxicated with the wine of Babel, the spirit of fornication. At the end time, God predicts his people will be deceived by a force near demonical in its deceptive power. And we see that today, that people are carried away with political leaders and religious leaders to the fact that we see that the church is greatly falling away. And that's what's prophesized the apostasy of the church, the falling away of the uprightness. And that's what we're preaching on. yesterday about the plumb line being set, that he was going to judge those in the church and judge those according to the standards of God, according to the word of God, which weren't effectual in his people, because how can someone lead you if they're blind? The blind lead and the blind and they're both falling in the ditch. The prophets are drunken with the spirit of this world, with material gain. With material perception, a lot of them making money off these different movements that the world had. Because of their closeness to the world, they share the great harlot's attitude. They're drunk with the wine of her fornication in Babylon's Revelation 17 and 2. They're drunk with the wine of their spiritually intoxicated. And we're seeing this manifested in the physical. Hosea's word picture illustrates the effect of a drug like alcohol having on a person's mind. Under the influence of alcohol, one's reactions are slow, even though that person thinks he is in control. And so we go about seeing that the people's vision obscured by religious beliefs today. That happened what we see with this last administration and these last five or six years where the church have gotten so politically involved, they have become spiritually callous. They can't empathize with others. They have become oppressive. They can't see themselves, so they power on in this way. God being abdicated away from them, turn them over to reprobate minds and they can't see themselves going off of the cliff. That they have turned away from God. That's the way Judah was. That's the way Israel was. That's the way God's people were. That's the way they are now. They are blinded. The God of this world have blinded their mind. When one cannot think clearly, a sound judgment is nearly impossible because there's no clarity to your understanding And the Word of God is the only thing that can give you wisdom, knowledge, and clarity of understanding, a sound mind with sound thinking. Now linked to this inability to make sound judgments is the destructions of inhibitions, modesty, and restraint. You see most church people now in their dress, in their talk, in their defense of others, of what others are doing, has become desynthesized. They're allowing things into the church that through rap music and all this other music to appeal to win people to the church, in other words, to the body of Christ, they're using unsound measures which bring about unconverted souls into the church. We have more unconverted people in the church now than at any other time. That's why it was so many. He says many in that day was going to come in saying that they're doing religious things that he's not going to have any knowledge of them because they never were saved. They never were converted. They were introduced into a false Christ and to another Jesus. This was by the false prophets and drunkenness and their ability that God had turned them away that they couldn't see him. They couldn't understand him. He had sent this strong delusion where the people were believing a lie. They were believing something that had no factual basis in the truth. His Word has a factual basis in the truth whereby that's the faith that we go by is the Word of God. The Word of God has never been disproven. Everything in the Word of God has come true or has some factual basis in reality. That's the faith that we follow, and that's why Peter says we have a more sure word of prophecy, his word, and what he said. See, that's what had been a challenge all the time, as the devil said, had God said. Yes, God had said and it had come about. In addition, alcohol produces a false sense of security and confidence. So people do silly and senseless things while drunk and regret them along with their hangovers. Same thing with religious. A lot of people get into churches that get into religious ascetic and get carried aboard and it produces a false sense of security that you could do anything and still be forgiven of Christ. That you can continue in sin and that grace would abide. but they don't read that he who nameth the name of Christ let him forsake or depart from iniquity and establish the truth in righteousness by faith help establish the law of God. The same process occurs to a person drunk with the wine of the wrath of this spiritual prostitute, this Babylon, this false religion. The attitude of this world deprives people of their spiritual judgment and removes their spiritual inhibition. In other words, their lack of respect for their elders, their lack of respect for authority, their lack of respect for the truth. where everybody has his own opinion and his own truth. Everything is up for debate. Well, with the church, it wasn't so. Notice that Jesus didn't hold debates with Peter. He didn't hold debates with the Pharisees. Jesus spoke as one with authority. So he said what he said. It was either that or nothing. He didn't leave it to the thing, well, you could be right or this one could be right. No, he says I am the way I am the truth and I am the light because I'm speaking the Word of God and with that Authority, I'll establish my team. So that's how we go about establishing the things of God not arguing and not getting to striving with individuals of people and that's what the apostles had to learn and Their resistance to evil weakens, and they will begin to do things that they vowed they never would do. Like a drunken man's fidelity to his wife is destroyed by wine, so is a Christian's loyalty to God when he imbibes of this world's attitude. his judgment is shattered. Once he starts giving in to these little nuances of what it inches in, the small foxes start destroying the vines. Instead of looking for pure conversion, instead of a strong, sharp word of God, instead of a sharp rebuke, everybody leaves the truth to be relative, or the truth is objective, and it's not. The truth is absolute. So when you saying a thing, everybody has a voice today, everybody has something to say. But everybody could be wrong that saying something only the word of that's why it says, let every man be alive with the word of God is the truth. So sooner or later that you defending that that you and spousing may trap you. because you are adopting a philosophy of the world, or you defending a race, or you defending an ideology, you defending a political belief, whereas we're supposed to be ambassadors of Christ, we should be neutral, and we should speak those things that's become sound doctrine and that we know. That's why the apostles say, we speak that what we know. A major key to understanding the application of both Hosea and Amos to us is that both prophets prophesized in Israel, the ten northern tribes, in an era similar to that in which we live today. But in the last generation before a major national calamity, in their case it was before the people of Israel were invaded by the Assyrians and they were taken away and they were lost. Isaiah was prophesying before Babylon came in and destroyed them and took them away to Babylon. Well now, there are true prophets of God that speak in the Word of God, true preachers of God's Word that speak in prophetical words of God, that this nation will be destroyed. It doesn't seem so wild as it was when I was saying this six to seven years ago that the unity of the nation would be taken away as Zechariah said he'd lose the two bands, that of unity and the bands of unity and grace, that common grace being removed. That this nation, its Arab Spring was coming, and it's yet dividing and dividing evermore. You won't see that unity again in this nation. Those churches that's preaching a great revival and all this stuff, it's not gonna happen. Christ preached the destruction of this world and the advent of another kingdom coming in. The advent of the kingdom of God that he would come in and destroy those that destroy the earth. Destroy those that were in the church and condemn sin in the flesh. That's where his judgment comes. So a lot of people in the church not preaching and believing in a literal second coming of Jesus Christ. They're not preaching and believing in a literal destruction of all that's evil and wicked and that these people will be cast into a burning hell. They're not preaching judgment and turning away from sin, but they're making the people comfortable in their sin. They're making them comfortable in their ways. It's just like it come along with the virus and I was reading their data later at the lakes that they changed their visitation policies back because of COVID. COVID has never left. It's still here, but now it's coming back with a vengeance. They say, well, our visitation policy is back to where it was during the pandemic. You could only have one visitor unless it's in the children's hospital or whatever, where they can have two aggressive, the parents or whatever. what's happening with the vaccine, what's happening with the pandemic, that it's growing more among young people now than it was previously. It's among children and younger people, and not as hard in the adults. Those that have been vaccinated, it's not as hard with it, but they're seeing, but they're not discussing it because why? The people had been warned. They had been warned to flee, just like the people, God had warned the people. Elijah come preaching and warning the people to turn. Those that heard Elijah, but there will be those that can't hear that message and don't understand it. And he told Elijah it could be those that hear and don't understand it. That's why I say you don't argue with anyone over anything. A servant of God doesn't argue and doesn't strive. Either you believe or don't. I don't know what the premise of what your belief lies in. Does it lie in somebody without knowledge or lack of counseling or does it lie in something that's born of God? So we're not hearing about these things, but Kansas and destroying, I don't know if you heard about Missouri or whatever. These hospitals has pre-pandemic levels of hospitalization. There are more dying each day in these hospitals. That's the only way a room could become available in Missouri or Kansas if someone died from it, and they are dying from it. but it's not being advocated because you'll cause a panic among the people. You'll cause those that really trust and believe to stop believing because of the misinformation. There's always been misinformation out there and that's what they're saying now. The misinformation about the pandemic is causing a lot of people to die. It's causing a lot of problems, but it's the same way with religion. Misinformation or false prophet or false teaching is more deadly to you than no teaching. Because what it does, it and scouches, and it grounds you in the wrong thing. It grounds you into what's false. And as it grows, do you know there's a larger number of people still believing that the election was rigged and that it was false or whatever? As disbelief grows among people, it's a deadlier. You have planted this in their mind. It's like inception. You have planted this idea. They didn't know that this idea didn't come from them. That's not the idea. Somebody planted that idea in their mind. But it's growing to influence them. And that's what false religion does. It's that seed of doubt that's planted. Whereas the word of God is the word of faith that's planted in you and grows to everlasting eternal life and more surety in you. Whereas the word of the world causes you to fear, causes you to believe that you're on your own and you're left to fight this thing and not knowing that God is right there with you fighting this thing. So they're not sowing the word of God, they're sowing seeds of doubt. So before this calamity that's coming, God's preachers are loudly preaching the word of God, but the prudent are preaching it in such a way that they're not arguing and they're not advocating it because those that shouldn't have it are getting hold to it. Some people shouldn't have the Word of God because they turn and run, rearing you on the foot with it. The most deadly thing to some churches is people that had left churches and that know the Word of God, they use the Word of God as a hammer, as something to toxicate and influence others, and that's how cults arrive. That's how so many people have died, thinking that Jesus, you remember this thing with Campo or whatever, and these people that promised Jesus was coming back at this time or whatever. The Jim Joneses and all these other people, they have a great influence over these people and they come intoxicated with the David Koreshes of the world. They become intoxicated. At one time, Oral Roberts told the people he had seen a 900 or 600 foot Jesus saying that he was going to kill him if he didn't raise I don't know how many millions of dollars. People believe those things. People are open to believe the things because people look for things to worship or feel that they have to worship something if they're not worshiping the true God, they're worshiping false gods and idols. Historical records and archaeological finds show that Israel was quite prosperous at the time. A major power in the world, you know, from Solomon all the way down through Manasseh or whatever, They were a world power at that time. Simultaneously, the nation was morally rotten to the core. Social injustice was the order of the day throughout the land. The Israelites at that time were literally getting drunk, as it reports in the Book of Amos 6 and 6. They was drinking wine by the bowl full. Yet a more spiritual drunkenness guided their conduct. In addition, they practiced ritual holiday of the pagan religions they had adopted. In the last six months or so, there have been occasions where three or four 15-year-old young men have killed people at parties or whatever. One hijacked a nurse the other day at the Lady of the Lake Religion or whatever. And these are young people. These are teens. These are people in our communities or whatever that's gone astray. we see the nation is rotten to the core. The laws have no effect on the people because those that are judicially applying the laws will corrupt themselves. Those that are making the law, and the courts have become oppressive. So when you're looking for justice and it is not in the courts, you remember we were reading Solomon last week, and he was showing that the courts were unjust. The nation had become rotten to the core. Solomon, during that time, he had oppressive taxes on the people, and that's why the people had asked his son, Rehoboam, to lighten the load. But taxes wasn't the answer. Prosperity wasn't the answer. There are plenty of prosperity now, but I don't know if you're seeing the reporting and are you spiritually attuned or aware that a lot of jobs that are not coming back with this pandemic, a lot of employers and people have learned that you could work these jobs remotely and a lot of them could be doled out to automation and robots and things. Mankind is at a boundary here to where the advent of Christ is soon to come. We're not preaching and teaching this. We don't actually believe in a literal judgment of God and that the church is going through judgment. Now that judgment has begun with the house of God. The lesson for us is spiritual. As I said, it's about spiritual drunkenness. It's about spiritual fornication. God is saying that at the end time, it will be as if this demonic power has seized a nation. They don't believe in the truth. That Republican Party that once believed in the truth, a lot of the people have abandoned the jump ship and said, this party is not what it used to be. It has metamorphosized. You know, the Republican Party was once the Democratic Party, and then they became the Republican Party, and now they're changing again. see because there's different influences coming and the worst thing now that they are hiding behind religious. It's a religious influence, and that influence goes all the way back to the creation of the nation with the founding fathers, which were deists. A lot of those use religion, but a lot of them were deists that believed that God had created the earth and the world and all of the governments and things within, but had left it to its own mechanism, to its own running. So what we have here is like the time of judges, everybody doing what's right in their own eyes, and everybody having an opinion. That's a problem when each and every one of us can have our own opinions. That's why he says, let that same mind be in you that is in Christ Jesus. That's why he says, our thoughts are not like your thoughts. It's a weird thing to think what's in the mind of a whole lot of different people. causes different alliances. You don't hang or be around people that don't have the same views as you or don't see things as you. You tend to be unequally yoked in and you have to have a distinction between that because that's a deadly thing to unite with people that has a panacopia, a panacea, of different things running through their minds and everything. So there's some of them with no empathy. Some of them has a fiendish mind of taking over, a power grab, a thing. There's a whole lot of conglomerate of things that can run the gamut of human thinking. That's a dangerous mind feeling. That's why God says the thoughts of man is why the imaginations of man is why he destroyed the world in the beginning. because they were evil continually. It wasn't thinking logically. It wasn't sound judgment. They were drunk and they were intoxicated by world thinking. And that's what's happening now. We influenced by the world. You notice everybody seems mad about the bite your head off over here. Nobody respects the others of thinking of it. And it's an attitude. It's a world attitude that describes this world. You can see the underlying attitude. Even as drugs destroy a person's capacity to think and clearly break down resistance to even so, but it clouds the mind and becomes they become morally stupid. So does the spiritual drunkenness that result from a person allowing himself to drink in this world's way. Instead of turning off the TV, well, we've got to watch something. Everything's on. But you might come, if on a godly belief or something, you might come to a whole different ideology or get a different thing out of a program if you godly than what the other people intend. Because the program's intent influence you to follow this world's way. the follow the world's way, the things of the world. It has two programs on, and both of them, with the star of those programs on or whatever, if somebody's watching them or whatever, I always say, that guy's an idiot, ain't he? He has some idiot or somebody that doesn't have good sense as the hero. Some well-founded guy as the hero and he's trying to make you sympathize and start following that misguided individual who shouldn't be a leader, who shouldn't be in this position. Well, that's the same thing within the church. There are a lot of men that are preaching in churches or whatever, because their father was a preacher. Somebody said that there was a preacher, this and that, that shouldn't preach. There's a lot of people love to hear themselves talking in church. If they get a chance, they're going to have something to say, but just nothing. Everybody, hey, what are you talking about? What's going on? But they think they're sounding good saying those things. And they had one guy like that here or whatever. And one of the ladies says, now look, don't come in here with no crazy questions or saying a lot of things that you already know the answer to or don't nobody understand or whatever. Just because you believe you sound and believe in it doesn't mean everybody else does. But you have to be aware of those charismatic individuals who are capable or influencing or drawing others to themselves off of a lot. Paul told you there would be grievous wolves entering into the flock seeking to draw away believers after their own selves to get a following. So you have to watch what you allow to get a foot on in your life. So an escape into fantasy of this world's attitude and conduct deprives a person of his understanding, removes inhibition, inspires false confidence, even bravado plays havoc with modesty and restraint. and destroys loyalty within relationships. What did I say, then? It's a mouthful of nothing, right? No, it's not. What it is is you have all these movies where this little skinny 90-pound woman or this individual is leading. They didn't kill I don't know how many hundreds of people. There's one person that took a sidearm that should be used to shoot one way or whatever. Some Arnold Schwarzenegger, Die Hard guy that eliminated all these people or some fast and furious thing. That movie franchise is making money hand over foot. But do you notice that the people that follow those kind of things usually is just the average individual. Anybody with the intellect or intelligence really don't follow those movies because that's just kind of frivolous entertainment. that stage the can things. This Van Diesel and all that that has these following and everything. A lot of women are people that's thinking logically. Get away from that. You go play video games and this other stuff or whatever because it removes you from reality. It places you into a fantasy land. It makes the hero and everything. And that's what has happened in sports or whatever. That's why you have one-man sports teams or whatever. But I was telling you, it seems like the NBA is bringing parity in the league. It's good that when it ain't Seth Curry and LeBron James and all of them are not in the playoffs or whatever. It's more teams in there now with players that are more team players and it's not just one individual or whatever. That's how it is with the body of Christ. It's no one superstar preacher. Everybody following this preacher and that preacher. And that's what Paul was saying during that day. Some say I'm a Paul and I'm a Apollos or whatever. If you've got people that's hung up and following preachers or whatever, you've got a lot of people that's not converted. Because you're not hung up on the Word of God. You're not listening at the Word of God. You know what really gets me during the week? Is listening at a lot of different preachers and realizing how many preachers out there preaching the Word of God that we don't know anything about. See, because it's the Word of God that you're hungry for. You're not hungry just because his name is Joel Osteen or T.D. Jakes. That means that that person could tell you anything and you'll believe it, not that it's the word of God. You're going off his name. That's what you're buying, a name. You're not buying a religion. You're not buying a belief system or walking by faith in God's word. So what did he say? What did he preach to you? Well, no, I'm just going to pay to go see him. I'm going to pay to get in. It's just like an Apple computer. Apple could put a name, Apple on a rock, and people would buy it just because it says Apple. You know, they come out with a new phone, a new computer, just because it's a Macintosh, just because it's a Smith. Not that Micah Jordan has the best tennis in the world, but it's the name that they're buying. They just want, I'm buying Jordan's, or my son's wearing Jordan. It's the name you're buying, not that that's the best tennis shoe out there or whatever. You're buying the name. But it's only one name that you can count on, and that's the name of Jesus. That's the only name. You're drunk or you're intoxicated with this world and the idols, these false idols and these things that make you think if you get a pair of Air Jordans that you can play like Micah Jordan, that you can run, leap, and jump buildings in a single bound, that you get this kind of car that you can drive like Van Diesel or something. Well, no. No, come back down the road. False teachers and their doctrine have adulterated the church. Absolute purity is replaced by whatever is taught by your church, and that is, whatever is right in every man's eye was right. But that shouldn't be in the book of God. I mean in the judgment of God this new wine Let's talk about the new wine Matthew 9th chapter 14 through the 17th verse one day the disciples of John the Baptist came to Jesus and asked him Why don't your disciples fast as we do and as the Pharisees do? And he says, should the bridegroom, friends born, and go without food while he is with them? Jesus asks, but the time is coming when I will be taken from them, time enough for them to refuse to eat. And who would patch an old garment with unshrinked cloth? For the patch would tear away and make the hole worse. And who would use old wine skins to store up new wine? For the old wineskins would burst with the pressure and the wine would be spilled and skins ruined. Only new wineskins are used to store new wine. That way both are preserved. I'm not getting into the analogy of that. I think we've covered the analogy of the wineskins and the old wineskins and adding a new piece of cloth or whatever. That's a different point that we were looking at here. The new wine, the new wine represents the inner aspects of a Christian's life. That's what we're looking at. Everybody with me here? The new wine represents the inner aspect of the Christian's life. And the new cloth pitches outward conduct in conversation. The new cloth pitches outward conduct in conversation. a person's behavior reflect his commitment, seen in the illustration of attaching new cloth to old clothing. If there's no change in a person's actions or the way of the things that he does, then what you're trying to do is you're trying to take a new teaching of Christ and a new way that God has given us and patch it onto your old lifestyle when that old lifestyle has to be discarded. that's where repentance comes in and turning away your whole new creation in Christ Jesus so that attitude and conduct has to change you can't be the same you can't follow that same crew you used to follow your conduct your outward conduct and conversation has to change you can't say a lot of foolish talking and Everything changes. You see what I'm saying? A lot of people say, well, I'm the same old me. I just go to church. No, no, no, no. That's where the winning the people that you're trying to go to the bar rooms and win the drunk and go to the motorcycle club and win the motorcycle people and go to the rappers winning. No, it's the word of God that stays consistent and you have to change. He don't take you just like it is. He's going to change you. He's going to give you a new heart in a new way. It's going to be a new walk. You're going to walk this way. You're going to walk his way. There's a new way of living when it comes to Christ. The old clothing, our sinful, selfish life, cannot be mended but must be replaced. That self-centeredness, that old man has to die. He's replaced by the new man. That's the old cloth you can't patch it in. He has to die. He's not right. He's a child of the devil. That nature, that old nature died daily. Paul said, I died daily. That's not me anymore. The new cloth is a righteous life. We was talking about that yesterday, right? The righteousness of Jesus Christ. That's something he impugned unto you. And that's what I say. A lot of people hadn't had his righteousness impugned unto them. It can't be your own righteousness, which is his filthy rags. You have to have this righteous life, and that only comes by doing right and walking in the right way. And the only way you can do that is God's standards and laws, because His law is righteousness. All of His laws is what is righteousness. That's what Paul was saying about the law that is holy, pure, and just. We couldn't keep the law, so God gives us of his son, who gives us of him, births it into us by faith, gives of his self, his spirit in us, places it in us, his righteousness. And that's the only way we can do that is in His righteousness, not our righteousness. It is Christ in us, the hope of glory. The Pharisees' ritual of fasting was an old argument for which a new piece of cloth was useless. So it's not a form or way of going about fasting and looking like you're doing this or whatever. I don't want to get off too far into that, but we understand that, and I'll tell you about the new wine. We're looking at this old wine, and that's what the people are full of wine, but it's the wine of Babylon. It's not the wine of Jesus Christ. That's why it says, unless you eat of my body and drink of my flesh, you have no life. spiritual drink. We're talking spiritual drink here sister Harris. Matthew 26 chapter sister Jackson the 39th and 44th verse. And he went to love father and fell on his face in prayer and saying oh my father if it'd be possible Let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will But as thou will and he cometh unto his disciples and finding them asleep kind of like I am today I'm kind of finding my disciples asleep and he said unto them and the peter What could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak Now what was up with this? What was this cup that he said, shall I not drink of the cup? Oh my father, this cup may not pass away from me except I drink it, thy will be done. Hmm, what was that cup Jesus might pass from him if it was his father's will? Was he in a moment of weakness asking his father to prevent him from? going through the coming hours of physical torture because that's what he had lived for. You remember he said that was the reason he was born and he had came here. This is not what he was considering because he had the fullest knowledge. You remember he told Peter that he must go and die for the sins of the world and that how he was dying, this agony, this death on the cross that he knew he had to face. The physical agony, pictures like Passion of Christ or whatever, remove that. They place a lot of it on that, but they're removing the spiritual aspect of it. If we're talking about a spiritual drunkenness, When we're talking about spiritual, let's not just look at the physical part of this because the day it's been eating at me spiritually about some things. They called me this morning or whatever, my niece that I asked y'all about last week, I don't know where had he heard from, she passed this morning. And then my brother, his son is in hospice. and that he may not last very long. It's been eating at me spiritually about these things. Just like Jesus, these things, it says he was asking for the cup to pass for him. He had spent a lifetime preparing for this. And that's what I say, we spent a lifetime in preparation for salvation here. And I told you, salvation is a process. So I don't see us ducking around suffering. We know we have to suffer to end the end. And that's what I was thinking about my sister, because she had to remain behind because of her physical health. She couldn't go with them to California to where my niece was. And that's a perplexing thing or whatever, because how do you tell a mother that you can't go and see your daughter off? You know, I'm not a mother, I'm only a father, but I see what the agony my mother went through when my brother passed, and she was crying, and me and Stacy was talking about it, about the agony she was going through when she was saying, this is not fair, Lord, that a child go before the parents. How hurtful that is. Can you think about my nieces and nephews that had to tell my sister, well, we can't take you, we're just gonna be us in the car or whatever, and we have to drive because of her incapacitation, that you can't go to see your daughter off, the person that you had brought into this world. That's why I say empathy, and that's why Jesus was acquainted with our grief and our suffering. See, Peter and them wasn't agonizing. They were weak to the flesh. And that's why it says the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is what's weak in us. And you see, that's a choice and a decision, you know, because, you know, you want to see your child and you, you understand, that's the last time you will see that individual. how hurting this must be. I was talking to my brother and I was telling him, you know, don't just sit up there the whole time, you know, because you're seeing someone waste away and it's nothing that you can do about it or whatever. You might have to go home and do a little something around the house or something to try to keep your mind because you're just sitting in there in a room or whatever and see this happening or whatever. So God had put us down here, and that's what Jesus came because he could empathize with us. And see, God can't do that. That's why we look unto Jesus. That's why he gave us, because Jesus had suffered like we've suffered in what we were going through. He was agonized, see, because at this time, what the cup that was being placed up on him was Hosea. was my sister's seat. It was my niece's seat. It was my seat. All this was placed upon him. He was feeling all of this placed upon him. That what was in the cup. All of this in that cup. Most of us have had some time we had to drink something that tastes horrible and bitter. And we were saying, you know, you try to rush it down or whatever. You try to hurry up and swallow it. But this had to go at a specific pace. In other words, you had to be paraded from pilot to heritage court. He had to hang down that cross for a certain amount of time. How painful and agonizing it was, that was sin. That's where the devil messed this thing up because he had never been without the Father. He was the only begotten of the Father. In other words, that's deity taken out of deity. But when our sins, when all of this was placed upon him, God can't look upon sin. God came, what you're in darkness. God is not in darkness, he's in light. If God came in the darkness, the darkness would go forth because God is light. In him is light. So that's why he says, my father, my father, why art thou forsaken me? He had to go a place God wasn't. He was in the grave, he died. God couldn't go with him in death. God can't die. Jesus died on the cross. No matter what religion teaches you that he's sworn in, he wasn't. As a man, he died. He died and he stayed in that grave. He says, don't be just like Jonah was in the bed. He was in the grave three days and three nights. He was dead. That's because he trusted and believed God. That's why God raised him up, because he had that faith. He went into death and he tasted death for each and every one of them. If he hadn't died, he hadn't redeemed us from death. That was in the cup. I was seeing all those sins that we committed were future. It was placed upon him. He was agonizing. You know, that's what I've been thinking about the time me and Gwen and the help she's given me and the things that we've done together. My little niece said, you know, telling around the things we grew up as boys and things together and what we've seen or done and now he's sitting there and his son's dying in front of his face. That's a hurting thing. My niece called and said, I know you have surgery, but would you be able to do the eulogy? I said, well, I wouldn't have surgery before I did that eulogy. I need to be available for the eulogy. I need to say something for her. You see, God put us down here to have feelings and compassions and things. And we can't be intoxicated. That's why he took the brunt of it. He wouldn't drink of the wine, the vinegar, the gall, because he wanted to feel the full brunt of sin. So are we not feeling the full brunt in loving one another? If I'm not crying and hurting about my sister not being able to go and see her daughter off, my niece called me and they say as soon as they pulled up there around 4.58 this morning or whatever in California, she passed. But you know, you as the parent, you wouldn't have been there because you were there, you brought it to the world. See, and Christ said, if this cup could pass from me, but he says, nevertheless, thy will be done. He was going through that, the suffering. By prior agreement, his father, with his father, Jesus would at this time voluntarily draining an enormous cup of spiritual drink. That's what he was drinking, which was ultimately a healing medicine. for mankind, but at the same time, it was a deadly poison. It's just like taking that shot. That shot, some people might have a side effect from that shot, but that shot could make you be able to resist the virus. That medicine that you take, and that's why it says eat up the cup. If you eat up my flesh, it's bitter, but it'll heal you. You know, in the old time, people used to make you take castor oil or something. Boy, that was a horrible thing to do, you know, or whatever. But it would work. Boy, I ain't seen nothing like that, that worked like that. Sometime it's a bitter pill to swallow, but it works on you. Sometime the word of God is hard to take. It's a hard thing that you say. It's a hard thing. That thing is hard, but it healed. It healed by his stripes, by these things. All this that Jesus has done is what spiritually healed us. It would awaken us and redeem us and brought us back to God. It consciously awoke us. This spiritual drink was a mixture of two ingredients that could not have been more repulsive to God or Jesus. The first ingredient was the sin of the whole world laid upon Jesus. That second ingredient was their separation from each other. You think it's hard for your child to die and leave? You think it's hard for your parent to die and leave? This thing with the father and the son, and he was innocent. And they had never, this separation. And God had, he says, my father, my father, why art thou forsaken me? And the reason was for you and I that our sin had caused that separation. That's why those that are born again, that's why we fight for the truth. That's why it's such a hard thing to see it trivialized by drunkenness or spiritual drunkenness and seeing people playing with the word of God, seeing people play with the blood of Jesus Christ or what it meant. Jesus' spiritual poison did not just taste horrible, it wracked his body, if you would read in his mind in 1 Corinthians 15 and 56 and Luke 22 and 44. Perhaps in agreeing to drink this cup, he even accepted a taste of the fiery faith of those who would never repent. We don't know, but we know that those of us that repent and turn to him, That our sins was laid upon him. He was that goat, that scapegoat that bear away our sins. So all that we've done, that's why we don't continue in sin because that's what's laid upon Christ. Well, we would be adding to that. We know we would be adding to what Christ had did. Now, in intended to go further, I have about this cup and eating. I'm gonna have to pick this up on Wednesday night, another time. But that's why it's sobering as we drink the cup in that we become sober and vigilant because it makes us more aware of death and not fear death because he tasted that death for us. And that's why Peter went back and preached to his brethren or whatever, because with that preaching and teaching, death loses its sting. The victory is taken away from the grave. But it's only to those that are in Christ Jesus. That's why we can stand. And know that he has the power and authority to deliver us from those things. That's why we don't confuse the gospel and tell people of some fairy tale that they're looking down upon us and they're doing this. No, they're dead and in that grave, but they're at rest with the Lord. They're sleeping in the Lord. And those that sleep with him will come back and be raised with him. Just like he was sleeping in the grave, the Father raised him from the dead. He shall raise us from the dead from resurrection and newness in life. That's why we believe in the resurrection. It's the power of God under salvation. It's that power that raised Jesus from the dead. And He rose up with all power. Heavenly Father, as we come