what it just said. This morning, I'm going to teach out of chapter 29 again, the spirit of drunkenness. And you need to understand what it's talking about, what's the central element that you're teaching about because biblically, in the language of the way the Bible was written, it's abstract thinking in a way that the spirit has to come in and open up your understanding whereby you can understand the scriptures, put it in its proper context. It's written to a spiritual man. The problem is a lot of times we read it physically in the flesh. The carnal man reads it and tries to place it in his own context or whatever. The problem with that is that it's not written that way. It's written to the spiritual man. So there are a lot of applications and things that happen in the Word of God. If you're looking at it now, I was listening to a lot of preachers this week. Going off on this chapter in a wrong way or whatever because it says woe to ariel To ariel the city where david dwelt Add ye year to year let them kill sacrifices Ariel is another name for jerusalem So he's warning jerusalem. It's a warning to jerusalem woe is a warning of woe is something that It's definitely coming, it's a judgment pronounced on someone. So you say, woe is me, a woe come upon someone. And he says, woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt. Add ye year to year, let them kill sacrifices. So in exposition, expositioning this, I can't break it down to its simplest nuance. I need to take out of it a place, a teacher on what I'm trying to get across here. And that's why, you know, you'll be turning to going through the Word of God and learning the Word of God. That's why there's a royal priesthood. We get accustomed to certain things and I'm trying to explain the chapter to you of what's going on here because I used to belong to a Baptist church for many a year, and the preacher would come in and preach. And back then, we didn't have the paperwork. I'll give you a scriptural outline, an outline of what's going on or whatever. But he would whoop and holler and preach. Sometime what that preaching does, what preaching does is lock you into a misunderstanding. That's what's been happening in these last five or six years, politically and religiously. The country has been locked into a misunderstanding, hearing something that you're not understanding, and it takes you further in the opposite direction. That's why a lot of times you can go and hear a feel-good sermon. The people are preaching or teaching. You can go to the megachurches, and it appeals to the flesh, the carnal man. That's what makes you feel good. It's an emotional thing. It feeds you. It's like eating good food, desirous food that you love to eat, like the leeks and the watermelon and the things that people enjoy coming out of Egypt. But they didn't really say anything about the broccoli of nutrients, like the manna or something that was good for you, but didn't taste as good. In other words, it wasn't as pleasant. The word of God is bitter sometimes to some of us. It's sweet with the insulin, so it yields better produce. But sometimes we're not getting the clarity and understanding, so that's what he told Isaiah. Before Isaiah was commissioned, and we talked about that in the first through the sixth chapter, he says, go and preach to these people, but they're not gonna hear you or understand you. And he didn't tell Noah that, but when Noah went and preached to the people, how long did Noah preach? 120 years. Noah preached for over 120 years. But notice that Noah didn't win converts. Noah had the same amount of people that he started with. That was his sons and daughters. Didn't nobody hear Noah with all of the preaching for 120 years? All of these people preached to, wasn't any of them converted. It didn't do them any good. That's what it says in the Hebrew, the word preached didn't profit them. The word preached does not profit in the people today. Then churches, it's thousands of churches out there. It's a lot of people go to church, but that doesn't help you. If you're not born again, if you don't have the spirit of God, none of this helps you. You have to have the Spirit of God germinating in you, growing, an ever-increasing faith, bringing you to a maturation in salvation, which is a process. so a lot of like i said a lot of preachers this week didn't understand it didn't tell the people well no this is condemnation to jerusalem ariel is jerusalem that's where the city of david stood the church in these latter days he's saying judgment is here i'm gonna judge the nation i'm judging your homes i'm judging your children and your people you know i was talking to one of my sons and he was kind of upset or distraught because of the young man that killed this homeowner in Zachary or somewhere. The boy was 17. He was going in to see this 14-year-old girl or whatever, and he killed the father or whatever. But that's the nature of what's going on in the world. The world is blinded, though preaching is going on, but they can't hear. A lot of people are reading and seeing the word of God. Listen at this, it says, yet I will dress, will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow, and it shall be unto me, it shall be unto me as Ariel. In other words, just like they are distressed and in sorrow, that's the way the nation is today. Well, that's what they're doing to God. As a parent, that's what the children had did to God. That's what Jerusalem had did to God. They were in a place where God had to cause this to happen to them. Because they would rebel against his word. He says, and I will camp against the roundabout, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise up forts against thee. He said he was gonna do it. This second plague that's coming, this pandemic, let's kill some more is what he said, and let's get some more. These things are from God. You don't think this is just happening, huh? The people are saying we could overcome this, we can do it. No, you can't either. No, you can't either because after this one it's going to be another one. That's why you see parts of the earth just burning and ravages and fires and things going. And you see the heat waves and things going. Hundreds of people dying from the heat waves and everything. You see water and floods and things in Europe and other places or whatever. How many damaged and destroyed all of the insurance companies and things. This is just the beginning of sorrows. This is pointing the people to look to God. But are they looking to God? No, no, they're looking to peace and prosperity. They're thinking about other things. And they have religion, but their religion is not doing them any good because it's not any conversion. They don't even understand the mechanics of what's going on. It's God doing this. For those that's going around that's resisting and say, well, no, we're not going to take the shot or whatever because we're skeptical. You're depending upon yourself. You're depending on self. Sooner or later, self's the way out. Self, there are a lot of them. We don't want to hear those that come back and say, well, take the vaccine. Me and my wife didn't take the vaccine. She died from it. Now I tell y'all, you're not a good spokesman or whatever. You just turning this way. You didn't got your wife killed. Now you just finally learned your lesson. Everybody else had learned that lesson already. So the governor of Alabama had said, it's the non-vaccinated that's causing this problem. Duh, we know that, but part of your hypocrisy with the Republican Party, y'all planted that idea into the people. Your president, all of them preached this about and against the vaccine. And people want to learn something, they can't unlearn it. So you preached and taught them error. Now they're hung up in error. It's hard to get out of error once you learn it. And that's why he's mad at the prophets and the preachers. That's why he says politically and religiously he has destroyed the nation. This is why it's coming up on the nation. That's why it's coming up on this nation. The key theme of this is that he had worn Jerusalem. The people had been worn. That's the key of this old chapter. The key thought in the chapter is, is the seeds of Jerusalem is prophesied that God had told him he was going to do this because it was a stubborn and hardheaded people and they wouldn't listen. I wouldn't listen to what God was telling me. It made me feel much better at the beginning of this pandemic when John McArthur and someone that I occasionally listened to or have followed for a while or whatever. I don't have to stop listening to this guy or whatever. He's gone bonk those or whatever. He was talking about against the pandemic, they hadn't developed the vaccine yet, but against government authority on what they were saying. But several months later he realized, and that's why I say I think he's a godly man or whatever. But then he realized his error and he started telling his people, listen to the government. We're not gonna have services here, you need to get the vaccine, you need to do these things, this is from God. We need to find out if something from God or somebody had preached to us another gospel, something that's deceptive. So the key thought was that this you had been warned or told, just like God had warned Cain before he did this. He said, sin lied at the door. If you do well, your sacrifice will be accepted. but if you don't do well it's not going to be accepted so here he says kill sacrifices they're offering up a lot of sacrifices and things but it does them no good he had told them back in the first couple of chapters now you need to go back and study those you see he said don't come before me with your burnt offerings and your prayers and all these things I won't hear and I'm not listening I'm not receiving this because your heart's not right you're not doing the right thing you're following popular theology You're studying what's popular and not listening at the word of God. So you honor me with your mouth, but your heart's far from me. That's not been a heart conversion. So he says he was going to come from them against him. He said, 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 the one that had a familiar spirit out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust. Moreover, the multitude of thine strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible one shall be as chaff that passeth away. Yea, it shall be an instant suddenly." I'm going to break all this down later on. as I can, but I want you to get the overall theme. So the enemies and those that go against God's true people. Now just because someone go against the church, go against the things of God, they're not necessarily going against God's true people because he's talking including in this in Assyria or whatever. But to accomplish his true purpose, he does need someone to kill or destroy those in the church that shouldn't be in the church, that are not faithful, those that he says judgment comes upon, those that are not walking or living in the faith, those that are Judas goats, because like I say, it's more people in the church that are not honoring, obeying God and doing what God says, but they know the Word of God. They ask Satan, they know the Word of God or whatever, but it profited them nothing because it's not mixed with faith. They are self-reliant. They're leaning on to themselves. That's what this last person did. They made the people a self-centered people. The focus is up on them and what they can do and not up on God keeping and protecting to keep themselves. He says, thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts with thunder and with earthquakes and great noise, which storm and tempest in the flame of a devouring fire. He says, this is gonna be the day of the Lord. God's bringing this judgment. This is revelations coming alive. This is Zechariah coming alive. This is the bows and the vows of God being poured out on the people. But they're saying, peace, God's gonna give it to you. No, it is God that's doing it to you. It's God that's doing it to you. It's like you were in Egypt, and when He poured out His wrath upon Egypt, He was able to save His people because His people were what? Covered by the blood. They had on the breastplate of righteousness. They were pulling off their own righteousness, but not necessarily complete. The Old Testament is not a complete picture of this because Jerusalem, Israel, they didn't make it out because it wasn't a spiritual people. Now in the New Testament, this new covenant, we're spiritual, we're God's chosen people spiritually, and that's why it says, to those that overcome, because all of us are not overcomers because we tend to listen to other voices. Become dull of here. We could be in the church hearing the Word of God, but other people get us off course We've become lethargic you see people in this church You'll see people that are slumbering in sleep. And so what we have witnessing physically here That's just a shadow what's going on spiritually the spiritual is what's real but the physical shadows what's going on in the spiritual he says The key thing to look out for in this whole chapter and to look out for as we go through is the Lord hates hypocrisy and He exposes it. So we see as a nation the hypocrisy of this nation is being exposed and have been exposed in this continual process. Verse 7 says, And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all they that fight against her and her munitions and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision. It shall even be as when a hungry man dreameth, and behold, he eateth. But he awaketh, and his soul is empty, as when a thirsty man dreameth, and behold, he drinketh. But he awaketh, and behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite. So shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion. Don't worry about it. Those that are coming up against you or fighting against you, God has them. God, that's Assyria, that's the enemies of the church, that's the enemies of the people of God. God's gonna destroy them as the chaff also. So that's why he was upset with the priest, because the priest wasn't doing that job of teaching the people. But the people were going to the churches or the synagogues, and they wasn't learning. What they were doing was they were attending and hearing the word, but it was of no use in their practical lives. They wasn't practically putting this together. They wasn't living this. They wasn't converted. There was no actuality in them of applying the word of God to their lives. So that's why he was fed up with this. Once he sends a prophet in, a prophet comes in to warn you of Unpending judgment to come that's why when Isaiah the prophets come they normally come with a message of doom Plus within that you'll have a message of restoration because a remnant he's not talking about all all the time He's talking about the majority But a remnant is doing right the other day when we were talking about the animals and in fact I was saying I will raise our people as a whole and Not saying all of the people. My neighbor came out this morning and said, well, I've seen that dog that you was talking about the other day. Well, the dog had been around my house. He had been around the other people's house, but he hadn't seen him, but he'd seen him the other day. Because sometimes if we're not observing in the physical, we don't see the spiritual that's behind that, that these are demons, these are shadows of what's in the people's lives. Dogs portray a lot in life. grass, everything, the symbolism in life is really large. And so that's what I'm trying to explain some of the symbolism behind this, that we're going through it. And what are you looking at physically? And hypocrisy, you can see hypocrisy. And I was telling you about Mitch McConnell and a lot of things that the Democratic and the Republicans were doing that's hypocrisy. You can see that physically, but then you have to have the spirit within you to start discerning the demons that are behind this, because we're wrestling against wickedness in high places and spiritual power. So the physical is not our enemy, but we need to be able to see these things. We need to be able to see this. And it's hard to get it through preaching and what preaching does. And he was telling Isaiah about this. It was going to dull their ears. They was going to hear a lot, but they wasn't going to comprehend it or understand it because They didn't receive the love of the truth. In other words, God didn't open up the truth in their hearts through the Spirit. The love of God had to be a shed abroad in your heart. He has to pour out His Spirit upon you for you to start to understand the Word of God. Because there are a lot of people, just like Solomon, he wanted to learn the Word of God or wanted to have the power the Word of God for people to admire Him. He wanted it for other reasons other than the gift that God would give. See, it's a lot of reasons people go to church. There are other motives and things in their lives. And a lot of times it's to talk down to others or belittle others. It's not the love of God shed abroad in their heart. There are other purposes and things they're working and doing things in church. God has to separate all these out. That's why judgment on the house of God. You can see those a God makes those manifest that are not right. There are plenty of people in the church that are not right. There are plenty of God's people that are dying, that are being persecuted, that won't make it through. But they have achieved the purpose of the place God wanted them to do. We can see those things and they won't reach certain levels of certain elevation. There's a lot of people that can't comprehend and understand and it's for them to know. whether they can comprehend or grow in the Lord. That's why He gives different people different hopes and various people in the Lord. He gives us different understandings. It's only He that opens up the understanding. Let me try to get to these last two or three verses so I can start on my message this morning, on my study this morning. It says, stay yourselves Stay yourselves in one, or cry ye out and cry. They are drunken, but not with wine. They stagger, but not with strong drink." Here the symbolism or whatever is about wine. He's talking wine, but like I said, this stands for the spirit. This is a spiritual drunkenness. This is a spirit of slumber. It's a spirit that stupefies. It's a spirit that causes you to be intoxicated are under the influence of. In other words, a lot of people are under the influence of misunderstanding. That's the biggest thing that the chief of the CDC was saying. So many people have placed misunderstandings out there. So who are you listening to? What news program? Who are you listening to or getting your messages from? What people in your community are you listening to? Maybe you're listening at the wrong ones that's feeding you wrong information and you get rooted and grounded. in that wrong information and you begin to fight against the truth. You're fighting against God because you're in darkness. You have become darkness. That's the problem with trying to grab hold of too many things. It says, for the Lord had poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep and had closed your eyes, the prophets and your rulers to see us had he covered. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book. It's like if I was to give you this book, that paper you were asking me about this morning, and I said, I didn't have time to explain this or whatever, and I give it to you. And you take it and you say, well, that's okay, give it here, I can read it and understand it. It says, for the Lord had poured out this, and its division has 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 said, I cannot read it, for it's sealed. In other words, if I gave you that paper, just like he told Daniel to seal up the words of the prophecy, but Revelation didn't tell John to seal it up. But that paper that I gave you, it could be detrimental to your life if you don't understand it, and it could be detrimental to others' lives, because you may not have the ability to read it or understand it. That's why back in the day it was so dangerous that they didn't want black people to read. And it was against the law for a black person to have a book or to read by a long time ago. The Catholic Church, it was against the law for the average layman or parishioner to have a Bible. It was against the law, you couldn't, the average person wasn't allowed to have a Bible or read a Bible because that would be dangerous. that was like a low self-cost, a power of life and depth is in words. That's what distorted the people. That's how the apostasy is in the world. So it's not a lack of having the word of God out there. It's a lack of proper teaching or understanding of the word of God. So as we lay around and we're asleep, we lack energy. because you're not spiritually attuned. So you as drunken people and a slipper, a stupor, are slumbering and sleeping. And God says he had poured out that spirit upon them. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which when men deliver to the one that is learned, saying, read this, he says, I pray thee, he says, I cannot, for it is sealed. And the book is delivered to him that is not learned to him this okay. Well, you're an unlearned person you read this I pray there and he says I am not learned. I don't understand this. I don't know this Wherefore the lord says for as much as this people draw near me with their mouth and with their lips do honor me But have removed their hearts far from me and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do marvelous works among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder for the wisdom of their wise men. shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden." So those that think they are wise among you will be destroyed. They will perish. The prudent or the wise people are going to hide. It's going to be hidden. That's why I was telling you, and that's why I tell you, some of this stuff is not for the world to understand. It's not for the other people to understand. The church doesn't give this to others. It's like the parable of the sower. Jesus came back and explained it to his disciples. Within there, he says, because it's not for them to understand. This is the most exclusive thing is the Word of God. You don't give that which is holy to the dogs. Everybody, it's not for them, and that's why he says hide this from them. Let me give you an example of physical blindness that mirrors spiritual blindness. Mark 8, chapter 22, verse 26. Then they came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man to Jesus and begged him to touch him. Taking the blind man by the hand, he led him out of the village, and after spitting on his eyes and laying his hands on him, he asked him, do you see anything? And he looked up and said, I see people, but they look like trees walking around. Then again, Jesus laid his hands on his eyes, and the man stared intently, and his sight was completely restored. And he began to see everything clearly. And he sent him to his home, saying, do not even enter the village. There was reasons for Jesus to pull this man to the side. There was reasons he told him not to go back to the village. You can't bring everybody in on what you're doing. Sometime, if you just have a little understanding, don't try to tell somebody else, explain this to somebody else, because they will put their two cents in. And with your two cents and their two cents, you're not going to have a complete nickel. It's just the before said, so there's no spiritual insight. God hadn't added anything to it. God has to add something. He has to get a clarity understanding, but they'll get you further off course. If they wanted to know this, they would be going to church. I don't usually sit with people that don't go to church and explain to them what I've read or what I've studied. Go get your own. Go study your own. You should be in church. Me and you don't go to the same church or travel in the same circle, so we shouldn't sit down and break bread together. And that is the word of God. We shouldn't discuss that together. You go out and go to your church and learn this. See, but that's what we're doing. That's what the churches are doing. That's what's happening house to house. That's why you're becoming blind. You should have no contact in that way with that individual. But that takes a lot of learning to understand that. It takes a lot of learning to understand. That's why a lot of what I'm saying, it's not for the general public or everybody. This a dawn on you. God will give you an understanding of it years later at different times or whatever. It's according to how you hung in and thirsting after righteousness. I have a niece that she talks to me from time to time. I see her from place to place and she texts me on Facebook or whatever. But she says she's a Christian. I didn't see a lot of stuff about Jesus, this or whatever. But I try to avoid her as much as possible. Because I don't know about the church that she's joined or whatever. The Bible-believing church that you join and say is of Jesus or whatever, it shouldn't be a cult. So if she came away from around her family and she don't attend the funerals, she don't attend or be around the people in the family anymore or whatever. But you say you go to church and you love Jesus and you always passing this around. But it's a hateful, spiteful Jesus that this nation's been learning about for the last four or five years. It's a Jesus that you don't forgive the evil or what people have done you in the past. If your relatives or people have done you something, you so resentful and bitter that you can't come around them and share in when another die. When something happens to another that you hate your family that much and you separate, that something's wrong with your religion. It's a cult that you're in. Somebody didn't need you something. That's that bad that you have you can't you're unforgiving person I don't want to blow me a really I don't even want to know what that's why I said I don't know much of where she attend or whatever because it's not right. It's unforgiving. It's bitter It's anger so other that we are sent to judge these things and this rise up against this So just like she don't want to be around them I wouldn't want to be around her because how can you love God if you don't love your brothers and The love of God hadn't been shed or brought in your heart. If you hate your brother, there's no way you can hate your brother and love God. It's not possible. So this man was blind. But listen, let me go on for, I got it on a repertory of that. Jesus healed many blind people during his earthly ministry. And four of them are recorded in different Gospels. But Mark alone records this miracle healing here that we are talking about. How could I not fall away from where Jesus had fed the 5,000? Now, the blind man had been brought to Christ by healing by some of his friends or his family and asked Jesus to heal. Well, before dealing with the man's blindness, Jesus separates the man from the crowd, taking him out of town and away from its inhabitants. Sometime you have to separate yourselves from the people around you or come out from among them. and be separate before things could happen. You can't keep holding up with the same crowd or associating with the same crowd of the people that you live around or be around. The neighbor I was telling you I hollered at this morning, oh that's one I'd ask you to pray for before or whatever, but I don't go to his house or we're not really that close or whatever because I don't understand what church he goes to or what following. I know his brother goes to a church or whatever, but I know he's good in some aspect as a neighbor. But religiously, there's a problem there. So you have to make sure that that person, that you have that person in a one-on-one situation the way you can deal and work with God because what you choose and decide may condemn you the rest of your life. Because now I've warned you. You remember Jesus took the adulterous woman aside and asked her where is the accuser who says go and sin no more unless a worse thing. With that warning it was worse than her not ever hearing it because he says go and sin no more unless a worse thing is going to happen to you. Now that put her in a precarious position. She had to grow for me, and she couldn't go back with this guy and say, well, look, I got off with it this time, or whatever, or go around the people, or whatever. She had a greater responsibility now that Jesus came in her life. When Jesus comes into our lives, we need to depart from iniquity. We have to turn. There's repentance required. You understand what I'm saying? There's no fear of God among us. That's what's happening to people. They don't fear God. They're still among those that are not fearing God because they don't want to be separate. They don't want to stand out in that crowd. Sometimes you have to stand out and let that light so shine. But as in another healing, he uses spit on this guy's eyes. He uses a physical thing. Because you remember with the centurion and the rest of them, he just spoke the word that faith was healing. But this time he used a physical spittle. He commands the man not to tell others what had transpired or what had happened. So when he commanded him that, the miracle illustrates important spiritual truth here. This miracle that he worked in this guy's life. Although the man may still have been able to sense light, he remained functionally blind. He can sense light around him, but physically he was blind. See, we can sense things spiritually, but we're still physical. God gives us but a little bit of faith. It's a process, in other words, He had to grow or stay focused upon Jesus and what Jesus had done. A lot of us don't stay focused upon the gospel of the preaching and teaching of Christ. We go back and get saturated in the world. A lot of us will leave here today and television will compose the majority of the rest of our week. Video games, talking with relatives and friends, Other things in the world are going to keep our focus away from Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ, when he first comes into us, that's our first love. That should be our focus, our main focus. Now you know, Sister Jackson, we have to learn that when we come out of the world, it's spiritual and physical, but let me go slow a little bit. Coming out of Babylon is not a geographical moving. In other words, you could be maybe within a crowd, but you're gonna need to separate from the crowd. He says, I'm leaving them in the world, but keep them from the evil that's in the world. So there has to be this spirit that's guarding you and protecting your life, or else blindness will come upon you, the world will blind you, and you'll become dull of hearing spiritual things. because your focus is upon hearing something that's within you and your actions and your faith makes this louder or makes this to hear clear. But if you're not focused in feeding and working toward that, faith has works, so if your faith is not working to those ends and those means of seeing Christ, growing closer to Him, drawing closer to Him, the world is going to impinge upon you, and you will be more the world in hearing the world, and you will be dull of hearing, because you can't serve two masters, you can't hear two things. you will have to start drowning the world out and staying focused upon Christ. He's going to give you that ability to live in the world but be focused upon Him, to grow spiritually. That's where your main focus is. That's where you live and that's where you dwell. His blindness, the second thing here, His blindness is a physical portrayal of spiritual, of moral blindness. indicating one who is incapable of discerning the spiritual and moral truths that are plain to those whom God had called. So, his blindness to Him was implicated of that everybody else see this clearly. But he can't. It's hidden from him. It's right around Him everyone else sees this. So right around us is God opens our eyes to see. There's a spiritual world all around us. Now I had this this week in a I'll tell you some people are converted and some are not Some of us can see into the spiritual world and some of us cannot see what it's hard to judge those Aspects, but I'm gonna come back to that but here in first Kings the sixth chapters of first King We're gonna start at the 15th verse here. I Elisha was spiritual and Elisha came along and he was helping out the king of Israel but the king of Aram wanted to destroy Elijah for telling his secrets of where he would be when attacking the king of Israel. So he sent men to get Elijah. Elijah was sending out. And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him and saved him twice. And therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore trouble for this day. And he called his servants and said unto him, will you not show me which of us is for the king of Israel? And one of the servants said, none, my lord, O king, but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel, the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber. And he said, Go and spy where he is that I may send and fetch him. And it was told him, saying, Behold, he is in Dothan. Therefore he sent hither horses and chariots and a great host, and they came by night and compassed the city about. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth, behold, and host, And whole host accomplished the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servants said unto him, Eliasmaster, how shall we do? And he answered, fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw him. Behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about him. And the Lord came down to him, and Elijah prayed unto the Lord. So we see here that if you walking spiritually in a lot she was walking in the spiritual realm so he can see the angels of god protecting he wasn't afraid it we're walking in spiritual life We can see God, know, have faith that God is with us and he'll never forsake us. So we won't have fear of what's going on in the physical realm. We don't have fear of man, of the circumstances, of the things that are around us. I didn't got inoculated with the Pfizer vaccine for the thing. Okay, but without that inoculation, my faith is in God and it's in the knowledge of God instilling man with the ability to help man walk uprightly and to help man to be cured to overcome. So with that vaccine, I have faith in them. Not that any one of y'all have less of faith because they say web mask is even to those that have health systems or compromised immune systems or side effects or something, even wear your mask, even if you've been inoculated. But you have a little bit more surety, plus you have faith, your faith in God, what is central, not the vaccine, not being inoculated against that. But then that gives you more of a comfort shield than walking in ignorance because the people like the governor said that are unvaccinated that are in Alabama and Louisiana is coming second and second or third place among those that are unvaccinated are causing the problem because where's their faith at? What is their faith lying in? Because every day you're having Republicans are the ones that hypocritically told them not to wear masks. And this was a hoax saying, well, this is no hoax. I've taken my shot. You need to go and take your shot. And they're coming around because it's no longer profitable to them to keep up the lie. They have to change now because they know it was a lie, but they love the lie because it was profitable unto them. But now what do you have hope in? Because now nobody's telling you that. They've told you the information they gave you is wrong. They are also that you know you're going against the word of God because what you're doing is harmful to others because you can cause your children or your parents or someone else to be sick. That's the argument that people have going to school saying, well, my children were vaccinated or inoculated against that. We all have to wear masks because your children could give it to my children. Yeah, you have a right not to receive the vaccine, but you don't have a right to give it to me or cause me to be sick. The government is telling you, we're going to door to door to try to help you with this because your First Amendment rights and your rights shouldn't impinge on everybody else. The unvaccinated is causing this problem. They're going against God, they're going against science, they're motivated by self. It's a wrong belief system because, okay, God says, tempt not the Lord thy God. So you know something is poison. We had a guy here that had high blood pressure and diabetes or whatever. But one of the preachers was telling him, you don't need that medication, just have faith in God or whatever. But you have high blood pressure and diabetes and you will listen to him, he don't have it. He's not the same as you, so you think you can overcome by having that? God didn't give you that kind of thing. He did die and everything, because you were listening at the wrong one. God had also put being here to help you. So without that vaccination, without that blood pressure medication, he did die. So there are many dying today because you listen at somebody else and you don't know what was their motivation for say If my motivation for teaching you is the word of God and I've been converted and I truly love you That difference from somebody that was teaching the word of God for a prophet or making merchandise of you that's why God closed the prophet's eyes and put them in darkness because Now you come in the church for the wrong reasons You following the money cometh people. You following prosperity. So you doing this to get gain, not because you love, not because you have the love of God. So all of these works that the people were doing, Christ says, I never knew you. Because these were self-centered works. It was works to be seen of others. so that's why he had blinded deal to their own purposes and what they would doing god blinds you god says that spirit of drunkenness on you you've got posted bail over your face so you can understand all of these little foxes have destroyed the vines all of these little things along the way have gotten you to drift off course and you didn't see where you drifted off course at His healing is unique in that it occurs in stages rather than instantaneously. That's what happened with this guy. Granted, the man born blind had to go to the pool of Siloam and wash his eyes, but once he did, he was healed. You remember the man, he was born, and he put that stuff on, he said, go to the pool of Siloam and wash, but once he washed, he was healed. But this guy, He did it in stages. Some sicknesses can be healed by degrees requiring a decisive blow to end them. So some of them can be overcome. Cancer, you can overcome it by degrees. With treatment, there are some cancers that go in remission and are removed. can go away. God can heal you of those things. God can heal you miraculously without the chemicals, but he can use the knowledge of man to heal you of those things. Of diabetes and all this, with the right diet, the right timing, and leaving alcohol and grain substances and different things, you can overcome being a diabetic. but the exercise in the demons must be accomplished entirely are you still demon possessed? so we're in a process of becoming holy it's not done eradicated overnight there are some, like I was telling you about there's some bitterness in things that has to be worked out and you've got us in a process and that's what I say is we have to see these Processes going on in our lives a leper is still a leper if the blemish remains So you have to be without a blemish or mark. That's why we go to church because the Word of God Constantly washes us and cleanses and we can see different things in us that makes us wrong But however blindness can be healed in stages Listen at this physically When you go to the eye doctor, we had one of our members that went to the eye doctor. First, you get a glimmer of light. He does that. Then more clarity, and finally, your vision returns. But that doctor's not gonna operate on you. And the first time you go in there, and then you will come out seeing clearly and very perfectly, it'll blind you. You believe that? How many have ever been in a dark room if it's black night and all of a sudden you walk outside in the sun and they say, oh man, that sun is blinding. Why? Your eyes has to get adjusted to the light. No doctor just opens up your eyes. He said, come back in a few weeks. As a matter of fact, they put different things in your eyes. That's why the eye drops that you're taking or the eye drops he tells you to take, it keeps your eyes from all of the light coming in because the rushing in of all of that light would destroy the nerves that he had repaired. Those vessels and things that can't be exposed to that light because that's why it says it's very important you put these different eye drops in It's very important that we continue in prayers very important that we work in certain ways because now we slowly or gradually see say I see me and it's trees and If he saw, he looks up indicating a natural inclination, you know, you look up and he said, but I see me in his trees. It reveals that he had not been born blind because he knew what trees looked like, right? But there was no clarity to what he was seeing. So he could precisely discern the shape. He couldn't discern the shapes and things of this, but Christ did something else to him a second time. So now he restored his sight, the restoration. That's what God's doing us. There's a birth, there's a conversion where God regenerates us. We receive by faith, that seed of faith goes in us. But it takes years, it takes a process of growing. But once we start rejecting the truth, God is placing the truth serum in us. But now you're gonna listen to this guy, now you're rejecting the truth. You're rejecting that which is how, you're rejecting the vaccine that could heal you. Now, granted, they say some people get The pandemic, that's what my wife was worried about, the reason she started wearing her mask again. She said, because even with the vaccine, this pandemic that we are fighting is extra strong. It can be transmitted back to those that has taken the vaccine. It won't make them as sick and they won't die. You see what I'm saying? So we will get dirty going back into the world or whatever. But since we've been born again or whatever, Satan can't totally destroy us. We have that which is in us that's able to keep us. We've been vaccinated against that disease that can kill us. We know that coronavirus can kill us. But now that we've taken the vaccine, we may get sick. We may be slowing down, but we won't die. It doesn't kill you. It may make you a little bit ill. It's according to your immune system. So sins would slow you down. We do fall. We do have lapses. But what God does, he says some of y'all that's in there that's causing these problems, that's preaching and teaching what's wrong, it's misleading. I have to take you out. That's why when you go to the Lord's supper, he says, that's why some of you sick and some are dying because he's doing this. He's destroying you. God's destroying you because you're none of his. You didn't belong in the church in the first place. So you were in the church, but you're being pruned out of the church. Just because you're sitting up in it, that doesn't mean you're one of his. He said, the children of the kingdom shall be cast out. What was your attitude? That's what I say. It's my niece's attitude and disposition toward others. She thought she was saved. Now you're kicking others to the side. You're treating others with contempt like you somebody. That's why he was condemning Jerusalem, because Jerusalem had had God's word, but they treated others with contempt and less likely. So God says, no, that's not the attitude of a true believer. That's not the attitude of a true child of God. Christ's method of healing shows a continuous process. At first, we cannot see God's truth clearly. Most of our spiritual blindness remains. But as our faith and our obedience and our growth develops, Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, He increases the clarity of our spiritual vision through the power of the Holy Spirit. He starts to removing. He sanctifies us. He's cleaning. He's cleansing and removing the blemishes. He's putting the eye wash in. You remember? He's told the lay of the sins that you need eye salve. I would anoint your eyes with eye salve that you can see clearly. See, because you thinking you seeing clear physically, but you're not. because you're not seeing in the spirits around. Everybody can see your hypocrisy. You can't see it because God had blinded your eyes. God has did this, not Satan, because Satan thinks having you thinking that you're smart, that you're wise, but God has confounded you with that. He says, the Laodicean didn't know that they were poor, wretched, and naked. What does the word naked mean? It's without a covering. People can see you for what you are. We can see your weakness. We can see you uncovered. But God covers us. He gives us his self as a covering. His righteousness. Your righteousness is a filthy rag. What you think you're righteous, what you are, you're self-righteous. And that's a filthy rag. Jesus touches the man's eyes again. This time his vision is completely clear. When ophthalmologists restore vision surgically, they allow their patients only a glimmer of light at first so that the optic nerve can grow accustomed to it being exposed to the full of light. Christ's significant double laying on of hands shows that his disciples, though mostly blind, Mark 8 chapter 16 through 8 verse, have begun to see. They had begun to understand But you have to continue in the word. You can't stop going to church. My nephew called me the other day and was telling me something or whatever. And at the end he said, I love you. It was like pouring garbage on something because the love was a love that's a cold hearted love. It was a love that you can't know what love is, you use it in the word love. A lot of Christians use that word love sparingly. It's not a gappy love, it's not a love that God gives you. Because you're living in so much sin, you using love, your perversity of life nullifies you using the word of love. You're using that because in your introversion, now you get to use the word love or tell another man love or whatever, and that's a self-pleasure to you. It wasn't out of a, you know, you have to use the word blessed with some other people, different things, because introversion has come into the church. If you're a pervert, are you, in the church when you will love going around hugging people and hugging me and giving everybody a brotherly kiss. That's why a lot of churches have cut it out because you got a lot of perverts in there. They love running up hugging people, talking about give me a holy kiss and all that. The churches have opened up to all of these things. and clothing and everything else. The perversion is in here, but we're spiritually blind, but we can't see this manifested in the physical. It's in the physical. Do you know cremation, that's part of what the world is breaking down your respect for the dead? See, the Jews didn't do the cremation. They didn't do those things. They buried people. But see, now that you create mating people and they're pouring the ashes and a lot of people are doing it to keep from buying the grave and the casket and all that other stuff. But see, that cremation is like with the Lord's Supper. He said, you do this in remembrance of me. Well, that found death, that body laying in the casket, that putting it in the grave, you're saying that you will see that body come back again. That Job said, though you slay me, yet will I serve God in my body, in my flesh. But see, when you cremate a person in these ashes and things, Now you're removing all memories and traces of them. You could scatter them out. Some people just pull the ashes out or whatever. But see, but when you have that dead body and bury that body, a lot of times you may visit the cemetery or whatever, and you think that that person's dead in the grave, but I can see this person physically being resurrected. That's why the unbelievers can't understand that God's gonna resurrect you in your body. The body that you have, it's not going to be another body. It's going to be the body you have and it's going to change it into an incorruptible body. But whether you burn in a fire or you get disintegrated, he's still going to put you back in that body. That body is not your body. You just rent in that body. The judgment was on the spirit upon the soul and he's gonna put you back in that answer to him You have to stand before the Lord for what you've done or what you hadn't done You read it in Revelations 8 then you will receive for the deeds done in your body Those that have done good in the works of God you go receive and go into eternal life But those that hadn't you go go into eternal judgment So we've been blinded physically, and this what this guy was saying, I was pitching here, he touched him again after his resurrection, Luke chapter 24, let's go to that, Luke chapter 24, 44 through 49. And that's gonna be the last one I think we're gonna be able to visit here. I got way off, I wasn't oral enough with this, I let too many other things seep in this week. And I'm sorry about that. I didn't deliver this exactly the way I wanted to. Hopefully tomorrow I can line this up a little bit better. But you need these two teachings before I preach this to you. And the way my brother's gonna have his son's wake Monday and then the following Monday my niece They'll have her wait, but it won't be on a Saturday, so I'll be able to preach this Saturday or the next Saturday to you. Luke, the 24th chapter, the 44th through the 49th verse, and being in agony, I said the 24th chapter of Luke and the 44th through the 49th verse, and he said to them, These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning me. Verse 25, then opened he their understanding that they might understand the scriptures. That's why he told his disciples to go out teaching all nations and preaching. Before you can preach to someone, you have to first teach. He was with his disciples teaching them the principles and the precepts. People aren't taught today. He says, then he opened the understanding that they could understand the scriptures. And he said unto them, thus it is written, and thus it behoove Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day. And that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my father upon you, but tarry ye in Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high. That power from on high is his spirit. you have to have of that spirit, you must be born again. So those of us that are in the church, there'll be many in the church that hadn't been converted, that aren't born again, but you ask that phase of in the process of learning of Christ. It's up to Him to give you the gift to birth you into the church. The Spirit saved that such should be saved. It's Him that gives you of the Holy Spirit. It's a gift. A gift can only be given. Why? You can't work for a gift. And He gives you that gift, but that gift comes by hearing of the Word of God. Faith coming by hearing. And you walk according to that to receive. And he opens up your understanding after you converted to understand the scriptures. And that's the problem, a lack of understanding the scriptures. He says, they will hear but not understand. If you lack understanding, you have a problem. So he darkens or blinds the eyes so you can't hear, you can't understand, and you can't be converted. He does these things no man can do that God does it and you see in this chapter here He's talking about his own people who had he had given a spirit of stupor a spirit of slumber To where they wasn't gonna be able to be the spirit give it life So without that spirit they have no life. They have no zeal So beware Heavenly Father, as we come before you this day, help us to walk in your Word.