As I said, the message would have been drunken in the church. Wednesday night we took up the text of drunkenness, spiritual slumber led to Sianism. And I had launched off of Isaiah the 29th chapter. where God, here the prophet is talking about war unto Jerusalem or war unto God's people. It was a war unto the church and that was a dual prophecy. In other words, it was for the people doing Isaiah's time. But it's a prophecy also that will be fulfilled in our time, when God was coming up against his people, up against the church. We see that these last days because just like during that time, the church had been infiltrated by people that didn't actually know God or was God's people. They had the label of being God's people. They were from Jerusalem. They were Israel. But as Paul said in the book of Romans, all of Israel is not Israel. Just as all of the people in the church are not the church. And I've been trying to give you an analogy of the physical that lies ahead of the spiritual. Anything that happens in the physical part of life, it's only a shatter of what's real. The spiritual world is what's real. That's what's behind any demon or darkness or any goodness or anything that's real. That's why I said we wrestle against spiritual wickedness at high places and darkness or whatever because the world we live in, the physical world we live in, is only a testing ground. It's like a theater to try us, test us. to see, to show us, not to show God or whatever, but as to us, which of us can conform to God's image, His likeness, and His word, and what the will of God is. How do we die to self or die to this world and become conformed in His image and His likeness? So the Old Testament is as a shadow of the New Testament, the reality of the New Testament. That's why I say sometimes we can use physical things like parables and different teachings and ways to express something that's spiritual, but whereas that expression is not what's real. Like right now, none of this is real, even though we're living in it. The physical is not the real. The spiritual is what's real. So what's going on here now is happening. But it's not eternal. All this shall pass away. Heaven and earth, it says. But when he says heaven and earth, in other words, the world as it is now, the system, the government, because all of this is of the world. Satan is the god of this world. He's the prince of the power of the air. He's over this world. But the world that's to come, the new heaven and the new earth, that's the spiritual. That is what's real. Just like Adam proceeded before Jesus Christ proceeded in the flush Incarnate Christ was always here, but he only became incarnate later on But Adam, the first man, he was physical. He died and he went back to the earth because he came from the earth. But Jesus Christ, the second man, he was a spirit being, but he was in a body. God placed him in a body to show us how we should walk, how we should be, what we should be like to inherit eternal life, to inherit immortality. Man wasn't given immortality. But through the teachings that's in the world, you have teachings out there about man is immortal and he's going to live on in this place. There's no life outside of God. Man became a living soul. Man doesn't have a soul. God breathed the breath of life into man, and when man dies, God takes that breath of life back out of him. He ceases to exist. You need to find the definition of death, but all types of teaching and preaching about hell and all of these things is a shadow. of things that was misunderstood. Misunderstood. The things that are really understood, understood, that can be understood is the mystery of godliness. You hear that in the New Testament. There's the mystery of godliness and the mystery of iniquity. A mystery in biblical terminology is not something you can figure out. In biblical terminology, a mystery is something that has to be revealed unto you. It has to be shown unto you. It has to be explained unto you. So Christ unveils through the unveiling. The latest book of the Bible says Revelations. Well, it's the revealing. It's what Christ reveals to us. Those that are born again. He starts to remove the scales from our eyes. He gives us spiritual insight to walk in eternal life, to walk in Him, to walk in that real world. That's why we pray that thy kingdom come, that his kingdom come. Because this kingdom is passing away. This is not his kingdom. So we go back to what's God doing? He's creating and shaping and forming and making. So he's making a new heaven and a new earth and he's making us new. We're new creations in Christ Jesus. Those of us who were born again, But what do we do to those that are already here? Well, he has to destroy them. They have to be annihilated and moved away. But he has to have a chosen people, a people that he chose to live before him, to be his sons and daughters, a people that had been sanctified and set apart for his use, for his purposes, to serve him, to be made in his image and likeness, in which he told us at the beginning of creation, let us make man in our image and in our likeness. So what we have, our great example, our great model that we see is this world, is this earth, the people of the earth. So when he's talking about the wheat and the tares and he's talking about the children, everybody here are not children of God. Jesus Christ didn't die for everybody. He only died for those he had chosen. So there are people in the world that are of their father, the devil. There's two seeds in earth, a good seed and a bad seed. So when he comes in chapter 29, it says, woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt. add the year to year. So this was Jerusalem he was talking about. They were God's chosen people, but it was an example to us. This Old Testament was written for our admonition, for the people in the latter years in this New Testament dispensation or era in which we would see what God did in the past to what he would do in the future and how we should live presently in this world. So Jesus Christ came in the flesh to show us how to escape this world, but also that he came in the flesh so he would die for us and take our place. Redeem us and buy us back and we'd be reconciled to God. He placed us in God. Through Christ Jesus his righteousness. He covers us with his righteousness But anyone without that covering anyone outside of Christ anyone that's not walking in the way That's not continuing in his word Will not exist they will not be he's the way the truth and the life But then you have the world and he left us in the world, but he vaccinated us against or he inoculated us against the disease of the pandemic in the world that would kill us or that would take our life away. But if you feel so in love with this life, with this world, and you're afraid to lose your life, And you don't lose your life for his sake. In other words, have faith and trust and belief in his word. And continue in his words, you have no life. For those that try to save their life. But for those that lose their life for his sake, they have life. They gain life. So here we see in Jerusalem here where there were those that was going to church or hearing the word of God or whatever, But their hearts hadn't been converted. They really wasn't God's people. They were going to church, they were paying their tithes and offerings, and they were following all of those things, but it was hypocritical. In other words, that wasn't the way they were. They actually didn't love their brother or their sister. They actually didn't know God. They didn't have a relationship with God. like a lot of people in the church today. When they go to church, they just go to church because it's church day. It's Sunday or Saturday or whatever day they go to church or whatever. And that's their responsibility is going to church. They look at it as a responsibility. They don't look at it as a necessity that they need to go because without hearing the word of God, they would truly die, that they would perish, because that word gives them strength. That word fills a hunger, a vacuum in them. They're hungry and thirsty for righteousness. And by the apostles' teaching, by the apostolic doctrine, they see that forsaking the assembling together of themselves, they can't be filled. Their prayers are not being answered. They don't have communication or a lifeline to God. But the only way to be able to see that is to be born again. That's why it says you must be born again. Because you're in this world and you're born to every man that's appointed to man who wants to die. But unless you died at death, you have to die at death. So in the church is where you learn to die at death, that judgment, you begin to crucify self. You die to the world and the things of the world, and you start living for God. You start living unto God. But the only way to be able to see that, I tell you, is the new birth, to be born again. That's when He gives you spiritual sight, spiritual insight. He gives you faith. That seed of faith germinates. It grows. It's ever increasing as you apply it in your life, as you become a doer of God's Word. I was the center, the teaching of the preaching. I said in the book, if we read the 10th verse, he says, for the Lord had poured out upon you. the spirit of a deep sleep and he had closed your eyes and the prophets eyes and your rulers and the seers he had covered them so they couldn't see what was going on. So there's a covering over our eyes that we can't see of the world the way it is. You can't see or understand because God had blinded you or other The God of this world, in other words, you can see the world and the things of this world, and that's the way you live. It's for this world, a worldly life of taking care of themselves. It's kind of like those that hadn't taken the vaccine. They think they know how to take care of themselves. They can provide for themselves. Their God, which is some God out there in the ethereal world somewhere that's not real, will keep them or whatever. They are not subject to governments. They are not subject to anything. They are their own judge. They are their own world. Whereas in God's, God's people know that God is their God. He is the ruler and the final authority, and that makes them citizens of the kingdom. And if his will is done in their lives, that means we're all brother and sister, and we protect each other, and we keep the kingdom. We're in the kingdom, we're amongst the kingdom. Okay. But that's why I said he puts us in the church. His people belong to the church. His people are within the most exclusive, inclusive organization there ever was. The Church of Jesus Christ, you can only be born again, a birth into the church. The spirit places you into the church, it places you into the body of Christ. It opens your eyes, it gives you sight, but without being born into the church, you can physically go in the building, you can physically go into the church and do all these things, but you're not a part of the church. not a part of the real church. You're just inside the building of following through the motions. You're a false professor, a confessor, because you hadn't had a new heart placed in you. The heart you have is desperately wicked. You can't know it. No one else can know it. It is deceitful. God says you must be born again. So that's why in the church we see false professors in the church. That's why he says he has pulled this spirit out upon God, His people of judgment begin at the house of God because there are so many people in the church that's misleading the people in the church. They hadn't been born again, so they don't know what they're saying or what they're doing. And that's why I was telling you this morning, every motion, every gesture you make, every smile, every idle word, Everything you do is very important. That's why it says, not a jot or tilt shall disappear from the lung to all be fulfilled. Through people's speech, motion, every little nuance of what they say or do, people are judging or you can tell whether they're born again or whether they're a child of God. That because you're not in his image and likeness. That's why Christ says, if you've seen me, you've seen the father, because everything he did represented who his father was. And if you had seen Christ, you had seen the father. He made that thing. So to be in Christ's image in his likeness, we have to be the same way. We have to lay our lives down for one another, just like he laid his life down for us. See, but in the church, you have where you think, since you're in the flesh and you're carnal, I hope by that introduction, it was pretty long, that's why I said, without the teaching of the other layers. I can't preach it, but I hope you can understand. You know, you're gonna have to look at, listen at some of the other sermons or whatever to find out where it's getting at. But inside the church, if you're not born again or awakened, you still can die. Because you don't have what it takes to operate in the spiritual world. You're not spiritually born. That's why the sudden coming of Jesus Christ, this introduction of light, destroys you. So, let us go to the book of Acts, where I really wanted to preach from this morning, and see can I just lay a little something there, since I already tried to lay a shadow foundation of where I wanted to be headed. We've heard of the Apostle Paul. He wrote maybe 14 books of the New Testament. One of the greatest apostles it is or whatever. But can you imagine someone being drunk or so asleep in his church that they go to sleep under the preaching and teaching of the Apostle Paul? Now I thought, you know, a lot of times I may be boring or saying something that's monotonous or whatever, and you notice that preachers try not to speak in a monotone. In other words, in such a way that it's blase, blase, just going along with the same language. Sometimes I'll talk louder to emphasize something or make gestures or whatever. A good thing to keep your undivided attention And according to what you're hearing, that's why people say some people can go to a football game and stay entertained for four or five hours, but they can't go to church for 15 minutes without sitting up there falling asleep. That's because they're not interested in the material. They're not interested in what's going on. It's not a part of what they are. I got a son that can sit up and the world caters to you when you're in the world. He gets it up there and he watch all the pregame shows all the way up to when the game come on and then watch the game and then that after the game or whatever. So he's watching football the whole day and now they have double headers and triple headers in football. And it keeps you entertained all day whereas used to be we'd watch the game after watching the football game or the Super Bowl. We'd go out there and play football because it didn't occupy all of our lives. because we know that was only a part but now the world have you worshiping these things so it takes up all of your life, all of your time. The only thing that should be able to do that would be God's Word, would be his Bible. But now that's what that does. But given that, the Apostle Paul was preaching, it was in the book of Acts, and it says that upon the first day of the week, and Like I said, I want to stop keep stopping that but when he says that 20th chapter the 7th through the 12th verse That was the beginning of that was a festival that was going on that should be weeks not week But let's just leave it as is I don't want to stop for that But say on the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow, and continued his speech until midnight. And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together. And there sat on a window a certain young man named Eutychus, Eutychus being fallen into a deep sleep. And as Paul was, falling into a deep sleep. And as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft and was taken up dead. And when Paul went down and fell on him and embracing him, said, trouble yourself, trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him. And when he therefore was come up again and had broken bread and eaten and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed, And they brought the young man alive and were not a little uncomfortable. In other words. Paul, at this festival, at the Feast of Weeks, as it were, beginning, the first day of the beginning of that, Paul was believed, so he had a long sermon that he was preaching. And in those days, after the service lasted so long, they had the Love Feast. They would take a while, they would break after a preaching or teaching, they would have the Lord's Supper or whatever, and then they would go back to preaching and teaching. Paul continuing on it says through midnight. Now, this fellow, Eutychus, and with a name like Eutychus, you would think that means, just like you get the word eulogy, the word eulogy means to speak well of. When you're eulogizing someone or speaking of eulogy, it means to speak well of. Well, this Eutychus meant he was fortunate, or as the living in the Amplified says, he was a lucky man or whatever. But I don't know how lucky he would be or whatever if he sit in a window and fall out of the window and kill himself. But this was under the preaching of Paul, so I can understand people nodding in the church or whatever, and we see people nodding in the church. Now, whether this fellow had worked a lot, he was tired or whatever, because they said, younger person. He was of a younger person. So we don't know what preparations, what he knew about going to church or whatever, where his focus was. But God says in Isaiah, he says he had poured a spirit of stupor out upon the people. And I said it was a dual prophecy. So now we see in the church, God has had us drink of the wine of his wrath. In other words, of different spirits. He tells us to try the spirits to see whether they be of God. They are spirits of slumber. They are spirits of misinformation. It's fears of drunkenness that leads a lot of us astray. In Thessalonians, he says, since you did not love the truth, he's going to send such a strong delusion, you would believe a lie. In other words, as the world going, there's so many directions to go, the world has poisoned the people away from preaching and teaching the true word of God. And that's what we do with doctrine as the Bereans do. We have to go back and see whether these things be so or not, or we'll be misled by some of the famous televangelists or people that gives us emotional stir or not. the scales don't be removed from our eyes, what preaching and teaching does, it would further dull your understanding. In other words, to condemn sin in the flesh what he does is he sends preachers and teachers that's preaching light. In other words, it appeals to your inner man. It appears to your fleshly man, to your carnal nature. That's what you seize upon. And that's what you be rooted and grounded in. If it's self-centeredness, covetousness, hatred, bitterness or whatever, what it does, it amplifies that. So we have religions, you've seen in the last few years politically, This has been amplified. Christians have gotten much more worse. They're some of the bitter people, full of hatred and resentment. But the only ones can see that are the ones God had opened their eyes because now we're starting to see, my wife's really evil. My daughter or my son's really evil, or have these propensities toward evil. See, so we can't judge them and say that they're of God and they're of a different seed. We have to see what's in them that's not right or that's repulsive or that's leading us astray. We have to fortify ourselves against that and see whether it be in us. In other words, sometimes God sends you a mirror image of something and the reason you hate that is the reason what you resent and what repulsion is because that's an image of you, the reason you don't like because you just don't like. And if you was to get to see yourself how you actually really was, So that's what the physical world does. It shows you just how you is. The Word of God is that mirror. It lets us see ourselves. Now that you see yourselves, do you really hate yourself? See, that's what's wrong. You don't hate yourself. And that's what we was talking about yesterday. The Apostle Paul, the more he saw himself, the more he hated himself, he said he was the chiefest of sinners. He found out that he thought he was a know-it-all. Some people don't say, I don't understand this, and that's been my problem all life. I've been thinking I understand, and that's what Jesus told the people. Since you say now you see, now you're responsible for seeing, and you actually don't see. The lay of the sands, they was blind, wretched, and negative, but they thought they had need of nothing. They thought that they were wealthy and everything, because they were physically all right. God had allowed that spirit of blindness, of drunkenness. They was in a stupor. They couldn't see themselves. They couldn't realize that the world, that they was loving the world and they were hating God. They loved mamma, a material thing, so that they couldn't see God. God hadn't pulled back the veil to them because they had started closing the veil because they were clinging to themselves instead of crucifying themselves, instead of seeing themselves as they really were and how repulsive that is. And to put it to them, I got the sacrifice under that. You know what? I keep looking at some of the wedding pictures of when my son got married. And you know what? That's causing me for a lot of days I don't eat, a lot of mornings I won't eat or whatever. Because of my weight, how I looked like a whale or something on there. You know, my wife was trying to make me feel good, said, well, the camera lay at 10 pounds, and you know, this and that. No, I'm just overweight. I see these things. I see this thing. I start seeing when I was younger. Nobody could tell me this or say this or say that. You start seeing these things in the church and in the different people, and it causes you to wonder, now you've got that hunger to be right that God's showing you in His Word, in His way. He's starting to remove the veil, the covering, that covering your eyes. You start to see, so you realize you can only pray to God. You praying to Him to remove the scales and give you that ability to overcome the world and the things of the world. We're talking to my wife the other night and I was saying, you know, it's a lot that you don't understand or you can't understand or whatever. And it's no use for me telling you this because, see, we like to hear a lot and like to know a lot, but it's almost like a dog chasing a car. What you gonna do with it when you catch it? Unless God opens your eyes and puts the anointing of the eye salve in, you will fall fully asleep. You can't see yourself falling, and the people around you can't see yourself falling. Now they say the room was well lit. Look at that eight verse. The room was well lit. It was well light. They was in the upper room, that third floor. In those days of the culture, they would build the upper chambers would be the room where everybody met or whatever. Usually in the lower rooms is where the animals were or where different things was. And you had a parapet built around your house. had that upper chamber where there's a balcony or something so wouldn't nobody fall off or hurt themselves or whatever. That's why the disciples, it says, they were meeting in the upper room. It was an upper, like a fellowship hall up top there or whatever. It was a lot of people. It was well lit. So with all those lamps and things, not making an excuse for them or whatever, It wasn't electrical light like we have today to be well lit. I was younger when I grew up, when I was younger, before they had some of the power lines in the area where we was or whatever. Either the lights were turned out, you know, just like the people nowadays that they get the lights turned off, the power go off or whatever, they put a generator in their house. And that guy this week, you've seen where he had a generator in his house or whatever. He came home, his whole family was almost dead because the generator was giving off carbon monoxide or whatever. It was poisoning or putting them to sleep or whatever. When those days with the lamps and the lanterns, they burned by oil or kerosene or whatever. And when those things burn, it extracts the oxygen out of the air. So you got a lot of kerosene lamps and fireplaces and things going, all that stuff burns oxygen. And that's why you can't wake up in a burning fire or building or somewhere where it's hot, because it then sucked all the oxygen out of the room. So by being well-lit, it had sucked a lot of this out. So maybe that's why he went by the window, was sitting in the window, so that he could get a little fresh air to revive himself, to keep himself. See, but that's the thing about the Christian life. In religion, it's a precarious position to be in because once you're born again and start hearing the word of God, you have to walk circumspectively. You have to be very careful because there are people that will mislead you or that would mislead you as though they know or whatever and they really don't know or whatever. So that's when we become circumspective is when we come into the church, and when we're born again, we start being careful of what people are saying, of the awareness, because we realize that there is actually a real devil, a real Satan, that's going around like a roaring lion, attempting to devour those whom he can, and he's choosing to destroy you. That's the adversary 24-7, so we have to be circumspect. especially of those in the church. Because if your deacon said, yeah, going along with this, a sister so-and-so going to hug your neck, and all these people saying they love you or whatever, but they're holding daggers to stick in you, not knowing that they're sticking daggers and things in you because they're blind. They can't see. So some of them may have good intention or whatever, but since they're blind or in a drunken stupor, What they're doing is very dangerous. That's why a lot of times I try to say things in a nice way, but without hurting the people's feelings. But when you come into spirituality, when you come into the church, that's when Jeremiah started to sharpen his knife. That's a preacher has to have a sharp, don't take the razor edge off the word. In other words, sometimes that's what the word is meant to cut. It's like a two-edged sword, though it cuts all kinds of ways. You can't be a hypocrite with it, but you have to be used to exercise the use of the Word of God. In other words, because using that Word of God, you can draw somebody to you, or you can drive them away. And it's only to those that God had told you to preach or teach to that it has this effect, though. Because now that you've come into religion, you can make many more enemies by telling them the truth. That's what Jesus says. Have I become your enemy because I've told you the truth? They don't want to be woken up. There's a lot of people, if you wake up, they get mad because you're woken them up from a good dream or woken them up from rest or woken them up because they were at ease. But a lot of times they wake up doing irrational things or whatever. That's why Christ told Peter, he says, Peter, be careful. The flesh is weak. The spirit's willing, but the flesh is weak. He came back and found them sleeping three times, three different occasions. They couldn't pray through it because they wasn't accustomed to praying. They wasn't accustomed to praying. Jesus would get up and go in the mountains and pray. And he was accustomed to praying. The disciples finally asked him to teach them how to pray. You know, a lot of times we used to have prayer service at church or whatever. And a lot of people say, well, I just be praying silently. We pray silently or whatever. And it's Monday or Tuesday night, prayer service or whatever. And they call themselves praying silently, just praying to themselves or whatever. A lot of times, you sit there, you hear people over there snoring. And they're sound asleep in prayer service. story, you have to wake them up or nudge them or whatever. See, if we're not practiced at that, we'll go to sleep at it. That's why certain deacons, you notice that certain churches, they have certain deacons or whatever that do the praying or whatever, because they actually know how to pray. But if you don't pray at home and, you know, pray aloud, that's why it says, enter into your prayer closet. because you just could jump up with some monotone prayer, and when you lead the church in prayer, it's not gonna have an effect on the people. The people are not gonna feel that they didn't came to the throne room of God, that they petitioning God or whatever, because you can say, this guy, I don't know if he pray at home or whatever, because he don't know how to talk to his father. He don't know how to ask him. He don't know how to petition for our hearts. He's not petitioning for his own heart. How can he petition for our hearts or whatever? God's not really listening, and this has become by rote. People pray the prayer. That's why I say don't just learn the prayer, memorize the prayer. You just get up and utter a few words to God, because that's just your daily routine. You just up and say the same words over and over with no heart or nothing in it. You can say it sleeping. People can know what you're doing, sleeping. You understand what I'm saying? So Jesus, when he went and prayed, he said, he went a little farther and he prayed. Well, when he prayed, they says the prayer, he was sweating as though blood was coming out of his pores. He was prayed so hard to God. Because he knew he was fully awoke. He was aware of what he was about to go through. He was aware of the crucifixion that was coming. So now, when you go to God, are you praying to God because you love your wife and your children and the people around you and attempt to do good? your good is being perceived as evil and your wife is mad because your hard on her, or your children, or your husband, or your friends and things say, well, you're too hard on Ben, and they don't understand, but you have to be this way because they don't know God. They want you to be some little milquetoast Christian that's always buttering them up and saying these things to them or whatever, and they may need a razor strap. They may need a rebuke, a sharp rebuke. And some people that can't take this hardness, that's why he told Timmy to endure hardness. He sent Titus. to one place and it sent Timothy to another place because Timothy was kind of weak. That's why he told him to take a little wine for his awful infirmity. In other words, to give him a little courage or whatever because he didn't, that wine might would boost him up and sell his stomach a lot of times. You know, a lot of times people drink a little bit and they can kind of tell you where it's at or whatever. It inhibits them or whatever. They are not spiritually strong. You see, that's why those that can do this without wine, you know, you don't need a panacea. You don't need this if you're bold in the spirit. You remember Peter had waxed bold in the spirit, and that's how they realized that he had been with Jesus because he spoke boldly to them. That's why he had to tell Timothy to stir up the gift that's in you. God had put it in you, but you just need to stir it up. It wasn't stirred. That's why it says Moab is like wine that's been set on its leave. It's too strong here. You can have coffee or something that's too strong, but if you take the wine, if you take the coffee or whatever, and you stir it and mix it up, it has a balance to it. It has a bossa rolla and a flavor to it. It tastes good. It is not so strong. It's not bitter. See, but what happened, you didn't sit there and let this get bitter in you and you speaking of people in such a harsh, diminutive way that you run them away from around you. They can't feel the love in your preaching or teaching or whatever because you didn't allow this to make you resentful and bitter and hateful. You're so critical and not dependent on the Spirit and have the Spirit. You don't know how to say this and later on it affects that person's conscience and they come back like the guy that was going with his stepmother and Paul told them to forgive the guy. You know it's some people that can't forgive others. They could be bitter the rest of their life. I was telling you about one of my nieces or whatever. Something happened with her or whatever. She don't ever be at any of the family functions. Nobody ever hardly sees her or whatever. I talk to her once in a while on Facebook when she texts me or messages me. I see her in the store or whatever. Nobody ever sees her or whatever. Nobody's going to want her religion. Her religion is a cult. Because if your religion don't have you to where you didn't forgive your mother for your brothers and sisters, those that mistreated you, you don't have a good religion. You don't know how to forgive. God actually hadn't forgiven you, you're still bitter. You're still holding grudges about what somebody did to you as a child or whatever. You're drunk. You're intoxicated. You can't see yourself. You're about to fall out the window, and nobody's hunching you. Say, man, wake up, man. You're snoring. You're asleep. I'm sure if the room was that crowded, it was full of lights, it was full. Nobody hunched this guy and told him to wake up or whatever. You ever notice that in here a lot of times, I might call somebody's name or whatever, but how many of us kind of bump the other one up? You know, you about to fall out the chair, nobody say that to you, you sitting there sleeping so hard. A lot of people see you, but nobody had said anything. That's how it is spiritually. A lot of times, you so far to the right or to the left, And nobody ever tells you that you can't see yourself, that you didn't drove the car off the road. You're getting besides yourself, man. A lot of people, you start drinking, if you're drinking, man, you start talking too loud. Now you're slurring your words and you're doing all these things. It's a sign that you're drunk. You didn't have too much, you need to stop. Because after a while you will go to cursing and you'll want to shoot somebody or do all these things because the wine is inhibiting you. See, the spirit inhibits people. There are preachers that jump up and run off and leave the church. They done found this woman in the church or whatever and they say that that's their soulmate. That's who God meant for them to marry or whatever. Well, the church can judge that. Let's look at the word of God and see. And look in here. God hated adultery. So you already married. You mean to tell me God didn't send you a soulmate along? No, that ain't the word of God. That's a demon spirit that you're being led. You're being led away. See, you have to judge this. That's what the Bereans did. They went back and judged it by the word of God. That's a spirit of lush. You've been looking at these other women. You looked at this woman in lust, and now you blinded by her. And you done ran off and left your wife in church for this woman that you said God say was your soul mate. You remember this governor we had in South Carolina or whatever, Stanford? That ran off with this woman. He said was his soulmate. You got a grown child grown children and wife and thing and you meet your soulmate This is the spirit of satan This is the satanic spirit So it says obey governments and authorities in the scriptures, right? We had this reverend tony spells up in Central that was going against John Bel Edwards when he was saying the mass man about the masses and protecting people during COVID. I remember Jeff Sessions quoted the scripture, but he quoted it hypocritically. But as Tony Spells, this apostolic preacher, was rising up against John Bel Edwards and trying to have his people meeting or whatever. Let's see who's the most godly here, where God is in here. The governor is Catholic, so we're not looking at religion or whatever, but his job or his obligation or responsibilities to protect the people of the state of Louisiana. That's what he was saying the other day. If we'd have had this guy, Eddie Rasponi, if he'd have won, we all would have been sick. The whole state would have been dead by now, probably. Because he was led by Trump or another spirit or whatever. Same with his spells, though. He's rebelling and suing the government. Romans 2 and 1 says, be subject to those that have a rule of authority over you. Well, why would his church be subject to his rule and authority, and he's not subject and ruled to authority of those of the governments that have authority over him that God had put here to do good? So we see where the unvaccinated, really that's a satanic spirit that's leading them because The Biden administration, they're trying to protect people when they're saying get vaccinated, have face masks and do these. They're protecting the people in general. Whereas the unvaccinated, we can give it to our children, anybody else. We don't care who died because of our rights. We got a right not to wear a mask. We got a right not to let somebody do us this, to tell somebody to do us that. Right? Because but a dead man shouldn't have rights and feelings, right? So you contradict in your very belief system. So the people in your home, you would rather get them sick or whatever. So when you contract, you're so drunk, religiously, you you don't drunk of the wrong spirit. John MacArthur told his congregation, and a lot of pastors and preachers are saying, well, we're getting much more results. A lot of our older people are saying that they're learning to love this or whatever, that God, you know, now if you're a legalist, and that's what a lot of those kind of pastors are, people in religion, that's why I said the Pharisees was literate legalists. you know, about the Sabbath, Jesus was healing on the Sabbath or whatever. They was holding the law, but they didn't know mercy. See, because God suspends those things because he's looking at the precept. That's the most important thing. So Jesus says, this woman been bound by Satan 18 years and I heal on the Sabbath. You want to stone me for healing on the Sabbath or healing this paralytic? You know, he did several different healings on the Sabbath. And the Pharisees, oh, you're not supposed to do this on the Sabbath. So you saying that that's more important than this person being made old? Giving this a bit this person ability to walk or the feel better on the Sabbath You missing the whole point of the Sabbath is what Jesus was telling me you illegal You know, I had preachers and tell me what if you trying to baptize somebody to do this Oh, but you didn't say in Jesus name. You didn't say me and you didn't say that all along. I As Paul said, you worry about days and meats and foods and things. You're a legalist. You're not being led by the Spirit of God. You're not walking by faith. The Spirit give it life, but the letter kill it. There's no life in legalism. That's what Judaism, they bringing this in and a lot of people are following, but they don't have the spirit. The spirit has bound them. They're not free, they don't have any liberty. So you would teach me to rebel against the government. You would teach me, but if God leads you against the government, that's what you should do. But God's not gonna lead you against the government for an aspect of glorifying self. Well, I can, from a physical or pastoral point of view, I'm looking at it and I know what we go through as churches or whatever. Brother Spells, he had that church note on him. They got a lot going on at that church and they got to pay the bills. They can't afford for people. So he has a little bit lack of faith of God taking care of the bills and taking care of his needs and things. He need those people in there doing those things. So he's gonna do what he has to do to get those bills paid. Whereas a lot of churches say their giving is up. They're doing because wouldn't you rather this 60 or 70 year old person to be at home away from this pandemic of these people and hear you streaming online and hear you online doing your teaching if his heart is in it. Use those that worship God in spirit in truth. You don't have to go in the midst of a pandemic. So this is Jackson right now, it's not very many places she will go because it's 12 or 13% in Louisiana. Her brother that passed or whatever, they was at a church meeting or whatever. And like I said, beware of the churches because now that he's passed, The pastors, another pastor from another church, most of them that went to that thing is sick. They don't know why. Not paying attention. Not being circumspect. Looking, circumspect means looking at all sides, looking all around, being very careful. Another word for circumspect is cautious. prudent, watchful on all sides, examining carefully all the circumstances that may affect a determination or a measure to be adopted. Before we adopt this measure, before we take this on, let's see what the ramifications are. If I take this vaccine, there's a percentage that I may have some side effect, which is very small, and it could happen. But if I don't take it, it's almost guaranteed death. Like they say, to not take it, it's to choose death. Is God against me doing something that's gonna be good for my health, or to protect my body, to protect my family? What man would send his children outside and it's a rattlesnake outside the doorway? He would keep them inside, they wanna go outside and play or whatever, but he's gonna violate their rights though. He's gonna keep them inside until he knows it's safe to go out. being circumspect that's why when you are born again you quit you start thinking and your rationing and your reasoning comes alive you start weighing and in the balance what's this person's alternative and what's the motives are here no one had to tell him when they went back inside now you did read as i was reading that that when he fell down dead One monkey don't stop, no show, that's what they say. They says, and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down, sleep and fell down from the third loft and was taken up dead. And when Paul went down and fell on him, embracing him and said, trouble not yourselves for his life is in him, he all right. In other words, just like with Elisha, Elijah and others, Paul brought this man back to life. he says don't worry about it he's good he's alright now we know that he was dead sister harris we know that this is because who's writing this story luke luke was a doctor in the book of acts you'll see luke says we were there so this is a first hand account from a doctor that this person was dead paul rose him back to life and said don't worry about it but listen to what they did then they all said oh man let's check this and this and that no one says When he therefore was come up again and had broken bread and eaten, they talked a long while even to daybreak. In other words, Paul went on preaching. Because when they bury these people that died from the pandemic, as much as you love them or whatever, you will go on with your life. That's not gonna stop it. So don't let your death be a thing that says, well, you made a statement. Yeah, but they will go on with their lives. Paul went on with the preaching and the teaching, it says, and he continued on to midnight, a long while, and they broke bread, and they were, you know, at the church, they were talking and communing with Paul because they might not see him again or whatever. The most important thing was what? The Word of God. Hearing the Word of God is understanding the Word of God. Now, undoubtedly, he didn't go back in and go to sleep no more. You didn't have to tell him to stay awake. You didn't have to tell him not to stay awake. But see, we're not going to have that thing if we, if something happens to us, we may not be revived. If you, you know, it's a lot of people, the husband live with the wife, live in the other ones and take that shot. You remember I told you Steve Carter's wife took the shot the other day, but Steve ain't here. But she telling everybody, yeah, take that shot. Don't not take the shot. Make sure you take the shot. Well, it's good, but I would rather be telling people myself to take the shot instead of you saying my husband died from that. No, I'm gonna save yourself from this untoward journey. You have to weigh the thing, be circumspect. God causes us to be circumspect. But there is a spirit and it can be in the church. If it was with Apostle Paul, as great a preacher as he is, and this guy went to sleep and fell out of the church and died, there's a lot of people would be in trouble. But he tells his preachers, as he told Isaiah, just as when Noah was preaching, Noah preached 120 years and didn't get any converts, but he prepared him for that. Jeremiah preached some 30 or 40 years, didn't have any converts, Baruch was the only one following him, but his consolation wasn't in, man, how we gonna have this church growth seminar and get these people in here? No, his job was to preach the Word of God. And he said, Isaiah, they're not going to listen to you because I'm going to close their eyes. I'm going to make it so that they don't understand, and they don't hear, and they don't be converted. So why are you so apprehensive about the things that you do in God's Word? I warned you this was going to happen. that these things was going to happen. In the book of Revelation, when it says a third portion of the world is going to be wiped out. So why are you shocked that the pandemics will get worse coming this fall? Other than that, they say so many people that have been taking the vaccine has a lot of the virus in them. But the virus is not killing or disabling them because they have something that's in it that's fighting. It's the same with us. There's a lot of people going around camouflaging and professing that they're Christians that are in the church and God's purging them out, taking them out and bringing calamities. But then there's a lot of us that's being taken out or whatever. We've run our race, ran our course, but it's a lot of us. The spirit is working in us and we're getting stronger. We're getting brighter, we can see clearer, the light's shining, and we are able to do greater exploits. Our faith is increasing, but that virus is still in us. Death still do work it in us, and it will be there to Christ come. So we're not perfect, and we don't know it all, and we do have things. The reason I keep coming to church is because when I leave out, I see things that I didn't see before. Preaching and teaching shows me things a deficit that I have that I thought I was alright But see some preachers heal you slightly and tell you you all right And how would you like that doctor to tell you all right? You're gonna be all right, and you die a week later No, I would rather him tell me to get my house in order I would rather him tell me you need to do this and you need to do that and Now he's shown me before surgery, he said, now this could happen, and that could happen. It does happen. So he's pointed out to me the pitfalls, but the reward is greater than the risk. In other words, there are minor cases this would happen, but if it don't, man, I'm gonna sleep much better. I'm gonna feel much better. I'm gonna see much better. The doctor told my brother, he said, look, I'm going to perform this operation. Now, it may not work. This could blind you more or whatever. But we know if he'd have continued on on the road he was, that he definitely was going blind. But with all of those warnings and everything, let me take that risk, doc. I trust you. I have faith that God's gonna bring me through this. Now you're seeing clearly, I'm glad I took that chance, right? He's saying, I'm glad I took that risk. See, that's what faith is. If you know how things could turn out, it is in the faith, right? If God had showed you, what are you hoping for if you already know? That's why when people are saying that they could do this, well, if you know that, it's not even a risk to you, right? It's not even a chance. But I don't know. I'm walking by faith. I hope it don't happen. We have to live by faith. But don't fall asleep. We have to find the things to do that keep us awake. This guy wasn't prepared. If he was gonna go to the church that day, that next day, if he knew Paul was meeting, maybe he should have went to bed earlier. He should have been preparing. See, heaven is a prepared place for prepared people. How many people went to sleep? earlier last night so that they wouldn't fall asleep this morning. That they wanted to be alert and aware so they could hear. How many people before they came, before this week came or before this morning came, was asking God, God would you speak through the preacher? Would you speak through your word something to strengthen me because I'm out here fighting and you're not that you're telling him anything new, but he wants you to talk to him and tell him what's going on and how you feel and tell him, God I need help to fight in this area, in these areas. Not that he's not aware of it, but it makes you consciously aware by speaking what's going on in your life and what areas to focus on. So that's what's focusing your life. I know it's a truckload of stuff in there, but focus on one or two things at a time and go present those and tell God Let your supplication and request be made known to God. Ask Him to give you a little life, a little vitality, a little spirit, a little understanding, a little wisdom, a little knowledge to do these things. And He's going to give it to you. It's going to be a process of growing in Him, a process of consciousness, a process of awareness. It's a process of when I'm waking up this morning and this drink, this cup of Folgers, I'm getting woke, I'm getting more alert or whatever. As the day go on, I won't need any more coffee. I won't need all these things. I just need a little touch, a little pepping up. Stir it up, stir up the gift. But if you have that spirit, you can jump somebody else's spirit up just by talking. What if you see your brother Norton telling his faults in these things, that'll cover a multitude of your sin. He say he who Wands a covers his brother say you cover a multitude of you know God's looking it's working in your life to make you a better messenger To be a better light bring it gives you more bonus to say something to the next person It gives you bonus to see these things working in your life When I drove up here this morning or whatever I I didn't know what I was going to meet and this guy next door behind you or whatever and his lackadaisical approach to it and everything or whatever. But as I talked and as I did these things, I was praying unto God that he would lead me and guide me in the right way to say the right thing. But I just wasn't go just sleep and let the problem grow weeds and everything Solomon tells us in Proverbs of the sluggard or who slumbers that his property over grows and weeds and things you see a deterioration in his home and the things around him or whatever because You're not zealously pursuing these things. But if you would get up out of that bed, get up out of that sleepiness, that lethargic way would leave out of you. Apathy, when you would keep getting up, don't be apathetic and just sit down there when life knocks you down. Keep getting back up. And if you pimple around during the day, that sleepiness will wear out. That sleepiness wears off. All of these things, that energy in you, the spirits will give you life. His spirit gives life. So don't let this world close your eyes and have you in a drunken stupor. To have you where you're not understanding that now you done got so complacent, you sit here and listen to all this stuff on the news or whatever, now you scared to death. You're scared to come out of your own house. He hasn't given us a spirit of fear. If you read his word, it inoculates yourself with the word of God around people that has those positive conversations, talking to Jesus Christ. It causes you to build up and see where the other problems lie. Now that you've cleared yourself up, you can see clearly how to take that thorn out of your brother's eyes. But if you hadn't cleared yourself up, if something about God and doing right causes that to be contagious, it spreads. You're the one who spreads it because you have strength. You're skilled in this and you know you could overcome these things, these obstacles. And that doctor, he wasn't boastful about it. He wasn't guaranteeing it. But he said, I think I could help you. And you know, each time I go in there, I tell him, doctor, you're a miracle worker. You're this and that. He don't go jump up, thump in his chest, being proud and high-minded or whatever. He knows how to take a compliment. He knows how to take it when somebody praises him or whatever. But there are some people, don't give them any praise, don't tell them they've done something right or whatever. You will have a problem if you give them a compliment. Help us, Lord Father, help us, God, to be able to walk in this world, to be awoke, Lord God, to walk uprightly before you. to be not drunken here in church, Lord God. Help us to not come to church and just be here in vain, hearing the word, Lord God, but not hearing it, not seeing it, not understanding it, Lord God. I ask you to wake a spirit up in us, Lord God, of spirit, Lord God, of wisdom, knowledge, a spirit that gives us zeal and knowing of your word. In Jesus' name we pray, amen and amen.