And I just want to show you something that we, this is what we base everything off of that we're, that we do. Ephesians chapter 4. I know you guys have probably gotten this verse a lot in these courses as well, but 26 and 27, it says, Be angry and sin not, and let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. The word placed there is kopos in the Greek and that's what this definition sheet is for that I've given you guys. And what is he saying here? See, the Bible never tells me not to do something if I couldn't do it. So it says don't give ground to Satan, don't give place to Satan. So obviously I can't, otherwise it wouldn't say not to. So there's three definitions that I'd also give this to the, the ones that Hannah's going to give to the council as they come in. And it says in Ephesians 4.27, it says topos is a Greek word that the NIV translates as foothold. This was written by Clinton Arnold. You guys have been here for the three courses, you've heard of him. It can also be translated opportunity or chance or loophole. I'm in this definition sheet for you guys. Okay, thus the verse can be, it's one that I passed out or that you guys have, so it's just a regular Thus, this verse can be expressed to not give the devil a chance to exert his influence. Then he says, it is likely that any sinful activity that the believer does not deal with by the power of the spirit can be exploited by the devil and turned into a means of control over a believer's life. Therefore, Christians need to resist, for Paul, there is no middle ground. There is no nominal Christianity. Believers either resist the influence of the evil one, who works through the flesh and the world, or they relinquish control of their lives with the power of darkness. Giving into those temptations does not just confirm the weakness of the flesh, it opens up the lives of believers to control the devil and his powers. You need to recognize the supernatural power of temptation and be prepared to face it. Okay, but one thing he said that is so important is, it's likely that in any simple activity that the believer does not deal with and the power of the spirit can be exploited by the devil. You see, just because a person sins doesn't mean they give full pause to Satan. We're off of Ephesians 4, 26 and 27. I can give ground to Satan in my life. Otherwise, I wouldn't say don't do it. But see, how do I give ground to Satan? Is it when I sin? No, not necessarily. It's when I have undealt with sin. Just because I sin doesn't mean Satan's got ground all of a sudden. It's when I have been dealt with sin. I've done something and I'm not willing to deal with it. In discussing demonic spiritual warfare on a personal level, one general principle must be noted on the onset. Demons can influence believers only to the extent we allow them to do so. That's really important. Demons can only influence believers to the extent that we allow them to do so. The act of giving or allowing Satan to take any amount of control in our life is referred to as giving ground. There are three attitudes or actions by which demons seek to gain ground in a person's life, sin, passivity, and fear. His sin is the undealt with sin. the sin that he says earlier that it's some sin that you're not willing to deal with. Passivity. Clinton Arnold said, or was it Scott Moreau? But I think Clinton said it. He said, you know a church is under demonic attack when its members become passive. And the last one there is fear, he's talking about. Fear can give Satan a foothold in my life. The Bible says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a power of love and a sound mind. You can reverse that. If I am fearing, I will not have three things. I will not have power, spiritual power. I'll be depowered if I'm fearing. I will not have a sound mind. I will not be able to make sound choices that are pleasing to God. And I will not be able to love effectively like I should be able to, if I'm fearing. Satan will get a ground there. OK. This is what I give to the counselors. This is what I tell the kids, too. The one by Warren Wertheim. Warren Wertheim, I'm sure you know him. He's got over 100 books in print. He's a pretty brilliant guy. None of his books are even close. They're all different books. If the believer cultivates, that means to weed and feed. I tell the kids this. If you have sin in your life, and you try to cultivate that sin, if the believer cultivates in his life any known sin, he is giving Satan an opportunity to get a foothold, a beachhead in his life. Satan will then use this opportunity to invade and take over the other areas. Paul warns in Ephesians 4.27, I do not give the devil an opportunity. The word translated opportunity simply means a place, such as a city or a building. But I carry with the idea of a foothold or opportunity, a chance to operate. I'll talk to them. I'll say, you know what a beachhead is? One of the reasons he mentions that, a beachhead. He said, you know, in World War II, you're up on your past history of wars, when the Marines landed on Iwo Jima, he said, what happened? Did they just go surfing on the beach, untanning and stuff? So, they wanted the whole island, right? Take Mount Suribachi and all those places that were heavily fortified by the Japanese. And, um, he said, when he gets near life, he doesn't want to just stay on the beach. He wants to get into every area he can. But all he has to do is get in by one way. It doesn't matter how he gets in, as long as he gets in by that one way. Kind of like, I'll tell them, when you let a fly in the kitchen, it can go anywhere in the house it wants to. It's in now. There's no limit to where it can go. So we're dealing on taking back ground, because somehow I gave ground to Satan. Go back to 1 Peter where we left off, chapter 2. He says, and I'll have the kids read this, chapter 2, 18 through 20. But remember, we're focused still on trying to get what's the mindset Christ had, because Christ suffered. Christ suffered more than any man. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the frail work, the difficult, For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God, and toward grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when you be buffeted for your faults, you should take it patiently? But if, when you be well and suffer for it, you take it patiently? This is acceptable with God." And I'll ask them, I'll say, in your own words, because this is hard to get sometimes, I'll say, in your own words, what did you just read? And I'll do that quite a bit when I'm working with little kids. In your own words, what did you just read? Make sure they're tracking with you. Otherwise, they're just, you know, a sermon on church on Sunday, and they're not getting it. They just kind of sit there and daydream. And that's why you want to lock eyes with them. Always lock eyes with them. And just try to really get them, you know? Say your own word for it. Just read. And they'll tell me, but this is basically what it is. If I suffer for doing what's wrong, that's my tough luck. I blew it. I'm suffering, okay? If I suffer for doing what's right, that's good. That's what God's looking for. People that are suffering for doing what's right. You know, and I don't defend myself. I don't say, well, this shouldn't be happening to me, or I didn't do that, or whatever. Then I'll have them read verse 21. Or even here in 2 where he calls, stop. I'll say, stop. I'll stop people in the middle of verses quite a bit, actually, before I let them go on. Or even here, where he calls. I'll say, what were you called to? This is a calling to all believers. I'll say, what were you called to? And they'll say, well, you know, to be like Christ, or whatever. No, I should follow Christ. That's what I was called to do. That's what they'll say. You know, greet in context. That's what you're called to do. But what are you called to do? Every Christian is called to do this. So suffer for doing what's right. It's in context. He says, for this is what you were called to do. Suffer for doing what's right. Every Christian is called to do that. The problem is none of us want to do it. How come is it that when we pray and ask God to make us more like Him and to reveal His character to us, and when He does, we get mad at Him? Why? Because that's what happens with all kinds of Christians. Okay? For this is what you were called to. I can say, you can say you were called to be a missionary, you were called to be a pastor, you were called to be a counselor. Show me your verse. I said, everybody was called to suffer. I said, yes, God calls people to different things, obviously. Okay? But everybody was called to suffer. But not just to suffer, but to suffer for doing what's right. Because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that he should follow his steps. Okay? And what was the example that he left? Remember I said we have to get the mindset that Christ had. This 22 and 23 speaks of the mindset Christ had when he suffered. Who did no sin, neither with guile or deceit, or fraud found in his mouth. Who when he was reviled, he reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened not. But he committed himself, and the judges righteously. You see, when Christ suffered, He never defended Himself. Never defended Himself. And I see a man in Scripture who they say God called him the Master of God's own heart. That was David. And I see him as a guy who, as far as I can tell when I read it, I never see where David defended himself except one time when he was going to defend himself, but he didn't. He always let himself up to God. Always. The way I see David's life is like this. It starts out where there is, and I'll tell kids this, it starts out where, I mean, you think, you want to see some stuff. Don't compare, it's not good. But, you know, I'll say that to some older people sometimes, but to kids, you don't want to ever compare what you think either this or what other people think. This is the way I see David's life. David was taking care of his sheep, and a lion and a bear tried to kill him. And Goliath tried to kill him. Philistines tried to kill him. Saul tried to kill him. His own son tried to kill him. and it ends when he dies. What a life, you know? Everybody's trying to kill him. It's a whole life. He's always running. There's no one. He's always looking for God. He fought Goliath, but he did that because Goliath was his pioneer in Israel. He could have killed Paul, but he didn't. He could have killed his son, but he didn't. He loved Israel. He said, don't kill my son, but Ben-Absalom did. I'm sorry, not Absalom, Joab did. But I never see where he defended himself. There was even a time when David was marching along with his mighty men. You ever hear about David's mighty men? They were so good with slingshots, they could split hairs, it says. They were good with bows in the left hand and the right hand. They could run like deer. One guy, he killed an Ethiopian, took a spear and killed like a thousand guys. One guy killed like 800 guys in a bean field, you know, fighting for beans. I'm thinking, man, he's desperate. And he has all these mighty men with him. And this guy comes up, named Shimei. He's Saul's nephew. And he starts yelling and cursing David and throwing rocks at him and saying, you bloody man, you made it too wild. And Abishai, the gentleman that was with David at the time, says, let me go take off the dead body of Teddy for you. David says, no, don't kill him. God sent him to do this. Maybe God looked down and had pity on me. David could have defended himself, he was king. He could have, they do it. Later on, Abishai, or Shimei, was the first guy, when David came back into Israel, he was the first guy to come across a river and agree to his king, you know, and he asked for forgiveness for it. But see, it goes back with Romans 12, where it says, I'll take vengeance. David never defended himself, and I see Christ, he never defended himself, he could have. You know, he could have called ten legions of angels, but he didn't. So, you know, I have to say, God, it's in your hands. If I defend myself, then I relieve God of any responsibility for defending me. You might say, well, how can you say that? If I take up vengeance for myself, God does not now take up vengeance for me. You say, well, give me the verse. Or in Proverbs it says, if you're in any fault, don't rejoice, lest God see that it displeases Him and take His hand of discipline off of you. You know, if I start getting hungy, I should get more of that and more of this kind of stuff. Don't displease God, no. Why does God not often punish the people that we want to be punished that hurt us? Because He's merciful. Because He wants to call them to Himself. The Bible says in Romans, the goodness of God may be your repentance. I'll tell kids, I'll tell parents that too. You know, how come my son's rebelling and everything's working out for him? Think about it. Romans 2, it said, don't you know that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? That's the first thing God uses. If it doesn't work, then it'll get severe after that. Okay, then I'll take them to Matthew 18. We're dealing with these bitterness stuff, okay? You know, things that people did to me that hurt me. And let me tell you, you'll get some crazy stuff. You'll get some stuff that seems so insignificant, yet that's the thing that Satan was holding onto. Jesus often gave parables. Matthew 18, he gave a parable. It's a parable of the unforgiving servant. And it says that there was a king who owed his, a servant owed his king 10,000 pounds of silver or whatever it was. I figured it out one time. over $4 billion in US currency today. I think we did the conversion rate one time just to see what it would be like. It was an impayable debt. And it says, the king said, pay me what you owe me. He says, I can't. Just give me some time. Give me some time, and I'll pay you the money. And the king said, I'll tell you what. Don't worry about it. Just go on. So that sort of leaves and finds a guy that owes him a few pennies. And he says, pay me what you owe me. He grabs him by the neck and says, I can't. He says, well, fine. He throws him in jail. Here again, I have to understand more than just what I'm reading here. I have to understand that I'm reading a Hebrew Bible that was in Hebrew culture or Western mindset. I don't know if you guys have ever been to Central America. The jails in Central America were much like the jails that were in the Middle East at this time, and some still are. When you go to jail there, they don't feed you, and they don't clothe you, they don't acquire you. In Mexico it's the same way. There are a lot of jails in Central America. If you're fed, it's because you can fight, or your family brings you food. So you go to jail. And then when somebody was thrown in jail, because the food was thrown in jail, now what's the wife going to do? Often she's got kids. There was not much work for women in those days. So often those women became the lady of the street. And that's how they provided for their families. That's in their culture. And even still is today that way. So the first king found out what was going on, and it made him very angry, very sorry. And we go down to verse 32. It says, Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me. Surest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servants, even as I have had pity on thee? As well as wrath with him, and delivered him to the tormentors. And I asked him, I said, you know what the tormentors are? And some translations say torturers. Do you know what the torturers are? That's demonic attacking your life. Remember, Jesus' parables have a spiritual context to it. Look it up in the Greek, saying that I'm opening myself up to Satan. He says, he delivered him to the tormentors, and they should pay all that was due unto him. And then in verse, see often when Jesus gave a parable, he left it open-ended. He did not close it. Like the prodigal son. He could go many ways with a prodigal son. You could talk about the son who left home, rebelled, came to the end of himself and came back. You could talk about the dad who gave his son his inheritance, or half the inheritance, or whatever it was, and then waited every day at the end of his driveway for his son. You could talk about the older brother who was there faithfully, and that didn't get a party for him. You could talk about, what about the mom, people said, or is she an audience? What about the servants of Saul that's going on? You know, you could look at that and talk about it from many different angles. But here, he does not leave it open and he closes it. He says in 35, So likewise shall my heavenly Father also do to you, if ye from your hearts do not forgive every brother that trespasses. So what is he saying there, Apocalypse? What's he saying? He's saying that if you don't forgive someone, he's going to do the same thing to you. You're going to be opening yourself up to demonic involvement in your life. And they're like, well, I don't want that. Yeah, you don't want that. It says to forgive from your heart. You see, it's an act of the will. I may not feel like I forgive you. But you know what? The Bible does not say, feel like you forgive them. It never says that. It says, forgive them, period. There's three things when I'm dealing with somebody. that takes place in forgiveness. But first, go to 2 Corinthians, Chapter 1. 2 Corinthians, Chapter 1, I'm sorry, Chapter 2. 2 Corinthians, Chapter 2, I believe, is an answer to 1 Corinthians, Chapter 5. And in 1 Corinthians 5, there was a man who was having sex with his stepmother. It was not his, or his mother-in-law, or his stepmother. It was his father's other wife. And he was going to the church. Everybody knew about it. And nobody was doing anything about it. And so Paul found out about it, wrote some very graphic language, and dealt with the situation. And in chapter 2 of 2 Corinthians, they come back, and the guy repented. He came back. That's what they're talking about. The guy repented, and he came back. And they're saying, what do we do with this guy? Do we let him come back? into the church, because Paul said in the first one, he said, you guys got to deliver this guy over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. But notice, he did not say for the destruction of the spirit. He said for the destruction of the flesh. That means to me that the church has quite a bit of authority if it can deliver you over to Satan. That's a lot of authority. Well, the guy repented and came back. And they said, well, what do we do with this guy? And then Paul writes in 2, 10, and 11, he says, to whom you forgive anything, I forgive also. For if I forgive anything, to whom I forgave it. For your sake, forgive I in the person of Christ." Basically, what he was saying is, guys, if you have to forgive somebody, you don't have to ask me if I should bring him back into the church or not or what we should do. If you forgive him, I forgive him too. And he says in verse 11, this is key, "...lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices." But what if we are? You see, what are one of the devices Satan is using here? It is unforgiveness. He says, we're not ignorant of those devices. Well, they weren't back then, but unfortunately, I think they still are today. That's one of the devices they can use. And I'll show them that. And if you see that, if you don't forgive somebody, you're getting an advantage of your life. You talk to any military guy, the last thing you want to do is give the enemy in your life the advantage. And I'll take them back to Ephesians, chapter 4. And verse 30, and it says, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed on the day of redemption. I say, the Bible talks about three things about the Spirit of God. It says, don't grieve the Spirit. It says, don't quench the Spirit in Thessalonians. And it says in chapter five here, be filled with the Spirit, okay? I grieve the Spirit of God when I say yes to sin. I quench the Spirit of God when I say no to God. And he says, don't grieve the spirit. But what are some things that grieve him? Verse 31 says, let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Giving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has to give you. And I'll ask them. I'll say, we're giving somebody that has to take place. Number one, an act of the will. Friend, it's not meaning that they go away. It's not meaning they get better. Maybe they'll get worse. Maybe they'll do it more this way. They had to live with the ongoing consequences of things The Bible doesn't say, go back and tell me forgiveness is forgiven from your heart. Remember Matthew 18. Because often the kid has to pray about mom and dad and they don't want to pray in front of mom and dad about mom and dad because it just makes it that much worse. And so I'll say, OK, what I'm going to do is I'll just pray Psalm 139, 23 and 24. And that's where it says, search me in God and know my heart. Find me and know my fault. See if there's any wicked way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting. I will never have a person search themselves for sin. I'll never say, okay, let's go through and let's see of all the people that you have bitter towards. No, I never do that. Or that you have resentment towards. The Bible never says to search yourself for sin. The only two times the Bible ever says for you to search yourself is number one, it says, search that you're in the faith. Make sure you're a Christian. The second time, it says at the communion table, search yourself to make sure there's no sin. Only two times. At the communion table, it starts there and stops there. All the other times, it's searching me, oh God. Trust me, God knows what's significant in your life. God knows what's significant in a kid's life, but they need help with it. And so, I'll pray with them. I'll say, okay, Johnny or Susie or whoever I'm with, I'm just gonna pray. And it's gonna be very hard because what I want you to do is not to think. Try not to think. Because what you're gonna try and do is to think. Who did I, who did I, um, I'm going to have bitterness again. Now they know some right away. I mean, they're going to tell you some right away, because it's always in the forefront of their mind. But I said, I want you to try not to think. And I just want to pray with you that we'll have God search you. And we'll pray to some different areas of your life. And when something comes to your mind, all I want you to do is speak the name of the person out. Don't give me a situation. Speak the name. I'm going to write the name down. So don't worry. I'm going to throw this all away afterwards. I'm not going to publish it at the post office or something. So I'll pray with them. I'll say, OK, God, is there anybody in Johnny's life that has ever done anything to hurt kids? That's a really good thing to say, especially with kids. Anything that hurt them, or said anything that hurt them, you never want to forget it before. You just bring it to his mind. And I say, is there anybody in this immediate family, or grandparents, or aunts and uncles, or anything like that? And I'll start rattling names off. I use a notebook when I write. And I have gone down lists of names and turned the page over and keep going. Do you think it's ever going to stop? Sometimes you only have two or three names. It depends on the person. And then I'll say, okay, I'll pray through anybody at school. Anybody I've heard of at school. Any school I've been to in the past. What about churches? I'll pray through that. Any church I've been to in the past. A Sunday school teacher said something. A pastor said something. A kid. I'll pray through, you know, how about at work? Employees. Employers. I'll just pray through all these things. And always what's on the list first, most of the time, is mom and dad. top of the list. And then it's because the people that are closest to you hurt you the most. And then it's brothers and sisters, usually, and then close friends. And then from there it goes on. And then you're like, wow, I forgot about that person. I forgot about this one. I forgot about that one. And they'll ask you, though, well, I already forgave this person. Should I do it again? I say, if you already forgave him, no. But if you want to do it again, that's OK. I'm not going to stop you. But if you already forgave him, no. Maybe there's something else you should have forgave him for, too. Who knows? And I'll do all this stuff. After they get the list, I say, OK, now what I'm going to do is I'm going to start, and I start at the bottom of the list, because those are the least significant, because they're easiest to pray through, and it works them up to the hard ones. And I'll say, let's pray through. I'm going to speak the name out, and all I want you to do is say, Lord, I do forgive so-and-so for, and fill in the blank. They have to forgive specifics, not details. Never go for details. Details help no one. If a councilman ever tries to tell you details, you're doing it for one reason. And that's to get you on their page, to justify their actions. Don't ever let them give details. That's no good. Specifics are OK. Did David commit adultery with Bathsheba? Yes. How'd he do it? We don't know, and I don't care. You know what I mean? That's what I'm saying. So I'll say, OK, I want you to say, Lord, I do forgive so-and-so, or whatever it is. And be specific, but general. But I can't just say, I forgive John, I forgive Bill, I forgive Susie, and Jeffrey. I can't do that. That doesn't work. Because I'm bitter for a reason, right? I'm bitter for a reason. I have to forgive for a reason. That's what I have to forgive. The reason I'm bitter. And the person. I don't just forgive the person. I forgive the reason that the person did it. And I'll pray through it. I'll go through everything. And sometimes it's very, very hard to start crying. It can take them 20 minutes to get through one name sometimes. I've had that happen. And they just can't do it. It hurts so much. They were hurt deeper than that person realizes. After all that's done, I'll say, OK, how about the reverse side of the coin? Every story has two sides. What if I have your brother or sister in here, or one of your friends in here, and I'm working through this stuff with them, and you're number one on their list? What about that? And I think, wow, yeah, I didn't think about that. Or I have no things I have done. Basically, what I'm saying is, are there people that you have offended that you have not gone back and made it right? This sometimes requires restitution as well. If I steal your dollar. I can't just go back and say, I'm sorry, I stole your dollar. What are you going to do? You're going to be like, OK, I forgive you. You know, right? And you want your dollar back. Of course, I don't have a dollar you could steal from me. But I'll go through and say, OK, what I want you to do, and not right now, but I want you to pray this Psalm 139 thing for the next day or two, or however long it is that you're working with somebody. I want you to pray and just say, God, is there anybody that I have hurt, but I've not gone back and made it right? Bring it to my mind. I want to write it down on a list. Don't write down any detrimental information in case that got to somebody else. Just write down a name. They'll know. Maybe something basic. And then, when I go through clearing the conscience and dealing with morals, I'll bring that back up. Are there anybody that you hurt on your list? See, Paul said, I strive always to have a conscious foot of offense towards God and towards men. It's always right to get right with God. Is it always right to get right with man? I would say, usually. But I don't always, always go back and try to make something right. Why? The whole point is to clear up the past, right? Clear up past offenses. What if all I'm doing is stirring up and muddying the water? I'll give you an example. There's a guy who is sleeping with his girlfriend in high school. Ten years later, he wants to get his life right with God. So he shows up at the front door. His dad and her husband ask him the door. He says, hey, I'm the guy that was sleeping with your wife in high school. I want to talk to her. Didn't work. Didn't work. You know what? It's a good way to get killed, actually. So there are certain things when situations like that, I give it to God. I can't go back. If it's kids, I'll say, if you're going to go back and talk to somebody, either talk with one of us or your parents about your wording beforehand. Because I can also word it really bad. What if I say, I just want to ask you to forgive me for getting really mad at you because you hit me. What did I do? I project the blame. And so they're thinking, oh, the reason why is because of me. So you're not clearing anything up. Wording is important. Don't ever write letters. It's a written document. Phone calls are probably one of the best. You can get quick and to the point, because sometimes it's awkward when you're talking to a person. Some people, they may have no clue where they're at. It was somebody years ago, and how are they going to deal with it now? I don't even know where they're at. Well, guess what happens with their Walmart one day? Guess who shows up? Happens a lot. not just Walmart, but gas station or whatever, somebody pulls up and guess who it is? You better have your wording down because that may be your last chance to see that person. You better know what you're going to say and be very specific, very to the point, and be done with. Don't keep talking a whole lot afterwards. The Bible says in multitudes of words, there are wanteth not sinned. And often they say something that's too much and they get back in the past first again. So I'll just say, just make a list. Is there anybody? What about restitution? Some people, A, they could go to jail for some stuff. All kinds of things. We've had people cheat on their bar exams. We've had people that have stolen guns. What's going on? You go to jail for stuff like that. How far are you willing to go to make things right? I'm not going to tell you to do it at all. Because if I make you do something, and you do it, and you go sad, who are you going to blame? As a counselor, people like you to run their lives. They'll say, tell me what to do. Tell me what to do. That's why I say, now this is what God says right here. That way you can get mad at God if it doesn't go right. And that's it. But I will never tell you what to do as far as you have to do this. I just say, here's what the Bible says will happen if you don't. And here's what the Bible says will happen if you do. And that's it. Another thing you're going to come across with in kids, especially, is authority issues. Yes. Oh, yeah. Well, let's say I forgave him again. OK, people will say, well, I already forgave this person, but I have to do it again and again and again. And maybe for the same offense, I'll say, yeah, keep doing it. Oh, those things, you pay back. Yeah, I've told people that, those things. But I'm not going to say you need to go back and pay it five times back. Yeah, we'll bring all those things out. You know, how far do they want to go with it? The thing is, right now, I'm just giving them, hey, make a list of people. And then on Thursday, it's when I deal with all the sexual issues, we'll deal with that. That's another thing. Never go into, like, if a person comes for a certain reason, OK, if I've got a teenage boy who's heavily into pornography and everything that goes with it, I'm not going to jump into that day one because I've built no relationship with the kid. He doesn't know I love him. He doesn't know, he has no trust there. That's why I go to the basic stuff first, deal with bitterness, other things that are key. Like the girl that was demonized because of bitterness, you know? She never dabbled in the occult. But always save the big things for last, or close to last. If you jump in right away, and they come in, these kids come in and they're terrified. I'm serious, they have no clue what to expect. And if you've ever met Logan, once they meet Logan they're like, Okay, this is easy. Or easier. This is a lot better. Because Logan, he's such a jokester. That's right. Yeah, we'll give them those. We'll say what the Bible says. Let's see. We'll say, we need to make restitution. What should we do about that? Or what do you think should happen? What does the Bible say? What does Mom and Dad say? That's important, too, with restitution. Especially with young kids. I'm talking like younger than teens and stuff. What are they going to do? They stole a pencil from school or something. What should they do? But there again, I will never say, you have to do it this way, otherwise you're not going to make it right. Because I don't want to put any kind of guilt on them. I don't want to tell them. Because a lot of people, like I said, they like counselors to run their life. They really do. What should I do about this? Read the Bible and find out. You know? If you're not in the Word of God, like somebody was talking to me, if you're not in the Word of God, afterwards with counseling, getting free is easy. Staying free? That's a whole other story. That's what's hard. Getting free is easy. Staying free is hard. That's what's really difficult. You'll always, with kids, you'll deal with two other issues. I'm running out of time to get everything I want to get. Music issues and authority issues. Let's go to, I don't know where it's at in that thing. I typed that stuff up a year ago, a year and a half ago. I don't even remember where everything is in there, because I never read it. But yeah. Let's go to Samuel. I know where it's at in the Bible. I'm not sure where it's at in the book. 1 Samuel 15. Now, in 1 Samuel 15, this is the time when King Saul was... I give this kid these stories in the Bible all the time. I'll probably talk to them. You know, I won't just have them sit down and read, like, three chapters so they get a story. I kind of paraphrase it, and I don't want to color it too much so it's distorted, but, you know, make it fun to listen to. And I'll tell them, okay, there was a King Saul. He was the first king in Israel. And one day, God told Samuel to go tell Saul to go wipe out this nation. And everything I do tell a kid, though, is true. I won't ever lie to him. That's another thing I should have put on the front of this, the key steps to working with a kid. Tell them, if you don't want to tell me something this week, that's fine. You don't have to tell me. But don't ever lie to me, please. Don't ever lie to me. No. You can trust me. If you don't want me to tell your mom and dad, that's fine, I won't. Please don't ever lie to me. Because the Bible says, if you love the truth, the truth will make you free. Right? If the truth makes me free, then lies what? They bind me. So, if a kid lies to you, and we've caught them in lies and stuff, it's not always real common. Because, like I said, we screen our people that come, and we only want to have the ones come that want to get help. If they want to get help, they're not going to lie to you. But if they lie, they won't be free. Anyway, just remind me of that. God told Samuel, told Saul to go and wipe out this nation. Why in the world would God say go and wipe out this nation? It's not just go take it over. It's wipe out everything. Men, women, children, dogs, cows. Don't bring anything back. Kill everything. And Samuel goes on his way. Well, Saul didn't do what God said. God tells Samuel again. He says, Saul, carry out what I told him. So Samuel goes back, and he sees Saul, and Saul comes up, and immediately Saul says, hey, I did what God said. And then Samuel says, what's that bleeding of sheep and looting of cattle that I hear? I think he was kind of cynical there, sarcastic. You know, nah, what's that? I thought you heard everything. Oh, I want to sacrifice those to God. Oh, and by the way, the king's alive, too. I want to sacrifice those things to God, though. But then El-Kid will ask you questions. He'll ask you the craziest questions. Why would God tell him to wipe out everybody, men, women, and children? You're going to get crazy questions in there. You've got to think. Well, at the Counseling Center, we've got this magazine. They still get it. Biblical Archaeological Review. And it's on stuff they're digging up over there, all kinds of things. Well, they found a city over there. Like, they found different things. Like, the Ur of Chaldea, they didn't ever think existed. That's where Abraham came from. Well, guess what? A guy with a shovel dug it up one day. So again, the Bible's true. So it's all this kind of stuff. There are things talking about how the Bible's true. I don't need that for me to believe this is true. I believe it regardless. But anyway, they found a city that was destroyed. It looked like it was in a battle, destroyed. Burned and everything. And it was really kind of horrifying what they found, though, because it was a very, very wicked, evil, vile city. For instance, without getting graphic, even their plates would have pornography on them. Stuff they ate off of. Their silverware were made in body parts that are not good. The little lamps that use the light had pornography on those. Everything in the city was just bad. And so that could be one of the ones that God said, hey, it's so bad, destroy it. Get rid of it. I don't know. But it's kind of interesting. And I'll tell the kids that. And I'll say, God told Sam, I told Saul, I'll do this for whatever reason. Remember, when God said to do something, my obedience must precede my understanding. I don't have to understand it to obey it. I have to obey it first. If I understand it later, that's fine. And he says in verse 22, 15-22, and Samuel said, The word hearken there in the Hebrew literally translates to hear what's doing. It's not just I heard, but to hear what's doing. to carry it out. And he says, for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. This is the first time that Saul really blew it, that God gave a judgment on him. There was two more times when Saul really blew it. The first time he said, I reject you from being king. The second time he said, I reject your sons from being king. And the third time he said, I'm going to kill you and take you out and your sons. And he did. Because Saul just kept going bad. So at number one, I say God wants us to obey Him more than doing great things for God. Okay, if I think I did something great, to do sacrifices or whatever. That's what Saul said, I'm going to do all these sacrifices with all these animals, you know. And he says, for rebellion is as a sin of witchcraft. What's that saying? Well, what does witchcraft do? It opens you up to what? Monarch involvement in tech. Not only that, you're inviting it. It doesn't just open you up, you're inviting it. It's almost like your sleep report. Rebellion does the same thing. And stubbornness. Maybe you weren't rebellious, but have you ever been stubborn? And could have done the same thing. Go clean your room. Not now, I'll do it later. I have to drag a kid upstairs and that kind of thing. That all goes in there. And I'll have them stop right there. I'll be like, have you ever been rebellious? And they'll say, yeah. Most of the time, I'll say, yeah. Because I mean, these kids, they're at the end of it right now. They're at the end of their rope, and they want to do whatever it takes. Well, I say, well, let's pray right now and ask God to forgive you for being rebellious. So they do. Now, there's something that's key. Parents will often come, and they will say, my child's a villain. And guess what? The kid's not even close to a villain. I've had, and I'm not joking, I've had parents say, when I kick our son out of the house, he says, you won't have to take garbage out when we tell him to. I'm serious. I've had that. I've also had the reverse. Our kids are sleeping with their boyfriends and girlfriends in our house, but we want to help them, so we're going to let them stay here. I've had that, too. Parents on both sides of the spectrum. And when a parent tells me something, I don't throw it away, but I don't believe it either. I'm not saying I just swallow everything they tell me. When a kid tells me something, I don't throw it away, but I don't say I believe it either. You've got to weigh both sides. Remember the verse that says, he that has heard first has caused him with justice. Make sure you hear both sides. Because often what counselors do, and I've had this a lot too with other counselors, at other centers I've talked to. So I hear one side, especially if you need a marriage counselor, I hear one side. And I usually use the wife's side because she goes to counseling usually before the man does to try to get help. And then the counselor will take her side and they go against the man. Sometimes vice versa. You can't do that. Logan, I've learned something really good from him. He never takes sides. Ever. And I won't take sides. And I'll tell people that to their face. We'll have a lady come in and she'll be telling us all this horrible stuff. OK, we're here. I was inside. OK, let me talk to your kids for a moment. You know, and they're like, oh no, what's my kid going to say? What's my kid going to say about me? You know, like one kid, we asked him, where'd you get your pornography from? Oh, well, dad had it. We've had that. And the dad turned bright red. You know what I mean? I got it from dad under dad's bed. It's like, we've had that stuff a lot. And so we looked at dad and we're like, OK. We just smile at him real big. He really puts the coals on his head. He says, OK, they'll come and they'll say, my child's rebelling. There's three things that you have to understand. The Bible talks about foolishness, disobedience, and rebellion. And they're all different. This is the example. I'll give different examples, depending on the age of the kid. But let's say, if I have a little kid, I'll say, OK, let's say that, because sometimes they don't know what's rebellion, what exactly is rebellion. Well, mom and dad said I'm rebellious, but I don't know what it is. I said, OK, let's say that, let's say mom and dad say, for you and your brother not to throw the ball in the house. And you and your brother are there one day, and mom and dad are gone. And you throw the ball, and you break a lamp. And actually, they didn't say not to throw it. You just play around. You throw it, you break a lamp. That's foolishness. You're messing around. You did something foolish. You broke a lamp. OK. But mom and dad tell you, OK, don't throw the ball in the house, because if you do, you might break something. You might break a window or something. And so mom and dad are gone one day. Hey, Dylan, catch the ball. Oh, mom and dad said not to. you break something. Disobedience, okay? Rebellion is when mom and dad say, don't do this. Don't throw the ball in the house. And then Billy and Johnny are playing and they say, hey, Johnny, catch the ball. No, mom and dad said not to. Mom and dad has no right to tell us what to do. That's rebellion. Rebellion is always against authority. Disobedience is always against the rules. And often children are disobedient. It's not rebellious. It's a big difference. It's a real big difference. But parents are saying, well, they didn't obey me, so they're rebelling. No. They could be, but not always. Just know that. Just because a parent says something, don't start throwing your finger at the kid and saying you're doing this and doing that. Listen to their story and try and help them. Because often parents don't know exactly what they're saying either. They don't understand this stuff either. Just doing foolish things. Well, like rebellions against the authorities and disobediences against the rules. Polishness is just lack of common sense. I've never had anybody ask that question, honestly. Do a study on it. Type it up and email it to me. No, I wouldn't have a definition for Polishness. It's just doing things. Yeah. Yeah, but those kinds of fools are different than just kids playing around. Yeah, the problem is kids, and this is another thing that's very true in kids. This is what Logan says to them. He goes, I know what your problem is. This is before they even know his name, hardly. Wow, and this guy's like, he's as old as God. And he's, oh, man. And I know what your problem is. And he goes, what's my problem? your nose is too short. I'm serious. And he goes, my nose is too short. And he goes, yeah, because all kids look past their nose. They don't look at the far-reaching consequences of the decisions they make today. And if you would get your kids to be able to see the far-reaching consequences of the decisions, they wouldn't do a lot of things. Ab and Eve had no clue that you and I would be in a situation we're in today because of what's going on. Abraham had no clue that because of getting involved with his wife's handmaid, all our troops behind Iraq today, all this kind of stuff, because we don't see the political consequences of our decisions. Another thing, I'll tell you this, often children rebel and the parents were, I guess what you could call, as perfect as you could be. They raised their children right. I don't mean perfect in a negative sense. They raised their children right, yet their children still fell away. Why? Well, just because the children are doing something that's not always their parents' fault. Okay? Because a lot of people will say, well, it's got to be the parents' fault. They weren't raised right, because they'll use this verse. Train up a child, and away you go. And when he's old, he won't depart from it. And you didn't train him right, so, therefore, something's wrong. Well, let me ask you this. How many, who was their parent? God. What happened? They were in a perfect situation, and they still messed up. I've told that to parents before too. You know, think about it. So what it's saying is, try to get the child away as you go. He may rebel. They've got the prodigal son. He will come back. He's old. He will come back. Maybe he'll not be too old. But you can train, if they're always trained perfectly, you know, train them up. Adam and Eve talked to God and walked with God. And they still knew the experience of that even after they sinned. Yet look what happened with Aaron and Abel. That's the first generation in that murder already. So it's not always the parent's fault. OK, back to authority. Oh, one more thing I should have said in forgiveness. I'll tell somebody. Because you asked, how many times should I? I was talking about, how many times should I forgive? Because often, I don't feel like I forgave the person. And I'll tell them, well, have you ever had surgery or something? A lot of times, if they're kids, they haven't. But I can ask people, have you ever been cut or had to be sewed up back up with stitches? And they'll say, well, yeah, I had surgery or whatever. And I'll say, OK. Did it hurt when you got it? And you had it. Well, yeah, afterward, I was knocked out and all that. Afterwards, when they sewed me up, again, it was pain. I'll say, yeah, when you forgive somebody, there might still be pain because they cut you. But after a while, that what happens with that laceration, it heals, right? That was, what, a scar there. I've got a scar all over my body. But there's a scar there, right? So you have a memory of that, right? OK. You know that forgiveness has worked its work when you remember without the pain. You'll always remember you had surgery. There's a scar there. It doesn't hurt anymore, right? So for you to say true forgiveness is forgetting, you are not biblical at all. Because often, people won't forget. It hurts so much, and there's a scar left there. You won't forget. So, if somebody says, well, God forgets and forgets. No, He doesn't. You're prostituting a verse that says He remembers your sin no more. It does not say He forgot. To say that God would forget would be to say that God is not omniscient. God is. So, He says He chooses to remember it no more. He's not going to bring it back up. But God does not forget. Okay, as far as God's concerned, it's on the sun, with the people. But to say to somebody, well, now that you forgave them, don't ever bring it back up. If you ever say anything to anybody, you better have verses to back it up. You better. Especially the kids, because they will get you more than adults. They really get you, and I've been like, wow, what am I gonna do? This kid's gonna be counseling me in a minute, you know? I never thought of that. But after a while, you start to learn things they're going to say. And there's always going to be one that's still going to get you. There just is. And they're not trying to. They're asking sincere questions. But there's always going to be somebody. There's always going to be one. But remember, I know that forgiveness has worked its work. But I remember without the pain. You can tell them that. The pain will go away. It may take time. But time does heal things. So we're still back on the floor here. So I'll take him to Romans now. I talked to him about that stuff. He was talking about, God just wants me to obey what he said, more than thinking I can do something great that I think would be great for God. But it's just obeying something else God told me to do. Romans 13, 1 and 2 says, let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, or governing authorities, some translations will say. For there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. So everybody that is set up, we just had the elections. Every one of those people that got in on the elections was what? Was ordained of God. So don't complain. Whosoever therefore resisted the power, or the authority, it's talked about, resisted the ordinance of God, the stuff God set up. And they that resist shall receive in themselves damnation. That's pretty big, you know, if you're going to resist that stuff. So I'll tell them everything that was set up, you know, my parents are horrible. How can God give me such horrible parents? Or the dean of my college is just miserable. Or my bosses are just, I can't stand them. Or my pastor. Or you'll hear all kinds of stuff. You know what? That was set up by God. You know, I have to honor the position, but I don't necessarily honor the person. When Clinton was in office, there was things he did that I would not want to honor. But I still honor him as my president. I honor my mom and my dad. Why? I'll tell kids this. I'll say, Myles says honor your father and your mother. Why? They'll give an answer. It's very, it's not right. Do you know what they say? Do I have a long life? I mean, it's a funny book. That, but there's something even more. The thing is, it says, honor your father and your mother, that it may go well with you. And that you might have a long life in the land that God gave you. But let me ask you this, if it's not going well with you, why would you want a long life? I mean, yeah, I don't know if I laughed at that, but think about it. If it's not going well with me, why would I want a long life? And that's misleading. I think that's something Satan goes in there a lot. You know, honor him so you can live long. I don't want to die. Honor him so you can live long and do what you want to do. Honor him that it may go well with you. God said to you, exactly. Obedience must precede my understanding. But, honor him that it might go well with you. You know, if things aren't going well, don't ask him. Are you honoring your mom or dad? All right, let's see. I'm really running low on time for what I want to get done. I think I'll go into the clearly conscious and moral issues. Go to 1 Timothy 1. facing. And Paul is writing to Timothy here, and he's giving him a charge. He's giving him kind of like a commissioning service. And he says, this charge is submitted to thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went on before thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare. So he's putting this in a warfare context to begin with. Holding faith in a good conscience, which some having put away concerning faith, have made shipwreck, of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." Okay. This is getting you back into clearing the conscience stuff. So he says, number one, he's talking about, I need to have faith and a good conscience, a clear conscience. Remember I talked about, I haven't made a list of people that maybe they need to go back and make things right on. And I'll say, do you have your list? And they'll bring it out or whatever. Sometimes I'll ask, well, why should I go back? And I'll bring this stuff up. Holding faith in a good conscience. Another word for a good conscience would be a clear conscience, which some have been put away concerning faith that makes shit break. I was talking about Hymenaeus and Alexander. They were blaspheming. But how were they doing it? What were they doing? The word blasphemy means to rail against God. But a lot of times, people associate blasphemy with just curse words. But that's not what it's talking about here. He says, Hymenaeus and Alexander were teaching that you can be a Christian, but you don't have to have faith or a good conscience. They put it away, and they shipwrecked their life. Now, Hymenaeus and Alexander were Christians. How do we know this? Number one, it said he delivered them over to Satan. Well, you don't deliver non-Christians to Satan. Satan's already gone, the Bible says. Number two is they shipwrecked their life of faith. So they had a life of faith, but they somehow are shipwrecking. But he's saying, they're teaching that you don't need to have a clear conscience, and that's blasphemy. Go to 1.5, and Paul says, now the end of the commandment is this, charity or love out of a pure heart and of a good conscience, a clear conscience, and of faith and faith. Now this, he's got kind of the past, present, and future here. Number one, he talks about a pure heart. A pure heart would be your current standing with God. Is there anything between my soul and the Savior? And the second thing he talks about is a good conscience. That's your past. Have you cleared everything up in the past? in the future, faith. Just looking forward to things, you know, I want to walk with God. So I'll say, God, you kind of got them all three here, but have you cleared everything up with God and with people? Because in Acts 24, 16, he says, I strive always to have the conscience of God that was in it. That's what Paul said. He was always trying to do this. So I'll pray through the stuff with them, and they'll get their list out, and I'll just go through it, how to word it, like I was talking about. After that, I'll take them to Romans 6. Romans 6 can be used for any kind of sin stuff, but it works best on the sexual stuff. And you have to be very, very careful how you deal with young kids with this, because you want to be able to deal with everything that they've been into without giving them any ideas of things they have not been into. You know what I mean? So you kind of don't go up to the throat. But see, the thing is, by this time, normally, I've been with them for three or four days. Because I've been dealing with other things, stuff I haven't had time to get over. But I've kind of learned where they're coming from. I've also talked to their parents, if you're younger. If you're older, they'll tell you things. Also, we have a little check sheet that we mail them before they even come. They mail them back in to us. It is very, very personal. that they check anything they've ever been into or are into, so we know exactly more how to help them. That's all confidential stuff. Sometimes, yeah. If they're old enough to do that shoot on their own, we ask the parents to let them do it on their own and not fill the shoot out with them just because They can be more honest that way, because a lot of times, the kids are going to think that their parents don't know about it, and they don't want to know about it. We tell the parents, don't read it. Just trust your kid. If you think your child's not going to be honest, then fill it out with them, or if they're younger, you can fill it out for them, or whatever. But yeah, sometimes it changes when they get there. But by this time, usually, like I said, we screen them, and they want to get help. They're desperate. And somebody who's at the end of their rope, they're almost too honest. I don't know how to shut people up because they're giving too much information and I don't need it. You know what I mean? And out of guys and girls, guess who wants to give more information? Girls. Especially, and if you're very careful, especially in the moral areas, they want to give details. You know what? I'm not going to listen to that. I'm not going to ever. I'll leave the room. I'll walk out on them. I'll say no, I'm not going to talk about that. Why? Well, number one, I don't like working with girls. You know, I just don't like it. I've done it, but most people that came here were guys. I don't know, one in six, one in eight were girls, maybe. But we don't have any way to counsel her. That's the problem. So, we're going to do it. When it comes to moral issues, we won't go into details at all. I'll share with them what the Bible says, and when it comes to praying through things and talking about things, I'll leave the room and let them talk to God. Or if they're a girl with their mom. But I won't sit there and listen to it. But yeah, the thing is, people want to give details. You don't need it. Why should you have thoughts getting stirred up in your mind? What prompted that question? I forgot where I was at. Oh, the questionnaire. Yeah, I had a mail in that questionnaire. So that way, we kind of know more about what we're dealing with. And this is another time, the bitterness preys on the bitterness itself. And this time, it's when you tell the parents to do it. for them to be in there. As a kid, I'd rather have a child honest and knew even victory than be there with their parents and walk out in bondage. You know, sometimes they have a really good relationship with their mom or their dad, and they can stay in there with them sometimes. Feel for that over the course of that week that you're working with them. Whenever people come to us, it's for five days, Monday through Friday. When I was in Iowa, anyways. And you can kind of get a feel for how's the relationship with mom and dad. Our units will break out in this stuff. I mean, stuff will happen. That's just the way it goes. Another thing people will say is, well, you're not a girl. You should not be counseling girls. Another thing they'll say, you're not married. You should not be counseling married people. You know what I say? Only those Christ. Give me a verse. And the thing is, I don't like working with girls, but I have. But I don't like working with marriage problems at all. Whoever goes into that, my hat is off to you. and you can have that whole section of it. Try putting a cat and a dog in a cage and telling them to be friends. I've had... I just don't like it. Alright, so I'll take them to Romans 6 now. Romans 6 can be used for all kinds of sin issues, but I said we're going to use it in the moral issues. What I was saying before is don't give You want to find out where they're at, but without giving them ideas of things they might, in the future, investigate. Because you can take them down a road they don't need to go down. You know, the other thing is you want to get to where they're at. So you want to get, you want to, I don't know how to say this kind of word, you don't want to beat around the bush, but you kind of want to, you know, when you're talking to them, and get them to do the talking as much as possible. You know, when they're older, and they're teenagers and stuff, They're pretty much, if they're into sexual stuff, they've done it. So I told them, I said, we're going to use this part now for the sexual stuff. You can use it for anything, but this is what we're going to be gearing it towards. And so again, I have them read. And when I do Romans, I start out with all the negative first. I'll say, there's some verses that have positive in them, but I'm going to, I hate it when my picture's taken. Because when I go to the checkout line at the grocery store, my picture's all over those magazines. Sometimes, yeah. You just don't want to give them ideas. What I mean by this is with the younger ones. Especially, I'd be very, very careful with those who are younger than 10. Older than that, By 12 or 13, you can pretty much go out. Some real conservative families, sometimes real conservative families, when they come in there, the kids will pretend they're conservative. But let me tell you, and they'll say, well, what does that word mean? I mean, like, give me a break, kid. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? They know. So you want to get the barrier down. You want to let them know that, hey, you know that they're not ignorant, but you don't want feed them information either. It's got a lot of stuff, but it gets even more detailed. It's got a lot of stuff. Were you into premarital sex? Were you into pornography? All this kind of stuff. And drugs. We even have a list of all different kinds of drugs. You check which ones you were doing. All kinds of pretty much everything. I don't think I have a list here. I should have brought a check sheet. Did you guys get a check sheet? Did you guys get one of those? I think it's one that actually developed in Iowa. Sorry. Oh, no. That check sheet, it's very personal, but it's not going to give you anything. No. I mean, it has marked down like bestiality and stuff like that, but it's going to be like, what's that? Mom and dad says, oh, nothing. You know, that kind of thing. So it has all that kind of stuff, but it doesn't tell you It's specific, not detailed. That's why I'm trying to get details. We don't want to stay away from these details. I know you don't have much time left, but I think the next year or two, you're probably going to have a lot of work to do. When I was in Iowa, we dealt with two people a day is all we could do, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. And a session would go about three hours. And you say, well, what are they doing the rest of the day? Well, we give them those homework things. Also, there's some books that we give them. Knowing the names of God is very key. The Bible says, the name of God is a high tower. The righteous run to it and are safe. What if I don't know the names of God? So we have a book. We give them all. I say we give them, but they sell it. Lord, I Want to Know You by Kay Arthur is one of the best books on the names of God. There's a lot out there, but hers is really good. And we'd have them read one day a day. Does that make sense? Not one chapter a day, because there's like three days in one chapter. And the reason why is because you can get overwhelmed. There's so many names of God. and you can get overwhelmed, and you can forget when I was Jehovah Raphae, meaning, you know, the Lord our banner, or was that Jehovah Nissi, or that the Jehovah, you know what I mean? It's all these different things. And it's not just, it's knowing, the reason why you get to know the names of God is because if you want to know God's character, names reveal the character of God. And so if you want to know the character of God, learn His names. Every time God did something specific or something special, He said, I am, like the time He, the water was bitter in the, He said, throw the piece of wood in there, or whatever, and he threw it in there and he said, I'm Jehovah Rapha, the God that heals the bitter waters of life. And every time he did that, he said, I am Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides the sacrifice, the Abraham. So there's always a reason for his name. I even pray to specific names of God sometimes. If I need something, you know. I can say, God, I really need help in healing this bitter waters of my life right now, help me to forgive this person, or I can just say, Jehovah, I'll pray for help. It's kind of like, I don't know, shorthand. You know? And so it's those kinds of things. Another book, I can tell you this. I'll ask them how their prayer life is on day one, too. What's your prayer life like? What would you rate it as on one to ten? And they'll tell me. If they have no prayer life, and most of the time they don't have much of one, I'll have them read a book called Developing Your Secret Closet of Prayer by Richard A. Burr. That's also written down in this thing, I think, somewhere. And that's really good on a basic life. In there he says, no person's life will ever become more spiritual than it becomes prayerful. And that's really important. If they do have a prayer life, I will have them, and they're not beginners at it as much, I'll have them get a book called Quiet Moments with God by Lloyd Ogilvie. That book has just gone out of print. as of this last month, I think. So they're no longer going to be printing those books. So if you want to go to CVD and stock up on them, go for it. But they buy those books. And we have them read a chapter a day. And those things, we can't read as much as they can of Lloyd's book. That's really good. It's easy reading. He's a really good writer. He was chaplain of the Senate for a long time. He writes phenomenal stuff. But we don't give them those books. We can't afford to. So they would buy them. But I mean, they're still reasonable. They're usually cheaper than a bookstore. And if somebody's serious about getting help, they'll buy them. All right, so I'll go into the stuff. I'll say, OK, we're going to use this for dealing with your moral areas. And I'll have them go to Romans 6. Now, we're just going to deal with the negative first. And I'll say, I have them start in 12. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lust thereof. And I'll say, when something's reigning, when I picture something reigning, I picture a king who sits on a throne, and he's reigning. And when a king sits on a throne, he starts to give out these edicts. And you have to obey these edicts that are given out. And because if you don't, you're in trouble. That's what a king does, right? But it says, don't let sin reign in your body that you shall obey it unless you're of. You see, if I set sin up as king of my life, it'll start pulling these edicts out. And I start to do what it tells me to do. It says, neither yield to your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. And I'll stop them there. That's negative. And I'll say, what are your members? And they don't know. You can look it up in the Greek. It's literally talking about your body parts. Don't yield your body parts as instruments of unrighteousness and sin. And you can go any way. If I steal something, like this pen right here that's not mine, I put it in my pocket, I yield that as a member of unrighteousness and sin, right? The body part. I did something wrong. It says, don't yield your body parts to that. Now, it's really interesting. It says, don't yield your members as instruments. The word instrument there in the Greek translates weapons. Don't yield your body parts as weapons in the hands of sin. And we'll talk, you know, have you done this stuff? Have you yielded your members as instruments, as weapons in the hands of sin? We'll say, yeah. OK. I'll go skip down to 16. Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin or to death? Stop, because we're only doing negative. OK. So if I start to yield my members to these things, then I become his servant. So now the sins that I once chose to do are now choosing me. The thing that I once said, it's no longer if I do this, it's when I do this. It's when it goes into bondage. It goes from a choice into bondage. I can't stop it. Then I'll skip down to 19. Speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. whereas ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity." Now, for a long time, like Logan, I didn't know what that meant. So like a good Christian Bible reader, I'd skip over it and go on to the next thing, read something that I understood a little bit better. Well, one guy came into the counseling center. He said, you guys have to help me. My perversion has become perverted. You see, it's going from iniquity unto iniquity. What this verse is literally saying here is we all draw a line in our moral life. We have a line that we draw. This is okay for me. This is not okay for me. What happens? One day, I get close to that line and I straddle the fence and I go over that line. This is what I'm telling the kids. You know, how did I get here? Because let me tell you, a guy that goes to these gentlemen clubs and gets escort girls and is into pornography and all this stuff, let me tell you, he never planned on getting there. You know, these girls, we've had dancers come in, all kinds of things. They never planned on going there. And I look back on their life, and I think, how in the world did I get here? How in the world? I never planned on getting there. What happens is, I'll say, you drew a line. You said, this is OK for me, but this is not. But I stepped over that line. So what happens when I step over the line? I draw a new line, right? OK, now this is OK for me, but this is not. I'll never go there. Because see, we all say, I'll never do this. The thing is, they're now doing the thing they thought they would never do. It all keeps going. Well, they step over that line. So they draw another line. And another line. And another line. Until one day they're just like, how did I get here? It's just, there's no more lines to draw. That's it. That's what that verse is literally saying. The problem was not that they drew a line. The problem was they did not draw God's line. Because at the beginning they said, this is okay for me, this is not. They did not say, oh, what God said is what I'm going to do. Because we all have our boundaries. We all have what we would do if no one was around, or what we'd want to do. Unless we say, God, I want you to be in charge. Because otherwise, we'll put those lines up. Somebody said, character is what you do when no one else is around. Verse 21, what fruit had ye then in those things where you are now ashamed? Let me tell you, they've been brought to shame. By the end of those things is death. And a lot of those people are suicidal. Now, a lot of kids, are not into heavy stuff when they're young. But then again, I've had 14-year-olds that have done more stuff than a lot of 44-year-olds. It's rampant out there. Don't be shocked at what they tell you. Don't be. Because if they say something, and you will hear some stuff, if they say something, you're like, oh my goodness. They're going to be like, it's over. When I was first there, I had to pretend not to be shocked. But you know what? God gives grace. If God calls you to do it, God gives grace. Like I said, you don't need details. The thing is, now I'm not shocked. After a while, you'll hear everything. Now you just hear variations. Don't be shocked. Just be like, OK, you've heard it a thousand times. Because that kid needs to trust you. They've got to trust you. Doesn't matter what they're into, the same principles will apply to them. Okay, I've got to really hurry. So after this, I'll say, okay, the Bible said... Okay, I'll stop. Hang on. I'll pray with them now. And again, we do this Psalm 139, 23, and 24 again. Lord, search me in all my heart. Try me. Okay, and I'll sit down and pray with them. I'll say, okay, what I want to do, it's going to be very hard for you, but we're going to pray. And we're going to ask God to take you back to the very first time you broke his moral law, whatever it was. Often, it was before five years old, quite often. It was in a daycare playing doctor or nurse or show and tell or whatever. You guys know what I'm talking about. That was the first time they did something they knew was wrong, but they did it anyways. And that's where it started. And they'll go back and be like, I did not remember that. I was two years old. I was three years old. We've had horrible situations where people have done stuff to these little kids and it sent them down the road. Yeah. like they were molested or something. Yeah, they'll say it. They just say it anyways. They'll say this is the first time we've had grandmothers that have molested their grandchildren, grandfathers too. Surprisingly, I've had more grandmothers. We've had all kinds of stuff. I don't want to go into it. But they'll still say it. If you're dealing with somebody, let me tell you this, though. If you're dealing with somebody who's in the molesting stuff, know your laws before dealing with somebody. Know your state laws, because there's mandatory reporting, and if you get involved in something and you don't report it, and you're supposed to report it, you can go to jail. We've had kids' nightmares with one boy who had done some things. It wasn't really anything. He got involved with his sister, but it was more like, I'll touch you, you touch me kind of a thing. And the boy did it a couple times. He actually got accessed by his older sister first. She molested him, ATI. And he did it with his younger sister, but it was a mutual thing. And then he wanted to get help. So he hadn't done anything for years. He'd grown up. Well, he was 16 years old at this time. He hadn't done anything for years. And he wanted to get help, so he told his parents about it. And this felt really bad. They wanted to get him help. They took him to a counselor in their state. And now he's got like 22 years he's sentenced to. I dealt with the kid. It was sick. But the thing is, if you go out of state, you don't have to report. So if somebody comes into the situation and says, don't tell me anything, I'll refer you. That's why everybody that came to us came out of state or out of the country. Nobody came from our state. Glenn bills people from our state. But what were you saying? I'm sorry. Yeah, but you know what often is the problem? This'll say, I really didn't understand, I was confused. It made me feel really dirty, but I enjoyed it. Because it was pleasurable. Because mom or dad was doing something to me. That's what they feel bad about. It was pleasurable. And they think they're dirty and evil because it was pleasurable. You have to tell them that's the way God made you. I know it was not your sin, okay? You didn't want to do it. Now if it was mutual, that's different. But yeah, you have to talk to them about it. They'll feel dirty. Guys and girls, they feel horrible. But the thing they feel horrible about is not so much that it happened to them, but the fact that it was pleasurable and it happened to them. That's what really they feel bad about. Because they are so young when it happens, they don't understand. That's the sad part. So we'll pray with them. And we'll say, let's just go through and ask God to reveal to you the first time you broke his moral law. And from there, let's work up to where you are currently. And then we start back, you know, and we pray. And they'll start saying things that happened to them or they did. That's a child. Start just confessing it to the Lord. We have them do it out loud. You might say, why? Well, it says in James, confess your false to one another and pray for each other that you might be healed. Somehow, when I have a secret sin and nobody knows about it, there's power there. There's a power there and a temptation that's stronger. But once I confess it, the power's broken. The temptation is nowhere near as strong. When I keep it to myself, It's just, I can't explain it, but healing will not take place. That's why it says in James, they might be healed. It's talking about spiritual stuff there. It can be talking about maybe physical stuff too. But it says confess to each other. We have them pray out loud. And there again, I don't want details, but you have to get specifics. I did this, I did that. I had guys in there, I want you to tell me every time you slept with a girl, because by the time you're done I might be dead. You know, there's so many things. We've had all kinds of stuff. So you just say, just confess the basic stuff. Okay. And then, after all that, we go back to the positive. Okay, you dealt with the negative, let's go back to the positive. Yeah. No. I'm not saying remember the first time. I said, ask God to take you back to the first time. Remember, I have to tell him, try to think. Whatever it was, God knows what significant is. Maybe it was not the first time, but let's go back to the very first time that God breaks your mind. It pretty much always has. The only time it hasn't is when they said it was something and they lied. And I'll get to there in a minute. It's because at the end of this, I'll pray. And we ask God for confirmation. Is this everything? Are they free? And often, they're not. And the reason why they'll say, well, I didn't say this. I didn't want to tell you. You're too embarrassed. Because it's so humiliating. But I need to confess it anyways. Who wants to do that? The power's broken. And they're free. They know they're free. Their countenance changes everything. You just know. You just know they're free. We go back to the positive. We start again in 12. He says, He says, I was doing this. I was letting it rain, but don't let it do it anymore. You confess all this stuff to God. This can take a while, too, guys. In verse 13, the second part, it says, And I'll say, do you know your body parts can be weapons in the hand of God? Even your sexual parts. I never thought about that. But they are, right? And then, for sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. Okay, now here it's saying sin shall not have dominion over you. We have to remember something here. When it says you're being free from sin in Romans 6, it's saying, you have to read it in context, it's saying you're free from sin's domination. Okay, it's not saying you will never sin again. But it's saying you're free from sin domination. The things that were once choosing me are no longer choosing me. Okay, I will now, if I want to do it, I can do it. And then verse 16 and 17, we read the end, or obedience unto righteousness. But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but that ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. And then the last part of 19, even so, now ye are your members, your body parts, as servants to righteousness unto holiness. And then 22, but now being made free from sin and become the servants of God, ye have your fruit unto holiness in the everlasting life. So I say, now it's interesting. I'll tell them, in Romans chapter 12, it says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your what? Your bodies? Exactly. But six chapters prior, it says, what? Yield your body parts to God. Your members, your body parts. So what I do is I'll pray with them. I'll say, OK. Let's just pray right now, let's dedicate everything to God. We'll start at the top and work our way down. Let's start with your mind, that God will cleanse your mind. And now I say we pray that you give your eyes to God, your ears to God, the things you hear, the things you say, the things you do with your hand, your feet and where they take you. And then your sexual parts and also your sex drive, the things that drive your life and stuff. So we're going to submit that all to God, place it all on the altar and just give it to God. Because that's what it says to do here, right? You once submitted it to Satan for his use when you do these things. You willfully do that. Now let's do it to God. And then also in 12, it says, yeah, I'm hurrying up. Get behind me, Satan. He says, So I pray to all that stuff. Now, after this, it's very important. I'll pray with them, and I'll pray that God will break off all generational curses. It's in your stuff. Pray that God will break off generational iniquities. Pray that God will... There's a lot of things that we go through. I pray as the Spirit leads. But then I say, now God, if everything has been dealt with in John Doe's life, then right now I just pray for your confirmation that you would just put people in peace. If there's anything, though, that has not been dealt with, that needs to be dealt with, that you would just give them a check on their spirit and rest. I'm not a piece. And I'll pray. Now the Bible says watch and pray. So I'll pray with my eyes open. And I'll watch them because their eyes are closed and a lot of times they'll cringe and you know something's not right. You have to watch and learn to read. Or sometimes they'll just relax. It's just amazing. You'll see all kinds of stuff. But they'll get up Afterwards, you're done praying, you say, OK, how do you feel inside? And they'll either say, I have peace, or something's not right. We'll say, OK, God, what is it? Let's pray. Do it again. Often with kids, there's two things with kids that they won't submit to God. They don't want to. They come up with almost every time. Their music, I don't want to submit my music to God. And their dating life, those two things. And once they do that, it's fine. Usually, you never have to pray again. That's for they lied about something. Let's say I didn't tell you. I should have told you this, but I didn't. Once they do that, they just have peace. You can't explain it, but they just do. I don't tell them what kind of music to listen to or not to listen to, but I will say music does affect you very much. I know we've got to quit here. But we had a kid who, OK, there's music that attracts demonic activity, and there's music that repels demonic activity. Remember Saul? He had David come and play when the demon would attack him. The spirit would come. OK, he had David play. Well, it would make the spirit go away. Well, there's also music that attracts demonic activity. We had one kid, a teenage boy, who would listen to this horrible music. I don't even know what these Nine Inch Nails or whatever these bands are. Logan and I know all these band names now. We have no clue what they sing. And so I could really look good in a secular crowd, but I don't know what they're expecting. But I'd be asking them, OK, so what are you listening to? And they say this or that. I'll say, well, do your parents approve of it? Well, no. Well, then get rid of it. That's what we tell kids. If your parents don't approve of it, don't get rid of it. I mean, get rid of it. I don't have a list. This is OK and this is not OK. You can listen to track one and three of Sandy Patty, but four, five, and six are horrible. I don't do that. So you can do whatever you want with your own kids. your personal biological kids, but don't tell them, don't listen to this or don't listen to that. But there was one kid, he was listening to all this sensual rock, heavy, hardcore, acid rock, punk rock, or whatever it is, stuff they'd listen to. And he would sit there in a youth group on Wednesdays and wonder which girl he should rape, as he was listening to stuff. And he came to the counseling center, and he got free of all this stuff. And after that, he went back, and he was doing good for a long time. And all of a sudden, he went right back and did the same stuff again. Now, he never did anything, fortunately. You call back, and it's just horrible having all the same problems that I had before. And we'll say, oh, when did it start? Oh, this time. Why? We started listening to music again. Yeah, when did you start doing that? Oh, about the same time. Seriously, this stuff happens. And so it'll put them right back in to where they were. So I know music affects people. I guess we got through most of the stuff. But there's a lot of stuff we didn't, so sorry.