to the Lord for all he's done. Grateful for all you good people that have helped. Lots of help that goes on unnoticed in a meeting like this. All the work getting the tent up and all the work a lot of the church folks have done in preparing things. There's been food preparation for the team and just lots of logistical stuff, getting the heaters, putting them together. None of that goes unnoticed by the Lord. The Lord sees every bit of it, and we all have different gifts, different jobs, different callings from God. But whenever we work together, God's work goes forward, and God is honored, and God will not forget your labor of love. So I thank anyone and everyone that's had a part in these meetings. I've got my. My wife made me tea up here. I don't have anything contagious, okay? It's not COVID. If any of you are worried about that, it's not that. It's just I've got, my voice just gives me fits. So if you pray for me about that, so far the Lord's just let it be a thorn in my side. Excuse me, I appreciate my wife playing the piano. She's not in here right now. Sister Addie from our church has been a big blessing. She comes up with us. Brother Gabe and his family, Gabe does our music. Gabe was working his way up the musical ladder there. I don't want to tell too much on you. You can tell it when God leads you to, but he wasn't singing in churches, we'll put it that way. God saved him. Now he's singing in churches. I praise the Lord for that. What a change God can work in a life. And now he's got his wife, his family sitting there. Hallelujah. Testimony of what God can do. God's grace. I myself am testimony of what God can do, of God's grace. My wife and I had five children and I was serving the Lord in church and seemed like a great guy and everybody said I was great. The Bible says, beware when all men speak well of you. That year I had more people compliment me than I've ever had in my life and I was on the edge of blowing out and God rescued me. God rescued me. Some of the things we're going to talk about tonight God rescued me from. Some of the things God rescued me from are considered normal and Christian and they're not. But God rescued me from them. And we're gonna talk about them. We're gonna get into some stuff tonight. We're on our fifth path. Honey, if you could send somebody for a bottle of water. We appreciate Michael Keim and his family. Michael is a firefighter and a dairyman and a crazy working hard guy. And he is nearly unstoppable. And old Michael Kime had, there was a mix up at the fire department with his time and his time trades and all this stuff. And his chief told him he needed to come in. And so he had to go into Springfield today and get all that straightened out and ended up in a big hazmat training, all kinds of stuff. And he's trying to get here. If he shows up, then we'll just be glad he's here. He said, I don't want to be a hindrance coming in the middle of the meeting. I said, you won't bother. So it's no big deal. But anyway, pray for Michael Kime. Michael is a preacher. He's more of an evangelist by far than I am. A biblical evangelist is someone who has a burden for lost souls and goes out to get them. And I'm the one usually dragging behind him. He's dragging me along. We gotta get out. We gotta find people to tell about Jesus. And I appreciate Michael. I appreciate his zeal. You mentioned it first time you met him. First time you went out of him, you said something about his zeal. And I appreciate that zeal. That's a powerful thing. That's a good thing to have a zeal for lost souls. And I love Brother Michael and his family. When I was on the edge there, that was 2014, I had five children and I had an invitation to go on a mission trip to Haiti and I didn't want to go. But it was a week out. It was a three-week mission trip. It was one week out. I was broke, didn't have hardly anything. What I did have, I was kind of holding out for deer season. And the... Hey, you guys are laughing about that. I would say amen, but I'd be guilty. Yeah. And I told the man that asked me, I said, well, if God provides the money, I'll go. And a week later, I was on an airplane to Haiti. And I didn't tell anybody about it because I didn't want to go. But I got down there, and I met two Christians there. One of them was bitter. He was mad at God because God had wasted his life on the mission field. He hated where he was at. His back hurt, and he hated the natives he was working with. And he ran, raked me up one side and down the other for asking too many questions. really challenged me in a lot of things that he had backslidden on, that he was trying to get me out of the old paths on. And the other missionary there, he was a real good buddy. He came up, put his arm around me, drank iced coffee with me. We ran through the hills of Haiti there, the mountains of Haiti, taking pictures, building cisterns, drinking Haitian coffee with the Haitians. If you've never had Haitian coffee, there's a reason donkeys bray. And it's Haitian coffee. If you've ever had it, it'll make your teeth stick straight out. They take a whole bunch of coffee. They grow right there. They throw it in a percolator with about, they take a big pile of coffee and a big pile of fresh cane sugar, and they throw it all in a percolator and boil it down into a syrup. And then they drink it. Grounds and all. It will make your teeth stick out and your hair stand on end. And then you'll say, I'll take another cup. And I can't explain that, but it'll get you. Anyway, he was all buddy-buddy, and he respected my convictions. He said, I respect your convictions. There's a big difference between convictions and biblical standards. Convictions are what you, Brother Josh, decide for your family are right for your family to do. Thank you. That's a good size. Thank you. what's right for your family. And it might be something like, my family's not eating mutton. And that conviction might have any kind of reason for it that you might have, that might even have some slight biblical hints and basis, but it's really just something that's on your heart. You might not even be able to explain it. As for me and my house, we're doing it this way. But a Biblical standard is when the Bible says something is right or wrong. That's a Biblical standard. And that's not something anybody has the right to have a personal conviction about. Do you hear me? A Biblical standard is a Biblical standard. When the Bible says marriage is between one man and one woman, that is not a conviction. That is a biblical truth, a biblical standard. And nobody has the right to, I feel this way about it, or I feel that way about it. The Bible is the authority. The Bible is the final authority in all matters pertaining to life, the universe, and everything. The Bible is God's Word. Now, if you didn't get the message last night, that's what we were talking about. The Bible's God's Word. And the reason we're backslidden in this nation is because we no longer believe the Bible is God's Word. And we come to the Bible with our minds over the Bible. The Bible's down here and our mind is up here. And I read the Bible and when I read it, I'm reading it with my own predisposed inclinations. I have my own ideas. I have my own teachings. I've got the doctrines my church taught me. I've got all these ideas. And if I'm reading the Bible that way, I'm reading the Bible to prove my opinions right. Or to prove my church right. Or to prove my seminary right. Or to prove my grandma right. But if you come to the Bible with your mind over the Bible, you're going to miss the whole thing. You're dead in the water. You're getting nowhere with God. God says he honored his word above his name. Did you know that? God said in the Psalms, I have honored my word above my name. The Bible says thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain. And then they killed those that would, in the Old Testament, that would take the name of the Lord in vain. They got the death penalty. And how much more then, if God has honored His Word above His name, should we have care lest we take the Word of God in vain? Did you know that Jesus, in the Bible, in John 1, it says, in the beginning was the Word, capital W. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. And Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The Word, Jesus is named the Word. Before Jesus was named Jesus by the angel there that spoke to Mary, Jesus was called the Word. And Jesus can be found in Genesis. In Genesis chapter 1, it says, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and it uses the plural word there, Elohim, created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, and there's the Trinity. Three in one, you have God in the general sense, which usually speaks of the authority of the Godhead, which is summed up in the Father. Jesus said, I came not to do my own works, but the works of Him that sent me. So there's God the Father, who created the heaven and the earth, but then it says the earth was without form and void. It says the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, with a capital S, and verse three says, and God said. When God said, it was Christ. And the Bible says that Christ created all things. It says that he was with God and that he was God. How can you be with God and be with God at the same time? It's impossible. humanly speaking. You see, one of the things we touched on was that God wants you to move from faith to faith. He wants you to take the things that He says that are able to be verified and you can look at the Bible and read it and prove God. And He even says to do that. And then He wants you to take the fact that He has proven Himself to be God and He's proven His Bible to be true. And then He wants you to take the parts that you cannot prove and believe them because of who He is. It's not blind faith. It's established faith once you trust the source. He wants you to trust the source by observable, verifiable fact. And then move from those facts that you can see into the realm that you can't see and take Him at His word even if it disagrees with everything you've learned your whole life. You believe Him. and his book. This book is the final authority. I hope you believe that today. If this book isn't the final authority, then I would have to ask you, what is your authority? People tell me all the time, well, I've got my own opinions, I've got my own way. What authority do you base that on? What authority do you base your opinions and your beliefs on? What authority? My pastor said so. My mom said so. My dad said so. My grandma said so. The old man that seemed to be really spiritual over here said so. I saw a bright light. I heard an angel. I heard a voice. I saw something. I felt something. A chill went up and down my back. I had an experience. I had an encounter. I met with God. All these things, if your authority is based on those things, you are like a ship without an anchor. You're adrift. Because the next time something else more powerful than what you experienced comes in, you're just going to go that way. Without the Word of God as an authority, you have no authority. And you're completely subject to the whims of change and to the depravity of fallen man. We talked about this yesterday. Get this thing loose. We talked about this yesterday. If you look up here, we're not going to review as much as we have tonight. We're just going to focus more on this. Here we've got the celestial city over there, the city of destruction. I just hesitate to call this heaven because it just doesn't cut it. A little hot. Turn that down just a little bit. So we have the fear of the Lord that keeps us from false prophets. We have watching and waiting that is destroyed by covetousness but delivers us from covetousness. We have obedience and judgment that God calls us to and that counteracts lying words and license. And that has to be based on God's word. By the way, I have a book that's free if you will read it on church judgment, what the Bible says about how churches should deal with sin. It's not practiced in America. And whenever they founded this nation, church judgment was common. In fact, whenever they had frontier churches and Indians would a lot of times get saved out of paganism and join the churches, there were many churches that had church judgment as a weekly part of the morning service on Sunday. How about that? And they'd call out, so-and-so's been drunk this week. Repent. Don't want to repent they turned him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh Send him out get out of here. You can come back when you get right with God It was part of the day weekly meetings church judgment has been part of church doctrine since God started the church. It's in the Bible It's explicit, it's open, and it's something that can be compared with multiple scriptures and found, and nobody even knows what the Bible says about it, or how to execute it, or what you should do about it, because we've left the Bible. That's why. And this is something that my dad preached and he taught was church judgment. And that caused him more trouble than anything because people always fought him on it. And we'll get into some of the reasons why later. Whenever we won't judge ourselves, the Bible says he must judge us. Judgment begins at the house of God. And so God expects us to obey His Word, and He expects us to have righteous judgment. But then He called us here in Jeremiah 8, 6, we talked about this, that the people were in a perpetually backslidden state. And we saw that the people accused God of two things. They said that God had given the Word. They said that the Word of God was with them. that they were doing all the sin that they were doing, but they were holding their Bible and saying, the Word of the Lord is with us, the Law of the Lord is with us, and then they were saying that God's Word had been spoken in vain, and they denied the inspiration of God's Word in the days of Jeremiah. They said God might have said some of it, but probably not all of it. And they cast doubt on the inspiration of the Word of God, and then they said the pen of the scribes is in vain. which is to cast doubt on the preservation of God's word, because if you know anything about the Bible and the history of the Bible, and I don't say that derogatorily, if you know anything about the history of the Bible, it was copied by men for thousands of years. And so people say over time and over years, there's been mistakes that have been worked into the Bible, which is a lie. It's a satanic lie. It's not true. This book is absolutely without error. There is not one mistake in it. There's not one contradiction in it. Every one that I have ever thought was a contradiction, I've written a little note by and said, God, please show me what you mean. And you know what God has done? He's shown me. other scriptures and with the scripture compared to the scripture the light and the illumination of the Holy Spirit in my heart and the scripture with the scripture opens the understanding and it becomes patently obvious and what was a contradiction is now absolutely apparent truth no problem There's a biblical principle in the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established. Cults will use a vague reference somewhere in the Bible and build a whole doctrine on it, and it'll be the only place it says it. For example, the baptism of the dead. Paul said, what else? Why are they baptized for the dead in Corinthians? And so the Mormon Church has huge baptism rituals where people come and get baptized for their dead relatives. And they base that off of that one mention in one place. And the Bible says, in the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established. You say, what does that baptism of the dead mean? I don't know. And you can admit that. You don't have to know everything about the Bible. You probably never will. It's God's book. It's a living book. People say, oh, the living word is in heaven. The living word is in heaven. The written word, that's not inspired or infallible. The living word is what's inspired and infallible. That is such a contradiction. It isn't even funny. That doesn't even make sense on any level. Did you know, and we have a paper here, and you can have it if I can find it later if you want it, that the Bible compares, says the same thing about Christ that it says about the Word. It calls Christ the bread sent down from heaven, and it calls the Word the bread sent down from heaven. And on, and on, and on, and on, and on. You cannot separate the written word from the living word. We have a saying. We know this. We know this. Here in the Ozarks, a man is no better than his word. We used to say that. Same is true about Christ. It is true about Christ. A man is no better than his word. Whenever you say that God's too dumb to keep his Bible straight, you're saying Jesus Christ is pretty dumb. I want all of you, for just a second, to think just a moment, very hard, I'm kind of teasing you here a little bit, okay, in love, and I want you to think, where are my ears? You got that, Brother Daniel? You got it down? You know the answer? Alright, where are my ears? 6,000 plus years ago, God created man and woman. And 6,000 years later, there's still man and woman. And we've all got two years on the side of our heads. Right? And if somebody doesn't, it's a pretty bad thing. It's either a bad accident or a genetic mutation and huge operations and medical bills. You're telling me that the God that wrote the human genome can't keep a book straight? What kind of senseless nonsense? You have been lied to. You have been lied to and you've been told that there are errors in the Bible. I'll tell you where the errors are and it relates to the ears, okay? Right between the ears. This is where the errors are, right here. In our own human understanding, in our own pride and arrogance that thinks that we're smart enough to accuse God of being stupid or a liar. God promised to preserve his word. He promised throughout the Scriptures that His words would be sure. He said that they were purified. I won't even go over all those, but He says the words of the Lord are pure words and He says, Shield to them that put their trust in him add thou not unto his words lest he reproved thee and thou Be found a liar if you want to add to God's words and say that God messed up his Bible God is going to reprove you and You will be found a liar at the Judgment Day and the Bible says here's another one all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone and He also said, if you add to his word, he'll add to you the plagues written in that book, and if you take away from his word, he'll take away your name out of the book of life. You'll be eternally damned if you mess with God's book. That's what he said. Oh, God can keep all of the galaxies spinning. He can keep the Milky Way there in its place, and the Earth suspended on nothing, coursing through the universe, but he can't keep thee and thou straight. Couple things and we'll move on that. I didn't mention last night that need mentioned thee and thou in the Bible This is just Getting geared up here for what God's got for us tonight the end thou in the Bible They did not use the end thou when they translated the Bible. They did not walk around England saying hey thee come hither I That's not how they talked. Why did they put thee and thou in the Bible? And then I want you to think back to your banknote. I want you to think back to your marriage certificate. I want you to think back to your job contract and remember how it's written. And it has these, and thous, and yees, and yous. There's a reason. In the English language, there's no plural if you eliminate the ye and the you. Okay, it's all singular or it's all vague. That's why hillbillies say y'all. We made up our own word to compensate for that. In the Greek, there is singular and plural. And so in order to maintain the honesty of God's word and make a translation and not an interpretation, the difference between a translation and an interpretation is that when you translate God's word, you take what it says and make it say what it says. An interpretation takes what it says and makes it say what you want it to say or thinks that it says. You follow that? So in order to make a translation of God's word, you must get the information that's there into the language of the people that need it. And if you leave stuff out, it is not an accurate translation. All of these others are not accurate translations. They're interpretations. And that's all that they really are, interpretations. And they all have grievous errors in them because of it. So the these and the thous were put in there for singular and plural. Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you. He says, Satan hath desired to have you and to sift you as wheat, he says, and he uses you, but I have prayed for thee. When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. It's no accident. It's put there to preserve the reality of who Jesus was talking to, because you can't see Jesus pointing. Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, but I have prayed for thee. It's there in that Bible. It's not in the others. You take it out, you lose information, and you no longer have an accurate translation. You have an interpretation. This dumbing down of the word of God is sin. God says he'll take your name out of the book of life if you mess with his book. Lord, help us right now in Jesus' name. When you're reading the Bible, You're trying to understand the Bible. You understand the Bible by comparing Bible with Bible. Compare Bible verses to Bible verses. Let the Bible explain to you what it means and let it define itself. Even in the Strong's Concordance, they have changed the words in the Strong's Concordance. They will say, This word in your Bible comes from this Greek word and they're using a different Greek text than the majority text, the received text that were passed down from God. The Strong's Concordance has been altered. How do I know this? I was preaching heresy nearly because I was using the Strong's Concordance and it wasn't lining up and I was contradicting myself as I preached. And I started doing some digging and some research and found out that they had altered the Greek in the Strong's Concordance. so that now whenever you look up a word in the strong's concordance, they will give you a different word than what is in the Bible. A word from a corrupted text from a different text than what is in the Bible. You can't even take the definitions out of the strong's Anymore just stick with your Bible, but that's pretty simple and you'll get laughed at and that's usually not something somebody will deal with All right. So today we are moving on to our next Our next path Edward come up here and help me with this We looked at repentance yesterday the backsliding that comes whenever you move off of the Word of God Go ahead and take this down. Those are our word pictures that we've looked at. We're not going over all that again Go ahead and hook that up You got it? What's here? Ben. Come and help him with this thing. So the next one here will be, and I forgot to put the reference up there for you all. The reference is Jeremiah 9. Go to Jeremiah chapter 9. The old path of mourning. You say, ew, I don't want to talk about mourning. I want to be happy. It's Friday night. I'm sorry, that's where we're at. The Bible says that weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning. Different kind of mourning, but the joy comes after the weeping. The truest joy comes after mourning. And the Bible says in Matthew 5, and we'll get there in a little bit, blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. This is really, really powerful truth. We need the Lord's help tonight. And so we're going to get here to Jeremiah 9. We'll read a couple verses and we will pray. Thank you all for being here and for your patience. I see some of you even decided to come back after you heard this sinner, saved by grace, preach and I'm grateful for that. I don't deserve your patience with me and I thank you. Jeremiah 9.1, O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slaying of the daughter of my people. O that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men, that I might leave my people and go from them, for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. Go to verse 13, And the LORD saith, Because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, neither walked therein, but have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Balaam, which their fathers taught them. Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, Give them water of gall to drink and he goes down here verse 17 thus saith the Lord of hosts consider ye and call for the morning women that they may come and send for cunning women that they may come and let them make haste and take up a Wailing for us that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush out with waters. That doesn't sound very fun Does it? Nobody wants to go to that church service In these days, what they would do whenever somebody died in order to be able to show their love for that person, they weren't doing this to be fake about it, but they had mourners who were professional mourners. And they were hired to come to the funerals and lead in the morning. And they were these women who had learned how to mourn. Well, that's a lost art in America. We don't ever want to mourn. We sedate our people that are dying so that they can't feel any pain. And then whenever they finally pass away in silence with the beep of the monitor and the sound of the oxygen. And the beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, and they die. The coroner comes in, rolls them down the hallway in a gurney, sticks them in a shiny hearse, takes them off. You don't see them again for a couple days, and they show up at the viewing all cleaned up by somebody else. And everybody walks by, pays their respects, sheds a couple tears, moves on to the funeral, has the funeral service. People say nice things. Everybody hugs. And then everybody goes out to eat, or they go out to the graveside first, say some nice things. The casket's beautiful. It's all covered with gold and gilding, and they have this body in there. And they might open it at the graveside, and everybody pay their respects again and shut the casket. And then everybody leaves and after they leave, they lower the casket into the ground so that nobody even has to think about the horror of death and separation from our loved ones. So we isolate ourselves from it as much as we can. Everybody leaves and goes to a family reunion or a picnic or a restaurant and eats a meal. and tries to remember good things about the person and talk good things about the person. So what we've done in America is we've sheltered ourselves from mourning. We've cut off ourselves from mourning and really most people don't even know how to mourn anymore. They wouldn't even know how to begin. And if someone began to really mourn and really grieve, then other people think that they've gone off the deep end, they've gone nuts. And here God told the children of Israel, consider ye and call for the mourning women that they may come and send for cunning women that they may come and let them make haste and take up a wailing for us that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush out with waters. for a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion. How are we spoiled? We are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out. Yet hear the word of the Lord, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and everyone her neighbor lamentation. For death has come up into our windows, and has entered into our palaces to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets. Speak, thus saith the Lord, even the carcasses of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvest men, and none shall gather them. Now we as Christians do not mourn as other men mourn. We don't mourn like other people mourn. The Bible says that, that we're not to mourn for our dead like other men mourn. But there is a biblical New Testament mourning, and we're going to touch on that here in just a second. But let's pray first. Father, in Jesus' name, I pray that you would open our understanding to this crucial truth, Lord God. Lord, because we need it. We need to be in the old paths, Lord, and here is an old path, Lord. It's not a pleasant one. It's not one we like to talk about, but it's right. And we need to know what you mean by this, and we need to obey it. And I ask you to help us tonight in Jesus' name. Our eyes are on you. Our hope is in you, Father. We look to you to teach us and to change us in Jesus' name. For Christ's sake, amen. Go to 1 Corinthians 5. This is the biggest single passage of scripture that deals with church judgment. And here he mentions mourning in verse 2 after speaking of sin. He says in verse 1, It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, even and such fornication as is not so much as is named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. That's rough. Left his wife for his daddy's wife. That's a mess. He said, Paul here says, and you are puffed up and have not rather mourned that he that have done this deed might be taken away from you. So this mourning that Paul is telling them is Paul is accusing them of pride because they're not willing to mourn over sin. Ezra in the Old Testament brought his whole nation back to God whenever they showed him that he was, that the people were intermarrying the heathen and he pulled out his hair and he plucked out his beard and he tore his clothes and he fell on his face and mourned until even. and the people were gathered to him, and they said, what is going on? And he showed them from the scriptures, this is how we've got to get right with God. And the people did it, they gathered together. And from that revival that came about through the mourning of Ezra, his righteous and godly response to sin, you have the whole book of Nehemiah, where Nehemiah was sent to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. We've got some spiritual walls that are down in this nation that we need to be a lot more concerned about than some kind of wall on the border. We have spiritual walls that are down and that's why we're talking about a wall on the border. We wouldn't need a wall on the border if we had not departed from God's Word and left God's law behind and filled our nation with sin. Because of that sin God's walls are down and God's hedge is down and God's protection is down and worse We've got people saying build a high wall. I've got news for you. It won't work It will not do it. The problem is within the United States, not without. It's not coming in from the border. The problem is here. The problem is in America, and the problem is sin. The problem is we have departed from the old paths. We have departed from the word of God. We've kicked God out of every public place, unless the high school football coach who was drunk Friday night and posted pictures with his girlfriend indecently, stands up and prays with the team before they run out of the huddle. And then we all say, well, at least he prayed with the team. We don't know how to mourn anymore. We don't know how to respond to sin anymore. And God is calling us to mourning. But here he says in Jeremiah that the reason that they won't mourn and the reason that they're far from God and bent on their backsliding beyond these others is that they've gone on into idolatry. And we're going to look at some areas of idolatry today. Lord, help me to get this right and get it in the right order, in Jesus' name. The first area of idolatry that I want to look at tonight is the heart. There in Jeremiah, he says, you've gone after the imagination of your own heart. So over here, we've drawn a heart. In America, we say, follow your heart. We say, dream big and things like that. And that's a lie right out of hell. The Bible says the heart is desperately wicked, deceitful above all things, who can know it? How many of you have ever bought something and got home and said, I wish I didn't buy that? Anybody? I'll bet Walmart would tell on you if you didn't raise your hand right there. That's why they have a returns department. How many of you had a return on the boy you thought was Mr. Right? I know that's getting personal. If you've lived very long, you probably grew up thinking, and at some point thought, there's Mr. Right, there's Mrs. Right, and became painfully aware that your heart had deceived you. That you really believed they loved you, and that you loved them, and found out later it was not true. And that's painful. And that's much more personal, but it illustrates for us the fact that our heart is deceitful. Our heart is deceptive. And when we place our heart in a higher regard than the word of God, what we have done is made an idol out of our own heart and our own reasoning. And we trust our own feelings and our own ideas and our own experiences. And you say, I just know the spirit of God was in church this morning. How do you know? I felt his presence. That's subjective. Your feelings are subjective. I can remember one time the Lord allowed us to be used mightily in a support role in a major move of God, and we saw God really, really changing people, drawing people in from off the streets, and really doing a great work of God. And I remember shortly following this, it lasted 14 weeks, these meetings went. We were not anything near the main show. Me and my family, we were just helpers. But as we labored there, co-laborers, for 14 weeks this thing went on. We got there at week 7 or 8. And we saw God doing mighty work. And God did great things and answered prayers in miraculous ways. And at the end of those meetings, we left the meeting and we went to the place we were staying. And a cloud of darkness came down over me. And I felt the worst depression I'd ever felt in my life. And I thought I was completely separated from God and wondered, Am I even saved? And I wandered the sanctuary of that church we were staying at in the middle of the night, crying out to God. God, am I saved? Am I even really saved? Have I ever truly received you as my Lord and Savior? And I couldn't remember anything of my testimony. It was like a vague memory of my voice telling the story, but I couldn't remember any of it. It was gone. It was stolen from me by the devil. I couldn't remember anything. I was in darkness. I was in desperation. And I cried unto God with my voice and He heard me out of His holy hill. And I was walking more closely to God then than I am today, by far. so close to God and so in tune with the Lord, it seemed like, and then everything, the rug got pulled out from underneath me by the devil. You cannot trust your feelings. You have got to grow up and go beyond your feelings and what you feel and what seems right. You've got to hang your heart out to dry and get the Bible out and live by the Word of God. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Your experiences will change. Your heart will change. Your life will change. The people around you will change. But the word of the Lord endureth forever. This is the only solid foundation that you can be built on. All else is sinking sand. But when you put your heart and your feelings and your experiences above the Word of God, you are on sinking sand. You have made your heart an idol and exalted your own emotions, your own will, your own soul, your own mind, your own thinking, your own gut instincts, and placed them above the Word of God, which is why nobody fears God, nobody watches and waits. Nobody has obedience and judgment in this land. Nobody repents and nobody mourns because we put our own feelings above. And we say, well I know Johnny's a sodomite, but I love Johnny and I want him to know that I love him and I want him to know I don't care. I don't condemn him. Jesus said I don't condemn him. And so come on, Johnny, and bring that guy with you to Thanksgiving dinner. And here Johnny is professing Jesus Christ as his Lord, telling everybody he's saved and he's a flaming sodomite. And God says not to eat with him, not to company with him, to turn him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord. And people say, but that doesn't feel right to me. It doesn't feel like love and Johnny won't feel like I love him and I want Johnny to know that I love him and I feel like we should just have him over and it makes my guts wrench and it feels wrong and I don't like it but Johnny I love and Johnny's gotta come, and we ignore the word of God, and we pass it by, and pass it over, and push it off into the corner like a bad dream, and act like we never even read it, or we just ignore it and don't read it in case we read something like that, and we refuse to obey the word of God because we made an idol out of our heart. My love for Johnny is more important than God's love for Johnny. That's where that is. My expression of love to Johnny is more important than God's expression of love to Johnny, and furthermore, it's more holy. That's what we're saying. My love is a more pure love than God's love, because I don't feel like what God says is love is love. So God, you are wrong about love. You don't know about love. I know about love. Because somewhere in here, I've got this feeling that governs my life. And that feeling is what leads me, not the Holy Spirit. And I'm going to do what feels right in the face of Almighty God and the Word of God. It's idolatry. Idolatry the second form of idolatry that we will look at here tonight is more obvious But unfortunately, it's not obvious The Bible says thou shalt not make into thee any graven image unless you have a Catholic Bible Check it out Look in Exodus. They took that one out And there's a reason So here we have Mother Mary and we have a crucifix and we have a Buddha. All three of these are common in houses all across the land along with the philosophies that accompany them. God said, thou shalt not make into thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve them, for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers unto the children on the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, but showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and that keep my commandments. God said not to make graven images and bow down to them, but we feel like Buddha, that's just a kind of an archeological thing, and so we stick it in our home. And then we have these Marys and crucifixes and things like that, and people worship these things in this day. They worship them today. And God condemns all such as idolatry. That one should be more obvious, but it's not. The man that we talked about yesterday, Hort, who the devil used to corrupt the word of God in the late 1800s, said something to the effect of, from his biography, he said, I am convinced that the worship of Jesus and the worship of Mary are equal. That's who gave you your modern Bibles. That's a quote. I kind of maybe got it slightly off. That's it. And I think Brother Michael's got those papers, but we can provide that if anybody needs it. Or you can look it up for yourself and do a little bit of homework. He said, I'm convinced that the worship of Mary and the worship of Jesus are equal. Mary, the Catholic Church of the Council of Trent instituted Maryolatry, Mary worship, and gave her the title of Mother of God. That's blasphemy. It is not in the Bible. In the beginning was the word. That's Jesus before he became Jesus. Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus is the name for the man. Christ is the name for the word made flesh. Jesus Christ. Jesus speaks of his perfect humanity that he is a man. 100% a man like you, Brother Josh. with flesh and blood. But the word Christ means the Messiah, the Promised One of the Old Testament, the Deliverer, who God promised would come, the Word who would be made flesh and dwell among us. The Redeemer, the Savior, the Branch, all of those Old Testament prophecies. Isaiah 9, 6, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Jesus Christ, fully man, fully God. Mary's not his mom in the sense of mom of God. She is the mom of his physical body. And that's where it stops. Jesus was in the beginning, Mary was not. Jesus created the people that Mary came from. and she deserves no special place, and she cannot intercede for you. There is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. That's what the Bible says. None but Jesus Christ can get you any favor with God. No priest, no pope, no nun, no cardinal, no archbishop, no Mary, no saints, no nothing. It's idolatry. And that should be basic. Buddha's crept in like crazy. We've got all this stuff all this yin and yang stuff God helped me to stay on track, but this is right Eastern mysticism has swept our nation I Was as a young man. I got involved with a bunch of manga. How many of you know what manga is anime? Most people probably won't admit it. I think more of you do than that How many of you know what manga is an anime come on? two or three Japanese comics. That makes sense now? All these crazy big haired people with the spiky hair and the great big eyeballs. Manga has swept the nation, anime has swept the nation and it is full of witchcraft, it's full of sodomy, it's full of nakedness and nudity even on young children's levels. But when you have 700 episodes, what parent is going to read 700 episodes of anything? We don't have time for that. So after you've seen a few innocent looking ones go by, you let your kid go off with it and he goes off in the back bedroom and flips over to episode 378 and flips it open to a full page of nudity. You don't know about that. when it's happening all around us. Buddhism and Confucianism, and all of that Eastern mysticism has gotten into the church, it's gotten into the church house, and we have brought idolatry and these ideas of the idolatry into our church houses. Another idolatry is dream weavers. How many of you have seen those? The Navajo dream weavers, okay? And people buy them and they put them on their cars. It's witchcraft. This is witchcraft. I worked with the Navajo for a while down there. It's witchcraft. It's part of their witchcraft. Oh, it's just a neat little thing, an Indian artifact. You are ignorant. Ignorance is not a bad word. It just means you don't know. I hope you're just ignorant and not rebellious. Go to 1 Corinthians quickly. 1 Corinthians 10, on the way there, Acts 15, 20, the church was commanded to abstain from pollutions of idols, and then in verse 29, from meats offered to idols, and later again in the book of Acts, the church was exhorted and commanded to refrain from meat offered to idols. 1 Corinthians 10, this gets into some of the licentious words the libertine words that have been taught over here that we dealt with on obedience I am delivered to do these abominations down here in verse 16 he speaks of communion the cup of blessing which we bless is not that the communion is not is it not the communion of the blood of Christ the bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ for we being many which here is going to talk about listen for we being many are one bread Did you hear that? Who's the bread? We. How does that work? We, the church, are the body of Christ. That's what Jesus taught all through the Bible, over and over and over again. The host is not the body of Christ. Can't be. We are. So if they're gonna eat the body of Christ, they gotta eat us. which, by the way, the Catholic Church has condoned many times, and given absolvences for. Did you know that Christians who were serving God, teaching their children the Bible, in Eastern France, were butchered, there were multiple times, but at one particular time, the soldiers were sent in, an archbishop told the soldiers, no matter what you do to them, if you kill them, we'll give you absolvences. go rape them, go pillage, go rob, and they went in there and murdered innocent women, children, men, and some of the men actually mutilated the bodies of the women and served them as food to the other soldiers. The Catholic Church condoned it, gave absolvences for it, and paid the men for doing it. And that is not an isolated instance. If you think Catholics are Christians, you are sadly ignorant. Ignorant. You do not know. You need to know your history. The Pope recently apologized for things that were done in the name of truth, referring to that stuff. He said at least they were doing it in the name of truth. Okay, so he says here, for we being many are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread. one body Behold Israel after the flesh are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? What say I then that the idol is anything or that that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything? He's saying the idols not really anything that statue if I had a statue of Buddha up here today It wouldn't get you right. It can't do anything. It's just a rock, right? He says it's nothing But I say, listen, he doesn't end there, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God. And I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Did you hear that? So he says the rock is nothing. The rock with the Buddha face is nothing. The crucifix is nothing. The statue of Mary is nothing. These things aren't really anything. They're just rocks and sticks. But the ones that are worshipping those images are worshipping devils who are behind the images and I would not that ye have fellowship with devils. And so he's explaining here the theological reason that the church was forbidden to eat meat offered to idols. And how many times have I heard today that we have liberty in Christ and that Paul was saying you can eat whatever you want because the idol is not anything. It makes me sick. It makes me sick. They twist the word of God and they rest the scriptures. They don't even finish the passage. He says, I would not that ye have fellowship with devils. Verse 21, ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and the table of devils. Do we then provoke the Lord's jealousy? Are we stronger than He? All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. And it goes down there in verse 31. Whether therefore you eat or drink, whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. Next chapter, verse 28, speaking of communion, but let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep. Paul says, you've got people who are dead in your churches that are in the graveyard buried because they didn't obey God on this thing. That's what he said. They won't obey God, they won't obey his word, and they are Christians. You know, God will kill a Christian before he lets him just do whatever he wants. When I was up there at Haiti, this second guy, he's buddy-buddy and he's putting his arm around me drinking iced coffee, running through the hills drinking Haitian coffee. I almost forgot to get back to that. You were wondering, weren't you? Where was he going with that? We got back. After three weeks, I was badly missing my wife. I had not been away from my wife for more than a night or two, and that was for hunting, and that's justified. So I hadn't hardly been away from her, and there I was, and Friday night, movie night rolled around. And I was really, I always read all kinds of war stuff from a very young age. I'd read everything about wars and battles and generals and everything I could. And violence, I was like, oh, that doesn't really bother me. And cursing, I can hear it, goes in one ear, out the other, no big deal. I don't even, I don't say those words. And I thought, well, that's okay, I can handle it. So I picked a movie that was really violent. And by the way, that's really wrong. God says that he hates violence. God said that. God hates violence. Again, does your heart determine what you can handle or does God in his word determine what you can handle? That's the question. What really determines it? Is it your heart and what you think you can handle? Or is it God and His word that's governing your life? For me at that point, it was my deceitful heart. And so I thought I could handle that. And so I picked some kind of violent movie. And both of those missionaries didn't want it. They're, oh, no, no, no. And this other guy, he says, let's watch this one. This is the best movie ever. The best movie ever. You'd love this thing. It's so good. And he starts it out there. There was a young lady there, about 17, the daughter of the man that talked me into it. That man was there. Two missionaries with their wives were there, and they put this movie up on the big screen. The opening scene was San Francisco during the Gold Rush days, whenever a whole shipload of stolen young ladies is brought in to be sold. was full of nudity and rape and every imaginable wickedness. This guy said he was a Christian. He had his arm around me. He'd wooed me. He'd won me. He won my respect. And I figured if he can handle it, I can. And I couldn't. A lot of times, there's really only two reasons you can handle that stuff. You're either lost and on your way to hell, or your conscience is so seared and so burned that you can't feel it, and that's why you say, it doesn't affect me. What does that mean? Remember, we're talking about mourning tonight, mourning. When God's men see sin, they mourn, they mourn. I came back from Haiti nearly destroyed. I'd already struggled most of my life in those areas, as I've already told you, in previous nights. And from that day on, instead of having the Holy Spirit leading me, and actually, I'd quenched the Spirit long before that by my disobedience and wanting to do things my way, and the Lord had barely even spoken to me for a long time. And when I got back, the devil was now speaking to me, or a devil, or whatever it was, and he'd look left, and I'd look left, and here goes a lady of the night walking down the street. What? I'm leading singing, teaching at church, teaching in the nursing home. A-OK. Straight arrow, one man called me. You're a straight arrow. All kinds of Bible verses that I knew. My daddy had us doing these meditation worksheets as a kid, where we get into the Greek and the Hebrew and study them out. That was part of my grade school education. Memorized huge passages of scripture from a child, because I was supposed to. Straight arrow. And there I was, about to absolutely shipwreck because of this stuff right here. Because I had left the old paths, and I thought I could handle it. And there I was, and I was up at Fort Wood here one day with another buddy who was a professing Christian, and I was working over there in the special training barracks. Some of you know where those are, maybe, from out here, where they bring in the advanced training guys. We were putting in fire alarm stuff over there, and I was working in a little opening, and all of a sudden, from somewhere deep inside comes this suggestion, move that ceiling tile. And I moved the ceiling tile and there's dirty magazine. Is that a coincidence? No. And I shouted at my buddy and we grabbed it and wrapped it up in a paper bag and threw it in the trash and I trembled. Scared to death because I knew what was happening. I couldn't stop it. The devil was on me like a bloodhound. And he chased me till I ran out of gas. And we'll get to the rest of that. Don't let me forget unless you just don't care about hearing it. No, that's okay. But we'll get back to that in a little while. The devil was chasing me like a bloodhound. I had been drinking the cup of devils and the cup of the Lord and I was in trouble with God. God will kill a Christian before he lets them live however they want to live. The reason you can do that and live however you want and God leaves you alone is because you are a child of the devil. If you can live however you want to live, do what you want to do, ignore the word of God and God doesn't bust your hiney. You're a child of the devil. He says if you are go to Hebrews real quick I've got to read it. I want you to see it for yourself Our churches are full of lost people who think that they're saved because they have had experiences and feelings their entire salvation rests on an emotional ascent or a mental ascent or a will-based ascent to the idea of the gospel, but they have never submitted themselves to the gospel of God. Here in Hebrews chapter 12, He says in verse 4, You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin, comparing to Christ. And verse 5, And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord. Chastening means a butt-whooping in the hillbilly. Okay, it means a trip to the woodshed. He says, despise not the chastening of the Lord. nor faint when thou art rebuked of him for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth. That literally means whipping. They scourged Christ before they hung him on the cross. God scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, every Christian that's a true Christian gets butt-weapons from God, that's what he says. If ye be without chastening, he says, then are ye bastards and not sons. And that's Bible, verse eight. That word in your Bible means illegitimate child. It means you say God is your father, but he is not, and you are a child of your father, the devil, claiming to be a child of God. By the way, this is where church judgment comes in. If the church will not judge, then these, what the Bible calls bastards, illegitimate children who are not saved will continue to run wild in the churches, never being reproved, never being told the truth, and they will die and go to a devil's hell. your church sitting on your pews singing your praise and worship songs with you and that's what our churches are full of across this land because we have left the judgment of the Lord so he says here furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of lowercase s spirits and live And he goes on there and talks about chastening there and says, straighten up. This is serious, basically. You can look at that. Now, in 1 John, we're told to keep ourselves from idols. The Bible says in 1 John, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. So these idols here represent obvious idols, but there are other idols which we get because of covetousness. You see, anything that we place above God, anything that we hold in a higher reverence and respect than God becomes an idol in our life. The Bible says in Ezekiel that the men of Israel came to Ezekiel and told him, inquire of the Lord for us. And he said, will I be inquired of these? Will I be inquired of these? And he said to him, Son of man, he says, any man that comes to me of the house of Israel and inquires of the Lord, but has idols in his heart, I will not be inquired of by him. He accused the children of Israel of idols in the heart. And this is where we get to one of the touchiest ones here in America, and here daddy is bowing down to daughter. She's got her balloon and her lollipop, and he's down there in a full prayer stance. Jesus said, if any man come unto me and hate not his father, mother, sister, brother, son, daughter, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. If you love your family more than God, you are an idolater. Idolater. You have put your family above the Word of God. The Bible says, don't eat with that one, and you say, no, I don't need to. You are placing that one above the Word of God and saying, God, I love them more than you. The first commandment, the greatest, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, thy mind, thy soul, thy strength. and then love thy neighbor as thyself. If you put your little Johnny or little Susie above God, you have made an idol out of your children and this nation is full of child idolatry. We will not tell our children no. Whatever they want is what they get and all across this land our churches are full of wickedness and immorality because pastors daughters come in in their miniskirts and their halter tops showing everything they've got except maybe To the whole church and daddy won't say no He will not say no And we exalt our children and we exalt our sisters and our brothers and we exalt all these people above the word of God and hold them in a higher regard than the word of God. And let them prance around and say, oh, I'm saved and I'm delivered to do all these abominations. I'm saved in a sodomite. I'm saved in shacked up. I'm saved in running around a drunk. I'm saved in covetous. I'm saved a whoremonger. I'm saved a porno. and just go on living unrepentant, constant lives of sin in the face of Almighty God, and nobody will say boo. Because you love your family more than God. We brought idols into our home through the television. We've brought in all the images of the heathen. The Bible talks about how the children of Israel, when they come in, should destroy all the images of the heathen. He says, wipe them out. Don't even look at them. You're gonna learn their ways. Turn them off. But we turn on those stupid movies and we turn on that stupid TV, just like I was telling you about in the story, and professing Christians put things up on their screen that should cause mourning. But there's no mourning. How can you watch a rape and not mourn? Let me ask you another question. How can you watch a woman who has sold her body to be a, quote, cheerleader, to be a sex idol for men all across this nation? And you can sit there and watch it go by your screen and just barely flinch a little bit as it goes by like, oh, I'm not really looking at that. And it goes by and it doesn't even affect you. And that woman is on her way to hell. we don't mourn anymore because we have idols. We have sports idols, we have movie idols, movie stars, rock stars, these singers who got the show American Idol now in America and it's not a joke and the boot fits. They're idols. These people are idols. These music stars are idols. I think of my grandpa, my wife's grandpa, who left a church because the pastor preached and mentioned Elvis in a negative way. She left a church over it. Elvis went to hell. Elvis died and went to hell in his sin. You shouldn't even be able to look at his face without grief of some sort or fear of God. I know of a preacher, I never met him, but I know those that knew him well, who wrote Elvis Presley a letter before he died, telling him, you are sending our people to hell. You are sending our children to hell. Repent or God is going to kill you. And within a month of that letter, Elvis Presley died of an overdose. That doesn't happen anymore. Tell that to Elvis. as he burns in the lake of fire. We bring in the movies, the superheroes. I know, we don't like to hear this. Thor is a god. I meet people, telling them about Jesus, who worship Thor today, in America. He is a false god. And we watch these, oh, did you see his hair wave in the sun? Oh, look at those muscles. Did you see his big hammer? And we don't mourn over the idolatry that has crossed our nation. Little children all want to be Spider-Man? What in God's name? Why don't they want to be Joshua marching around Jericho? You want a superhero? Get your Bible out! Why don't they want to be Joshua or Daniel in the lion's den or the three Hebrew children because their hearts are filled with the idols and the images of the heathen that we have filled our homes with? And it takes away the heart, strips the heart of its feelings, strips the heart of its sensitivity to God and to his word, and now they don't, what little kid even wants to hear about David and Goliath anymore? They're so soaked up on Iron Man, a womanizing drunk. Star Wars, Eastern mysticism. It's trash. Out of hell. Did you know that the Antichrist will worship in the Bible the God of forces? Verbatim. That's what the Bible says. The Antichrist, the beast, will worship the God of forces. It's not a coincidence. This stuff is witchcraft and witchcraft is linked to idolatry. You got it in your home, but not without effect. I can handle it because You've put your own judgment above the word of God that says do not suffer a witch to live. All that do such things are an abomination to the Lord. That's what the Bible says. It says wizards, witches, sorcerers, all that do such things are an abomination to the Lord. They are real. Why do Americans suffer witches and wizards in our day? Because you don't believe they're real. You think they're fairy tales and you're ignorant. The Bible says they're real and they have real power. Those plagues in Egypt, the wizards and the witches duplicated the plagues that God did. You say, oh, they were all parlor tricks. The Bible does not say that. Those wizards were able through satanic power to duplicate what Moses did. Witches and wizards are real and they're in America and they're gaining power and someday very soon you are going to meet them. Because they are multiplying by the thousands and they have real power. But you think it's a fairy tale because you've put your heart and your mind above the word of God and allowed idolatry and witchcraft into your home. And the devil has stolen your morning with it. These are not convictions. These are biblical standards. I don't want to tell you my convictions. I don't want you to do my convictions. I don't want you to be like me or try to be like me. I just want you to obey God. Just to obey God. and if you won't, you'll reap what you sow. Fetishes, people love to buy these little idols and stuff and use, oh, it's a, what do they call that word whenever you go somewhere and you wanna take something home, souvenir. Oh, it's a souvenir. There's devils behind it. We've got the music, the sports, we've got family, friends. Denominations can become idols. I am going to stick with this denomination because we've been part of the denomination for all this time, even though the denomination is not only not biblical, but has departed from the Word of God. But I'm going to stick with my denomination. It's an idol. Place your denomination above the word of God. Supporting demonic and satanic activity in the name of Jesus going on in your denominational headquarters and you will not do anything about it. That's an idol. Church buildings can become idols. Oh, we've got to stick with this. We've got to stick with it. We've got to hold it out. But God's left your church maybe. He's been gone a long time because there's idols in the church and there's idols in your hearts and there's idols in your homes and the power of God is not on the land and it's not on our churches. Is that even arguable? Can anyone here tell me my church is living in the full power that God poured out on Pentecost that he promised to us? My car, my job, my boss, my career, my education. All of these can become idols. They steal the heart away from God. So we've looked at idolatry. We're going to look at mourning. Matthew 5, 4. I didn't think all that was idolatry either. I had all kinds of stuff in my home that's normal. I had the video games, the MMORPGs, little witchcraft stuff. It's just a game. That's not what God says in the word. But I had it, and I thought I could take it. I couldn't take it. Matthew 5.4. So that night, we watched that movie and I was nearly wrecked. We came back from Haiti. The devil started attacking me, dogging me everywhere I went, everything I did. It got so bad that there were nights where just a spirit of fear would come over my home, which is in no small part due to all the witchcraft and idolatry and the trash of the world that I brought into my home. You see, we drown it out with noise. We drown it out with noise and all these other things and we think that we're normal when we're really living in satanic oppression in this land. But we think it's normal. So we put up with it and we keep going. A lot of times we even have health issues that are satanic. There was a woman who was bowed together with a spirit of infirmity. A spirit of infirmity for, what was it, 40 years the Bible said? And she couldn't even lift herself and Jesus rebuked the spirit and she was made whole. We have health issues that we live with because our homes are full of idols and we've brought the devil into our homes and we don't even know he's there. because we've placed our own judgment above the word of God, and we think we can handle it, and I feel all right about that, and we're measuring things by our own human understanding. So I would sit sometimes under a spirit of fear, and I'd get my K-bar, and my shotgun, and my rifle, and my handgun, and I get some other stuff up there, and I get at the top of the stairs, and sit there wide awake in the middle of the night, staring at the front door. With such a demonic, oppressive spirit of fear, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't do anything. Just sit there. And then have to get up and go back to work the next morning. Every day it was like getting up in Rocky's Ring in those movies which have a whole host of filth involved with them and I'm ashamed I ever watched them. And there he gets up there and he starts swinging, the bell goes ding, and here comes the big guy to beat his brains in. That's how I felt every day. The devil would greet me at the alarm with dirty thoughts and vile things that I was trying to keep out of my mind. I wanted to serve God. I wanted to do right by God. I wanted to follow God. But every day the devil came and pounded and pounded and pounded me with temptation and with filth and with doubt and with fear and with all of these things. And finally one day I was sitting in my man cave with my big old skulls up there and my guns in the case. I had my Xbox up over here playing Call of Duty, playing like I was killing people. Bunch of violence, bunch of garbage. God says he hates violence. I didn't think that way before. God changed me though and we're gonna get there. I don't want to waste a second of your time. Please bear with me. I'll try to hurry. Call of duty going there, black ops. I had the MMORPG on the computer. I had another computer set up here with a wiki house so I can study my builds and all my little witchcraft things I was supposed to punch in there on the stupid keys. So I can cast spells and all this stupid garbage and it's worse than stupid garbage, it's satanic. It's satanic and it has satanic power with it. If you don't believe it, You don't, it's because you haven't read this book enough. I was sitting there and then as I did that, the devil came in power and darkness came down over that room and the devil came and he said, just get on that computer and go on a binge. Go look at all this garbage on that computer. Started giving me suggestions, suggestions, suggestions, hammering me constantly with this stuff. And I said, I didn't say anything, but I wore down and I started to reach for the mouse and God physically stopped my hand. And I said, I didn't know what to say, I just sat there. And it was like a dream while I was standing there. I saw my family destroyed. I saw my children destroyed by what I was going to do. And the devil came and he says, they're done anyway. They've got no chance. I've got you, I've got your kids, I've got everything. You know you can't resist me any longer. And I reached for the mouse again and God stopped my hand. And I saw like a dream in front of my eyes, my church family, brothers and sisters and family reeling from the shock, staggering from the shock of my walking away and departing from the living God. And the devil came back and said, it's just a matter of time. I've got you. You know, you can't get out of this. You know, you can't make it. You know, you're not strong enough. And my hand reached again and God stopped me again. This time God let me see my body in a ditch with the rain falling upon it just as clear as a day. And I sat there looking at myself and the Lord said, two years. The Bible says there is a sin unto death. He says you don't even pray for a Christian that commits the sin unto death. My sin that I was committing is common in America, but I had been taught better. And God wasn't gonna let me keep playing games. And he said, you've got two years. The devil came to me again. You won't live two years. You haven't got it in you. You know you can't keep this up. You won't make it another month. You know you're not gonna make it. Just leave. Just do this sin and leave it all. Leave your family, leave your children, leave your wife. They'd be better off if you were dead. And as I began to yield to the devil again, God Almighty turned me physically around in my chair. Now, you don't have to believe this if you don't want to, but it happened to me, and there's nothing in the Bible that says it can't happen. If you show me that, I'd love to see it. God turned me physically around in my chair and I was in desperation because the devil was tearing me one direction and God wouldn't let me go and I was being ripped in half between them. And I fell on my face and began to argue against God with the devil and I told God, I can't be a Christian anymore. If you can jump out of the hand of God, I did. I said, I can't be a Christian anymore. And God, in His grace, put His hand on my shoulder. And I can't explain that to you. I didn't see a hand, but His hand was on my shoulder. And the darkness backed up, and the Spirit of God descended upon that room. And a voice from heaven in my soul and in my spirit said, son, he called me son. He said, son, I didn't ask you to be a Christian. I just asked you to follow me. And heaven rent and glory came down and filled my soul. And a man that was about to leave it all and ruin everything and be destroyed. Went from one minute fighting God to desperately wanting this book, more than he could even breathe. I crawled across the room and I grabbed my Bible and I jerked it over to Romans chapter eight, which I quoted some of the other night. We won't go back too much right now. I know we gotta keep moving and get you out of here in a decent time if possible. And for the first time in my life, I understood what God had done to me. And you can like it or not, but God baptized me, immersed me in His Holy Spirit, covered me, filled me through and through. I didn't speak in tongues and I didn't see angels, and I don't care if I ever do, I don't need to, because I have His Spirit and that's all I need. I've got Him. And He filled me with His Spirit. baptized me, immersed me, cleansed me, washed me. You see, His Spirit was still in there. That's why He said, Son. It wouldn't have been a son if His Spirit wasn't there. It says, If any man have not the Spirit of God, he is none of His. His Spirit had retreated all the way back into the innermost part of me, my heart, my because I had quenched him. But with one motion, God moved out and filled my soul, my mind, my will, and my emotions with his word and desire to follow him. And he filled, and he poured out his spirit on me, the anointing to preach the word and to tell other people what God had done for me. and God so altered me and so changed me. Go to Matthew 5, we'll try and run through these verses and be done. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. One of the things that accompanied that was mourning. Mourning over sin. mourning over the sin of my people. I could not sleep, but not because of fear, because of the reality of knowing that what I had been involved with was already destroying everybody I knew. And I had to go back to them and tell them that they were on the path to destruction. And time after time they laughed at me and they said, you'll be back, you'll be back. You'll get normal again. I'm more normal today than I wish I was. I need fresh oil. I need God to pour out a fresh anointing on me. I don't care if you don't like that doctrine. I love you in the Lord, but it's Bible. It's all through the Bible. We are told to ask for the Holy Spirit. We're told to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We're commanded to be. You can't be commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit if you can't do it, if you can't ask God to do it. And you don't get it by some kind of weird thing. As you have received Christ Jesus, your Lord, so walk ye in Him. How do you receive the Lord? You repent of your sin, you believe what He did and that He will do, and trust Him with it. How do you get filled with the Spirit? You repent of your sin, your wickedness, your iniquity, your attempts to please God in your flesh, and you ask Him to fill you with the Holy Spirit and trust Him to do it. And believe Him that He will. Same way you get saved. That's what the Bible says in Colossians as you have received Christ Jesus your Lord So walk ye in him Matthew 5 for blessed are they that mourn go to John 14 remove as quick as we can I Have sinned since then I am ashamed to say it I Did not find perpetual sinless perfection, but I did find that when I walk in the Spirit, I do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. But whenever I get proud and arrogant and think of myself more highly than I ought to think, then pretty soon I'm walking in the flesh and fulfilling the lusts thereof again, and it's a wreck, and it's nasty, and I've got to repent and go back to God and ask Him to fill me afresh and fill me anew. I'd love a permanent work if God was willing to give it to me. He is not. John 14, 15. Now, I will say there has been a definite change. Before, my life was like this, okay? Every day, it was like this. I'd serve God, fall, serve God, fall, serve God, fall. Since God did that, my life has been a constant climb towards God with some bad scrapes and some falls off, some bluffs. I had to crawl back up and get back up. okay, through repentance. The difference is going from this to a follower of Christ with some bloody knees and bloody elbows from stupidity, okay? John 14, 15, he says, if you love me, keep my commandments. That is impossible. In one of his commandments, be perfect. Be therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. If ye love me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive. Do you remember Matthew 5 says, blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Comforted. The mourning over sin is when God moves in and fills with the Spirit. You say, what about your mess you were in? I can't explain it other than that God would set me forth as an example of His grace and prove through my life that no man can take me out of the Father's hand. That's all I can say about it. I don't know why God spared my life. He had every right to kill me. He had every right to take me. I have no right to be alive today whatsoever. John 14, there he says, Whom the world cannot receive, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. They did not have the Holy Spirit yet. The Holy Spirit was not yet given. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more. But ye see me, because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father. Listen to what he said, you'll know. I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. This is the basis of true assurance of salvation. Not some kind of external manifestation. but the knowledge of God in my heart, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, and the Father in Jesus, and Jesus in me, and that He, as the Bible says, has given me the witness of the Spirit within my heart, that I'm a child of God, which God has promised to do. Don't let anybody tell you you are a Christian until God does. You seek him till he tells you. He wants to. He wants to be your father. He said, my sheep know my voice and they follow my call. And a stranger's voice they will not know. One of the epidemics of our land is people who have been saved by preachers. who have never known the Holy Spirit of God witnessing in their heart that they are the children of God and they don't have the chastening of God and they don't have obedience towards God and they live their life however they want and it doesn't matter because they just go on and do it and they sing their praise and worship and go to church and hold the Bible under their arm, they're lost. You go to God till he tells you that you're saved. Verse 21, he that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my father and I will love him and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, if a man love me, he will keep my words, and my father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. And we will come unto him and make our abode with him. How do you know you're saved when God lives in you? That's how. When God lives in you, and when God lives in you, you do the will of the Father. And if you don't, you get a butt whoop, and you get a chastening, and God brings you back. But you know the difference between chastening and natural events? I had a guy, he ran around on a woman, ran around on his wife with a woman, and he said, I know I'm saved because of chastening, but he had nothing else, no other evidence. And I said, wait a second, you ran around on your wife, a lost man that runs around on his wife will probably end up with a divorce on his hands. It doesn't mean you're saved. Chastening is God bringing you back from a place of broken fellowship, where you once had fellowship with God, but it's been broken by sin, and God rebuking you and chastening you by events or whatever else it takes, and then bringing you back into a loving relationship with him that you once already had. That's chastening. If you've never had a loving relationship with the Father, it doesn't matter what bad things happen to you, it's not chastening. Chastening is based on relationship as a son Judas said how will you manifest yourself? Jesus said we will come unto him and make our abode with him He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings and the word which he here is not mine But the father's which sent me these things have I spoken unto you and we're gonna we're gonna read some verses here and but this is where we're wrapping it up tonight in this section of John here And promise you, we're getting there. My Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not, keepeth not my sayings. And the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me. Verse 25. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. Go to chapter 15 in verse 1. I am the true vine. I will try and hurry. And my father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. And every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. That Bible's awful important. That's your cleanliness. Now you are clean. through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me ye can do nothing. And remember, they that mourn shall be comforted. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered. And men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit. So shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. Look at this in verse 13, Greater love hath no man than this, That a man lay down his life for his friend. The fullness of the Holy Spirit of God is to make you like Jesus. That's why God did it. to remind you of what Christ teach, taught, and to make you like Jesus. And Jesus laid down His life for His friends, so ought you to lay down your life for others. He says, Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that ye should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name he may give it you we quote all of these verses but we neglect the comforter most of the promises in the New Testament do not apply to you if you're walking in the flesh except the ones that say that if you live after the flesh he shall die that would apply but if you want to claim I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me check the context If you're not in the Spirit, not walking in the Spirit, you're out. Doesn't apply. And that goes, go on, look at them. Every promise of God has conditions with it. Every one of them. And we love to quote the promises, but we leave off the conditions. Look them up. Next time you have a promise that you want to claim, look it up in the Bible and see what God says is required before it applies to you. He says, hence, these things command I you that ye love one another. If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love his own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. This is the path of mourning. The Bible talks about he that goeth forth weeping, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing in his sheaves with him. If you are not able to be broken over sin and mourn over sin, your effectiveness in evangelism is gone. Gone they say of John Wesley that whenever he was preaching one day to a crowd of sinners who were very hard He said to them weep sinners weep, and they wouldn't weep They just stood there snarling at him, and he said if you won't weep all weep for you, and he broke They broke out weeping and wailing over their sin and God moved in and convicted them of their sin. And they turned to God in great numbers. One group of missionaries was trying to reach the lost and they sent back a letter to their people and they said, we've tried everything and nothing is working. And the wise man, the wise man in leadership sent back a letter and he said, have you tried tears? Have you tried tears? They went to God until God broke them for the people they were trying to reach and they wept over the sin of their people and God moved in in power and turned them. Quickly as we finish here, chapter 16, go to verse 7. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you. But if I depart, I will send him unto you. Jesus Christ here is introducing the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, and His work supersedes your work, and my work, and anybody else's opinion on the matter. First work of the Holy Spirit here given by Jesus Christ as far as regards the world. He'll comfort you He'll live with you. He'll dwell with you. He'll remind you he'll speak to you the things that I've told you Look at verse 27 in the last chapter and ye also shall bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning linking the witnessing of the church to the power of the Holy Spirit of God and the fullness of the Holy Spirit of God and he says here in verse 8 of chapter 16 and when he is come He will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. You say the Holy Spirit's been in your church Sunday. I probably do not believe you. Because you can go on and sin. and not mourn. And your church can go on in sin and not mourn. And the people can go on in sin and not mourn. But they can dance up and down and sing, Jesus, Jesus, I love you. But they cannot mourn, and they are not reproved. And the first work of the Holy Spirit as regards those who are far from God is to reprove them of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. If you have a spirit in your church and you have sin in your church and the two are operating simultaneously, you have a false spirit. I don't care what manifestations you've got. If there is open sin in your church and open so-called manifestation of the spirit of God, you have a false lying spirit. We've studied this out. He says he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment of sin because they believe not on me of righteousness because I go to my father and you see me no more of judgment because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you but you cannot bear them now. How be it when he the spirit of truth is come. He will guide you into all truth. Get this right now and get it good for he shall not speak of himself. But whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak. And he will show you things to come. Any spirit that magnifies the Holy Spirit is not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, Jesus said, will magnify Christ. If a man is being magnified, that's not the Holy Spirit that's doing that work. He will speak of me and he will remind you the things that I have said unto you. I have many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. How be it when he, the spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me. said Christ, for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine, therefore said I that he shall take of mine and shall show it unto you. Go down to verse 20. This will be our last text and we'll wrap it up here, Lord willing. Verily, verily, I say unto you that ye shall weep and lament. Do you see the mourning right there in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and what God is teaching us about the Holy Spirit of God? Ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice, and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, And he says, but when the child is come, she remembereth no more her anguish. Ye have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your joy no man shall take from you. Jesus said in Matthew 5, four, blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. What is preventing us in this day from having revival? What is blockading the work of the Holy Spirit of God in our land? It is our idolatry that is preventing our mourning. We cannot mourn. Because we have placed our own hearts and our own opinions and our own thoughts and judgments above the Word of God. And God is calling us to morning today. to mourning. When you mourn, things will change. Two things will happen. When you mourn in a godly sorrow over sin, number one, people who are set in their sin will hate you. It's what Jesus said, marvel not that they hate you, they hated me. They will hate you. They will accuse you. They will persecute you. They will despise you. They will separate you from their company because you mourn over their sin. They will hate you, but some of them, number two, will repent and turn and be saved. Father, in Jesus' name, I pray that you would use this message. I ask everyone to stand heads bowed and eyes shut right now. I ask you all just to consider what you've heard tonight. If you need to do business with God, do it. You don't have to come to the altar, but I'll tell you right now, if you don't and God is telling you to, you're done, because you disobeyed. So you mind God tonight. You do what God wants you to do. With your eyes shut and your heads bowed, I want to ask you, have you been mourning over sin, or are you like the book of Romans says, not only know the wrath of God against sin, but you have pleasure in them that do it. You enjoy the world's sin and the world's entertainment. You laugh at sin. The Bible says fools make a mock at sin. If you're in a condition like that, I ask you in Jesus' name, repent, mourn, turn to God, and ask Him to break your heart over sin. Ask him to break your heart for your sin so that you can repent. God, do it in Jesus' name. Don't let me go on in my error and my sin, Lord God, with a hard heart and a stiff neck. For Christ's sake, Lord God, help me to mourn over my sin. Help us tonight, Lord God. Break our hearts over our sin. Break our hearts over our family's sin, Lord God. Help us, Lord God, in Jesus' name to be obedient to you. You said you would comfort us, Lord God. Help us to trust you with it in Jesus' name. If you're here and you know that what you've heard tonight does not describe you and you're here and you're lost and you're in your sin and God is not chasing you and you can do all the church stuff and live like hell and it doesn't matter because you and God have a good thing going or whatever you want to say but you recognize tonight that you do not have the Spirit of God, then I beseech you in the name of Christ to repent and turn to Jesus Christ. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and ye shall find rest for your souls. Turn to Jesus, repent of your sins, trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Plus nothing, minus nothing, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Turn to Him tonight. Confess your sin, confess your idolatry, confess your backslidden condition if you are lost and on your way to hell. And then if you're here tonight and you're backslidden as a Christian, and sin doesn't affect you anymore and it doesn't really bother you, and you recognize that tonight, I ask you to repent and turn back to God. Repent and turn back to the Word of God and ask Him to have mercy upon you and to soften your heart and tender your heart. God, touch us tonight in Jesus' name. Help us, Lord. Help those who need to be saved to be saved. Help those who need to turn from their backslidden condition to turn, Father. Don't leave us in our sin, Lord. Don't let us go home in our sin, Lord God. In Jesus' name, help us, Lord. Wash us, Lord. Cleanse us, Lord. Make us clean, Father. Give us hearts that mourn over sin. Help, Lord. Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me. Help me, Lord God. I need you tonight, Lord God. Help us tonight. Turn us tonight in Jesus' name. Give us hearts that break over sin, Lord God, like your heart breaks. Help us, Lord. If your heart is right with God and you've confessed your sin and you know it, but you lack power, you lack anointing, whenever you tell people the gospel, it rolls off their back like water off a duck. It has no effect. You try and you try, but nothing seems to get through. People can just sit there and sin in your face and laugh at you while you try and share Jesus with them And it has no effect. They don't turn away from you and they don't turn to God You need the fullness of the Holy Spirit. You need the power of God on your life You need God to fill you to immerse you to make you his witness, which is the entire point the entire purpose He said Terry ye in Jerusalem until you receive power from on high. He said ye shall be witnesses unto me He said, go therefore and preach the gospel. He said, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. If your witness is flat and dead and empty and you're trying but it's not getting anywhere, beg God tonight, ask him tonight, ask and ye shall receive. The Bible says if ye being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father which is in heaven give the Holy Ghost to them that ask? But it also says that if ye have not because ye ask not and when ye ask ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your own lusts. If you want God to fill you with the Holy Ghost so you can show off and strut, you're dead in the water. But if you want God to fill you with the Holy Ghost to make you His witness so that people cannot walk away when you tell them about Christ without the Holy Ghost dealing with them and they have to react to the Gospel, if you want that power on your life, it is available to you. It's God's purpose, it's His desire. He's chosen you as a Christian and ordained you that you should bring forth much fruit. It's His will for you. And He says, if we ask anything according to His will, we know that He heareth us, and if He heareth us, we know that we have the petition that we ask of Him. There is no doubt that if you will, with a true heart towards God, ask Him to fill you and fit you to be His witness, He will do it. He said He would do it. He will do it. Trust Him. He will do it. Ask him for it. You say I don't know how to ask him about like this father in Jesus name I'm an empty vessel here with nothing in me Lord God of the power that I need And I need your power to be your witness that you promised so that when I tell my aunt and my uncle, my brother, my sister, my co-workers, the people at the store about Jesus, that it won't roll off of them. Lord, I need you to do something I can't do. Please fill me with your Spirit so that I can be your witness. In Jesus' name. It's just about that simple. You pray that to God like that. I'm not asking you to repeat something after me or anything like that, but you pray something like that to God and trust Him that because He said He would do it, He will do it. Maybe you're here tonight and you have idols in your home, you have idols at your workplace, you have idols maybe in your pocket tonight. If you have idols, there's only one good thing to do with idols and witchcraft, and that's burn them. Read the book of Acts, what they did in Ephesus. At the instruction of the apostle Paul, they brought all their witchcraft and curious arts and all of that stuff, and they piled it up. It was worth a lot of money, and they set it on fire, and they burned it, all their idols, all their witchcraft. And if you have that stuff in your house, you repent, tell God, I'm sorry I brought this stuff in. Don't be superstitious about it, but be real about it. There's demonic power, satanic power associated with devil worship and all the things that pertain to it. Get it out of your house when you get home tonight. Purpose right now and expect a battle. Expect the enemy not to want to let go of the ground that you've given him. But the Bible says resist the devil and he will flee from you. You tell him, Satan, get out of my house in Jesus' name. Get out of my house in Jesus' name. But if you don't go home and get the idols out of your house, you can tell him till you're blue in the face to get lost and he's not gonna go anywhere because you have given place to the devil. If that's you tonight, repent of it and purpose in your heart, Lord, tonight I'm gonna get these idols out of my house and ask God to show you the idols that you don't even see. If the devil wasn't tricky, he wouldn't fool us. But we get fooled because he's tricky and we're foolish. So ask God to show you and get the idols out of your house. I ask you if you're here tonight and you are, as we're closing, if you're backslidden because you have put your heart and your head above the word of God, tell God about it. Do business with God. All these things we've talked about tonight, do business with God. Don't leave here like you came. Don't leave here like you came. I don't want to leave here like I came. I want to leave here more like Jesus. Father, we've come to you, Lord, as best we know how, Lord, in our weakness and in our frailty, in our humanity, and we've done the best that we can do, Lord God, trying to obey you, and it's not enough. We ask you, Lord, by your Holy Spirit's power to take this word and use it in hearts and minds and homes. Please loose us, Lord God. I pray right now for everyone here under this tent, Lord, that has committed to follow you and to be obedient to your word. I pray in Jesus' name that you would loose them from the power of Satan, loose them from the satanic lies that the devil has told them. Open their eyes, Lord, to areas of disobedience. Help them to see, Lord God, how they're offending you. Bring them to the right scriptures, Father. Give them an obedient heart to your word. We just want to be like your little children, Father, literally your little children. We just want to put our hand up in your hand and hold your hand and walk with you, Lord. That's what we want to do. We want to follow you, Lord. And all those who that is your heart's prayers, say with me right now, amen. Amen, you are dismissed.