I want you to look at two passages of scripture with me real quick before we get to the slides. If you turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 4 for just a moment, 2 Corinthians 4, and I'm gonna begin reading at verse 7, read verses 7 through 12. 2 Corinthians 4, beginning with verse 7. It says, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down, but not destroyed. In the Robert Rowland abbreviated Bible, it simply says here, we're knocked down, but not knocked out. Okay. Always bearing about in the body and the dying of the Lord Jesus, the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you. that would make a lousy commercial to entice people to serve Christ, wouldn't it? Because it's basically saying you're gonna give up your life and you're gonna suffer if you're gonna share the gospel with others. And yet, that is what we're expected, what we're to be expecting as part of our life in serving Christ. Now, you turn to 1 Peter chapter four, we've been doing a series in 1 Peter, And I had a little interesting problem with the passage this week, doesn't usually happen to me, but I don't know, earlier in the week, Tuesday, I think, Tuesday, Thursday nights, I'm studying this passage. And I was trying to remember in my brain exactly where we left off in 1 Peter, because the last time I preached from it was in November, so it's been a while. And so I'm studying this passage beginning at verse 10 and going through the end and I'm thinking I'm going to cover all these verses if possible. And then as I went in deeper, I thought, no, I'll never make it past verses 10 and 11. We really need to talk about spiritual gifts. And so I thought, okay, I'm gonna focus my slide preparation on that aspect of it. And I had several pages of notes. And so my plan was yesterday to spend some time focused on those slides and doing some work on explaining spiritual gifts, because a lot of people don't really understand it. But I ended up probably counseling for three to four hours yesterday and it cut into my slide prep time. I thought I'll just get up extra early and do it. I got up and I'm starting to put those slides together from my notes. And then realized somewhere in the midst of that and looking for screenshots on my computer and things that actually I had thoroughly covered those verses including the subject of spiritual gifts in November. So that was a little bit distracting to me. I guess I had my senior moment for the week already and it's only Sunday. But God said, let's take a detour. And it's because verse 12 begins with these words. Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you as though something strange has happened to you. But rejoice in as much as your partakers of Christ's suffering, that when his glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happier ye, for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. On their part, his evil spoken of, but on your part, he's glorified. But then there's this kind of strange admonition in the middle of this passage that says this, but let none of you suffer as a murderer or as a thief or as an evildoer or as a busybody in other men's matters. Yet if any men suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on his behalf. And I thought, well, you know, Suffering is something that's pretty common to all of us. Now, it comes for different reasons, doesn't it? How many of you, and you know, if you're honest enough to admit it, I'll go ahead and raise my hand before I ask the question. How many of you have ever suffered because you did something stupid and you got the consequences of your stupid decision? Anybody besides me? Okay, good, I don't feel quite as lonely now. But sometimes you suffer because The devil's just opposed to you and you're trying to live for the Lord. Anybody ever been through any of that? I have too. I think sometimes suffering comes simply because we live in a sinful world and it's the consequence of living in a sinful world and dealing with sinful people and having a humanity that is weakened by the consequences of sin that there's other kinds of suffering. So I don't want anybody to leave here, and please listen, because I don't want anybody to leave here today with the impression that I'm going to say that all suffering is a result of you getting whooped by God because you did something bad. Now there is a line of theology prevalent among charismatic Christians that says if you have an illness in your body, it's because God is judging you. If you get rid of the sin, God will get rid of the illness. And that's why Benny Hinn can wear his white suits and go out on stage and put his hands on people and tell them they need to repent and confess and then they're slain in the spirit and they fall back dead and things look good for a little while. And I never will forget in the first church that I pastored, there was a very godly lady. It was one of the backbone, stalwart members of the church, Miss Virginia. And she always, she had the gift of service. She was the one that cleaned the church and she noticed little things. I love people like this that notice the little things. I have a sister like that. And my sister will notice what people like. And at Christmas, she may not give expensive gifts, but she always gives a gift that's perfect for each individual because she paid attention. Well, Miss Virginia, one day I had gone into the church office and there was this plastic there was this flower arrangement that was out on a table in the vestibule or the entryway of the church, and I needed the table for something. So I took the flower arrangement, and I went and put it on the desk in my office, and I got the table, used it for whatever I needed to, and I moved the table back where it was gonna go. I neglected to put the flower arrangement back where it was meant to go. So next week I come into my office and there are fresh flowers on my desk because Miss Virginia thought that because I had moved the flowers into my office, I must like flowers in my office. I mean, that was the kind of thing she did. And sweet, wonderful Christian lady. Her husband was a little bit of a cantankerous county constable, but he was a really good friend of mine and a little hard and crusty from being a lawman, but just a really good friend. But I remember that Miss Virginia got ovarian cancer and she was already in her 70s at the time. But there were a couple of ladies in our church that because they had not been taught sound theology from the word of God for many years prior to my coming there, And they had strong leanings into the likes of Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagin and some other, Jimmy Baker and some of those other charismatic leaders at the time. And one of them went to Miss Virginia, this sweet, godly Christian lady, and said, if you will just confess your sin, God will heal you of your cancer. Now that's bad theology. That is so bad theology that God dedicated an entire book of the Bible to that kind of bad theology. It's called the Book of Job. And the Book of Job starts out with these words, Job was perfect and upright, fearing God, eschewing evil. That's about as good a resume as any of us will ever have. And yet, when he began suffering some calamities that came his way, his friends came to him and guess what they said? Job, if you confess your sin, all these things would go away. This suffering came to you because of your sin. Now, I'm not saying Job didn't learn something, because in the end of the book, it does say around chapter 42 that Job repented, but it wasn't his sin that brought the calamities on him, but in the midst of his calamities, he did what a lot of us do when we go under trials and troubles and persecutions, and we tend to murmur and complain, which Brother Eric talked about last Sunday, and I'm still under conviction. But we tend to murmur and complain against God when things aren't going smoothly. And that's what Job did. He essentially tells God, if I were God, I wouldn't be letting this happen to me. And that's what he tells him. And that's what he repented of. And then God blesses him with twice as much as he had before in the end of the book. It's a phenomenal book and it's probably one of the most unread books of the Old Testament. And yet there's a lot of valuable lessons So, what I want to do this morning is, you know, we all will encounter some suffering in our lives. And there's different categories of suffering, but I want to talk to you, not so much as a pastor, as maybe as a father, of the suffering that comes into our families because we fail to protect them. I don't know if you guys, I don't know how many of you have a strong protective urge. My middle name, William, means defender of the faith or defender of those in need, and I have a strong defensive protective thing, and if you wanna attack me, that's fine. You attack my family, and you're gonna wish you'd never had, okay? It's not gonna go well with you. But I have a strong urge to protect. That's why I teach classes, teach them up here at the church. People ought to use one of these. By the way, this one just points real pretty little laser dots on the screen there. This is a training pistol. And I have a training screen with a camera. And you can see if you hit the target with the camera. So don't worry, this isn't going to shoot anybody today. That's why it looks like that. It's not dangerous. But learning how to use it could be crucial to someone's survival. I went to a seminar this week and I've got two kits coming but I already had one at home. I went to a seminar this week to get certified in first aid for gunshot wounds. You think, why in the world would you do that? Can you imagine if there was a, can you imagine a situation where there might be a church in Texas that they wish they had somebody in the congregation trained in shooting gunshot wounds and that they had a pack or two of material to help with that? Y'all remember that church? in South Texas last year. It's a good thing to know and it's a good thing to have on hand. After that happened, by the way, I just resolved that I'd never come to church without wearing a real one of these because I have a duty to protect you too. So I don't think that'll ever happen here, but I don't get up in the morning and take the jacks out of my car because I don't think I'm gonna have a flat. And I don't come to church unarmed because I don't think anything will happen. Okay, you just need to know. So if you're ever in church and something happens and I say get down, duck behind the pews because it means loud stuff's about to happen. And I know that there's one or two other here too that will help me in that pursuit. And so I have an urge to protect my family, but I also feel like I have a responsibility to protect you, not just spiritually, but physically. And I even have a meeting with a sergeant on the Irving Police Department. He's going to come out here and do a survey for us and talk to us about some ways that we can improve. And I think that most men, if you don't carry a firearm, think about it. If you're not comfortable with that, because you don't feel like you're capable of ever making life and death decisions, I appreciate that. That's fine. Not everybody needs to carry a firearm. In fact, Jesus talked about this very issue. I believe it's Luke 13, let me look. Well, it was actually a little later, It was at the Last Supper. And you remember what happened at the Last Supper. At some point during the Last Supper, Jesus looks at his disciples and he says, if you have a wallet, he's preparing them for the fact that they're about to be without him for a while. He says, if you have a wallet, get it. If you have scrip, which is money, put it in the wallet and carry it with you. He says, and if you have swords, take a sword. When some disciple goes off, comes back in a minute and says, Master, we have two swords. Now, there were 12 disciples, they had two swords. And Jesus' reply at the last supper, people miss this story, but Jesus' reply is, it's enough. In other words, you got 12 people, not all of them need to have a sword. I know not everybody here's capable of carrying a firearm, nor wants to, that's fine. When you're here, Richard and I'll take care of you, okay? Because I know at least two of us are carrying, maybe more. But, you know, men should be prepared to defend their families. I think everybody needs to travel with a flashlight. You know, this one's handy because it makes a nice little work light, too, and I like that. This one is a good light to take on a trip with you if you're going for a walk at night and you need a flashlight. It's really handy because if anybody gets too close, you can give them about two million volts from your flashlight. It's a pretty handy thing to do. That's a that's probably my most effective flashlight. This is actually my favorite It's just a really bright little flashlight, but if you look at the top of it You know you can put this in somebody and turn and you take in a core sample And and so you know but it everybody don't have a flashlight and you ought to carry your cell phone with you So you can call 9-1-1 now bear in mind. They're not going to respond as fast as as you know, a firearm will. And you know, but you need to do something to defend your family. But I want to talk about some practical ways from the spiritual realm first, and then as time goes on. In this series, I'll maybe talk to you about some practical ways just to care for your family. When do you need to protect your family? All the time. There's not a time you don't need to protect. I don't think that when I lay down in bed at night that my protecting job is over. So my favorite firearm stays next to me on the nightstand, and we have an alarm, and I can hear doors chime when people go in and out in the middle of the night, and I'm likely to get up to see what's coming in or what's going out, because that's my responsibility. I'm the protector. But the devil works 24-7. Are y'all aware of that? There was a lady one time who was it was it was said of her that she never said a bad word about anybody So one day somebody asked her said said well, you can't say anything good about the devil Canyon She thought for just a moment. She said well, he's always on the job. I And that's true, that's true. He never lets you down. Where do you need to take care of your family? A lot more places than we used to think about, certainly when I was growing up. Obviously, when they're in public. You're out shopping. You need to be careful that when you're out with your family, and I did some of this, Judy and I were out earlier this week, and we're just going for a walk. And as we're going for a walk, I'm watching her eyes because I'm noticing everything. And we walked past a parked car. It was a few blocks away from home. We walked past a parked car. And after we got about 20 feet the other side of the parked car, I said, Judy, did you see what was going on in that car? Well, she had remained totally oblivious to it, but there was a woman sitting in the car looking down, probably at an electronic device, looking down in her lap. And I said, but you know, we don't know. Somebody could be sitting in a parked car waiting for somebody to come by. You need to be alert. So I walk around in a little heightened state of alertness. There's what they call Cooper's Colors, and there's five states, and I've actually Back in last November. I showed you this on a slide, but most people walk around in white Which means they're totally oblivious that there's any danger anywhere? Yellow means that you're kind of looking for problems red means that you see a potential threat and now you're making decisions what to do about it and black means that the trouble is upon you and it's it's critical that you take action and And so I kind of walk around in a yellow state. And when I'm walking through a parking lot outside the grocery store, I look between cars. That may sound stupid to you, but people hide in parking lots between cars to mug unsuspecting people. Come out. When I leave a grocery store, I don't carry groceries in my strong hand. That's the hand I want to be able to draw my firearm. My groceries are in my other arm. I think about stuff like that. A lot of people don't, and that's fine, but you need to start developing alertness, but not just in the public, but to other places as well, like at home in the TV room. What are they watching on TV? I actually can see the history, and we don't have public TV in the house, but I can see the history of what people might have pulled up from Amazon or Netflix or whatever other thing that you have, and if I don't like what I see, then I exclude those kind of things from being seen again. Online. There's a company, you might want to jot this down if you don't have this. There is a company called F-Secure. F as in Frank or Foxtrot, Secure. And they make a software called Safe and it not only works on your kids' computers, but it can work on their cell phones. And so you load the software on their cell phones, you load it on their computers, and then once you do that, you can have parental controls and you can control the type of content that they see and the results of searches that they get. And listen. Google sends us back as many porn results as it does good results, so you need something to filter your searches, okay? It's another good thing is a company called OpenDNS. Cisco bought them. It's now part of Cisco, but OpenDNS, which stands for Domain Name Server, okay? And what this does is if you're trying to go to a server or you click on a link and it's trying to send you to a server that has any kind of filth on it, and you can choose which categories you want to exclude, it will basically come back and say, permission denied. And then it will also say, your administrator has been notified. So were my kids to try to go to any of those sites, I would get a message from OpenDNS to tell me about it. And they don't want that to happen. But it also protects me because sometimes you'll click on a link thinking it's a real link and it's something else. By the way, you should hover your mouse over that link before you click on it and make sure that the name in the URL is actually what you want it to go to. You need to protect them in the home because one of the great things that's getting a lot of homeschool kids today is when mama and daddy don't have proper love toward one another or when anger is allowed to exist between siblings and they have bitterness that sets up between them. And as a result of that anger within the home, When the kid gets old enough and he's ready to leave home, he says, I don't want a life anything like that because my home wasn't full of love. Therefore, I don't want my family's faith. I don't want my parents' faith. And that's happening to a lot of homeschoolers right now. Most important thing you need to protect is your relationship to your kids and your relationship to your spouse and not in that order. You need to protect that above all else. Where else? With their friends and influencers. Who is it that influences your kids? Who is it that influences your wife other than you? Who influences your husband when he's traveling and he's away at work? Do you know who their influencers are? Pray to protect them from ungodly influences. And then in school, so if you go to a Christian school or you go to a public school, there's a chance that they'll be taught something that you don't want them taught. One of the reasons I like, and I know a lot of people are freaked out by the whole idea of integrated family church where we all go to Sunday school together, But I've been in a church where every Sunday on the way home, I would have to debrief my kids because they were being taught things in Sunday school that were not from the word of God. They were being taught men's opinions and not scripture. You need to, that's why here you sit in there with your kids and you can hear what they're taught and you can discuss it on the way home or you can challenge the teacher right there. That's fine too. but protect them in school. And I've got one daughter in college right now, and I'm glad we had this chance to debrief whenever she comes home what happened that day. I want to be alert in case there's ever any wrong influences. And I'm pleased to say right now, she's being a godly influence on people who don't know Christ. But it's easy when you go off to a secular school to have your spiritual life dragged down rather than lifting them up to look at Christ. So this is a big thing is we need to constantly be aware of it. If you don't know it already, the fact of the matter is our families are under attack. So what I wanna do in the coming times that we look at this is walk you through what God says in his word about protection. Now, let me show you what kind of attacks come. And I think it's interesting, pay a little bit of attention to the order because I've noticed in my life that this order seems to happen. So all of these attacks are illustrated, I think, in Job chapter one. Job chapter one, beginning at verse 13, says this. And then there was one day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their firstborn brother's house. So they're at the oldest son's house, they're having a party. And a messenger came to Job and said the oxen were plowing and the female donkeys were feeding beside them. Then the Sabaeans attacked and they took them and slew or killed the servants by the edge of the sword. but I escaped even I alone to tell you. Now Job, by the way, is probably the oldest book of the Old Testament. It was written before Genesis. That's why you don't have any mentions of the Genesis forefathers and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all that. Job was a man of renown. in the near ancient Near East. He was one of the chief elders or rulers of the town. He had everyone's respect and he was a thriving and prosperous businessman. He had everything going for him. And the first thing that happens when the devil starts to attack Job, and I wish we had time to go into why was Job attacked to begin with and who brought up Job's name and the conversation between God and Satan and all that, that'll have to wait for another time. But you notice the first thing that gets attacked is his livelihood. Basically, it's his job, it's his career, that's the first attack. And several of us have experienced that. I've been laid off. I know some of you've been laid off. Many of us have had that experience, but it's our livelihood. And so basically here, these are his servants and they're the oxen and the donkeys that were pulling the plows and carrying the cargo. And so basically there was an attack on Job's livelihood. And then after his livelihood is attacked, his savings are attacked. Look at verse 16. While this one was still speaking, another came and said, the fire of God fell from heavens. It blazed up against the sheep and goats and against the servants that consume them. But I escaped even I alone to tell you, it tackles his resources. These are the sheep and the goats. This is where his future milk and meat are coming from. It basically attacks his resources. And then, Then there is an attack on his transportation, and as well as his giving. Look at this, verse 17. While this one was still speaking, another came and said, the Chaldeans formed three divisions. They made on the raid on the camels, carried them away, and they struck your servants by the edge of the sword, but I escaped, even I alone to tell you. So, These camels were how basically he would transport his goods and services other places. But he was a man of renown and he was known for his generosity. These camels are also likely probably transferred help and aid to those who needed it. And then there was finally, after all these attacks were not sufficient, there was attack on his children, Job 1, 18, 19. At the time this one was speaking, another came and said, your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their firstborn brother's house. And behold, a great wind came from across the desert. It struck the four corners of the house so that it fell upon the young people and they died. But I escaped even I alone to tell you." It's very interesting to me that every time the devil attacks, he makes sure that the bad news gets to Job. make sure that that reaches Job. It's also interesting to me and might be a discussion for another time, but it's interesting to me that he loses his servants, he loses his flocks, he loses his children, but he's left with a nagging wife who says, you should just curse God and die. She was not being the kind of supportive spouse that she needed at the time. And I think this order is often repeated in families who come under attack by the devil. And sometimes, quite frankly, this order can be repeated when God is chastising us as his children. And so, You know, there's a problem with a job or career and maybe the devil attacks there and then he wants to see if you'll curse God, you know. And then maybe you drain your resources and he wants to see if you're gonna curse God. And then there's maybe there's a problem with transportation, your water pump goes out, your alternator goes out, car doesn't wanna run anymore. And you wanna see if you give up trusting him. Your giving goes away because you can, you no longer have the resources to be able to do these things And then he attacks family members. Interesting thing about that list is we can insure most of them except for one, right? We do have something in America called unemployment insurance that lasts for a while. Some people would say not long enough. Most people would say that the amount isn't sufficient to cover what you lost in your salary. But there is unemployment insurance that shields us from some of that. You can, there are things that you can invest in that are supposedly safer investments. I don't know, I think safe investment is a term like job security. I don't think either one actually exists. They're just terms we use, right? Transportation. Yeah, you can buy an extended warranty on your car and you can insure your car so that it's covered under a loss and maybe you replace a car. And then, you know, but your family, how do you put an insurance policy other than on your, a life insurance policy on your kid? How do you put an insurance policy on your kid so that you'll know that no matter what, they'll grow up to be godly? Boy, if somebody sold that insurance, I would buy it. I'd buy it in a heartbeat. But this is where the attacks come And it's a tragic thing. Let me tell you a very tragic story. I won't mention the woman's name, but she was a devout Christian woman. She married a non-Christian businessman who was very successful. And after been married a few years, she got pretty used to the kind of opulent lifestyle. They moved to a bigger home, had a nicer place to live. She had maids and butlers to help take care of things. She got to wear nicer clothes. She got to go shopping more often. And what happened is the materialism, the world kind of crept into her life and the devotional life crept away. and she quit going to church and she quit following the Lord, but they were having a very comfortable life. And then suddenly a series of, like the movie is called, there was a series of unfortunate events. Her daughter, who had gone off and began living in an immoral relationship, died. And this was devastating to the mother, and she griped and complained to God about that. And then they scheduled a funeral. The son came home from college to attend the funeral. And while he's at home, he decides to go hunting. And he's crossing a barbed wire fence, and he puts his gun down on the other side of the fence to steady himself as he went over the fence, accidentally shot and killed himself. And then the father is so distraught after losing both these children and not knowing Jesus Christ and not having hope in his own life that he committed suicide. All this happened within a very small span of time. And it took some months, but finally the wife realized that life began to go downhill when she began to move away from the Lord. Again, I don't want you leaving with the idea that all suffering comes because of your sin. The devil's behind it many times, but sometimes suffering does come from chastisement. It's up to us to discern wisely, which is our case. And she repented and she was later able to rejoice in the Lord and was able to have fellowship with God again, but it was not an easy thing. Let's talk about what it means to have a protective hedge around your family and the benefits. And I take this term from Hosea chapter two. If you remember correctly, Hosea is probably one of the weirdest stories in the Bible because God calls his prophet and tells him, I want you to go out and marry a prostitute. Now let's face it, that is a strange start to any story. But Hosea goes out and marries Gomer and for a while things are going pretty well. But then, not so hot. She gets pregnant with their first child and when that child is born, they name that child Jezreel, which means in Hebrew, scattered. Because it was symbolic of the fact that her affections were no longer focused on Hosea, they were beginning to be scattered. And then they have another child named Lo-Ruchamah, which means no pity or no compassion. And it basically means there's no love in the marriage anymore. It was a loveless marriage, still married, but loveless. Then they have the third child in Hosea, actually names the child Lo-Ami, which in Hebrew means this isn't my child. Imagine going around with that name for the rest of your life, not my child. because it wasn't his child. His wife had been unfaithful. At this point, she leaves and she goes up and starts plying her old trade and she shacks up on the other side of town with some ungodly individuals. And God tells Hosea, pray a hedge around your wife. And here's what he says, this is what God says, this is, in the dialogue between God and Hosea, Hosea 2.6. Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall that she shall not find her pass, and she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them, and she shall seek them, but shall not find them. Then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now. So let me show you the benefits of this hedge, and I wanna encourage you to think about Praying this hedge over someone in your family that maybe isn't living for the Lord, or praying the hedge of, just a hedge of protection around members of your family when they're off on a trip. Three of my kids are in Washington State this morning, and I'm praying a hedge around them that God'll war off any wrong influences toward them. But Hosea 2.6, look at the first part. He says, therefore, look, I'm gonna hedge your path with thorns. I'll build a stone wall, a stone wall against her, and she will not find her path. In other words, it's saying Gomer is, Her paths were toward wickedness and immorality, but God's promising to hedge up her path first with a wall of thorns and then back that wall of thorns up with a stone wall so that they can prevent her further sin. So a hedge, if we pray a hedge over our children and over our spouse, it can help to protect them from the wrong direction. It can also protect them from the wrong relationships. In the case of Gomer, the protective hedge that Hosea prayed for God to erect in front of her would cause, it says, her suitors will no longer seek her out. They won't come after her anymore. All of a sudden, all her buddies and all her friends and all the people that want to party with her, they won't want anything to do with her anymore. I know, I actually know somebody was praying this prayer over me when I was in college. The reason I know that is I was, I'd attended a Beacon Baptist Church in Bryan, Texas during the Sundays, and during the week I was a drunk. I'm not proud of that. I was a hypocrite in the worst sense. And yet, it was funny. that I started feeling God tugging at my heart. And I actually found myself one day praying in the Texas A&M Library, God, please take away the friends I shouldn't have. And do you know what happened? All my friends dropped me all at the same time. And starting with my girlfriend. And I couldn't, we never had an argument. I don't know, I just called her one day to say hi and she hung up three times in a row. Still don't know to this day what happened. except for the fact that I had asked God to take away the friends I shouldn't have and she was the first casualty. But you know, later I'm sitting in a restaurant called The Saber. I don't know if it's still there. Last time I was in College Station it was, but it's right across the entrance to the campus on the main drag. And I was in that restaurant with some people from my church and I was eating a chef salad. And I know that sounds weird that I remember what I was eating, but it was the most significant meal I've ever had in my life because I'm in the middle of that meal. I'm with good Christian friends that are talking to me, showing an interest in me. And suddenly it was like God spoke. It wasn't audible, but it was plainly God speaking to me who said, you know, if you died tonight, these would be the only people that came to your funeral. Your friends wouldn't even bother showing up. Now that's what I heard. And that's what got my attention. And that's when I decided that that was right. I'd been living for the wrong people and staying with the wrong people and I needed to be around Christians to encourage my life and I needed to rededicate my life to the Lord. And I did. It was not long after that that I surrendered to the ministry and surrendered my life to preach. But somebody, and later, the reason I know somebody was praying a prayer like this over me is later I went up to the Association of Baptist Students, and it was one afternoon, I was going up there trying to find somebody that would play me ping pong. I actually have a bachelor's degree in ping pong. And so I was going up there to find if there's somebody to play ping pong with, and I looked on the door to the director's office, and there on the prayer list, for me to repent and to get my life right was my name. Somebody was praying for me. It protects us from the wrong relationships. It protects us from completing our sinful desires. In the first part of verse seven, it says, then she will pursue her lovers, but she'll not overtake them. She'll seek them and not find them. See, Gomer was out trying to pursue and overtake ungodly men, but her pursuits after this hedge of protection was prayed, her pursuits failed and they didn't want any things to do with her. Now, I'm gonna say something that'll kind of trip your mind out a little bit. I think there are times when you need to pray for your family members to fail. You heard me. You need to pray for your family members to fail when they are pursuing ungodly goals. When they're pursuing ungodly goals, you should pray for them to fail. It also restores right relationships. Gomer finally is gonna come to her senses and God predicts this. He says, and she will say, I will go and return to my first husband because it was better for me than now. Kind of like she had that prodigal son moment, right? Where she realized that her life that God had given her was better than the life that she was pursuing. See, I think And probably if we went back into the story of the prodigal son, we would know that not only was dad out waiting on the path every day for his son to come home, but daddy was out there praying a hedge of thorns around that son. See, we can pray so that they'll realize ultimately, and never in our timeframe, but in God's timeframe, they will realize that godliness is really the best way of life. So we need to restore that right relationship. Now, not everybody can avail themselves of this hedger protection. So I'm gonna kind of finish up today, and obviously there's a lot more sermon in the future, but we need to talk about what the prerequisites are, what lets you do. By the way, most of these are from the book of Job. And Job, by the way, is a fascinating book. I don't know if you realize that we have a ton, this is only about half. I put a list of phrases that we use today in our language that come from the book of Job. You don't realize what a big influence it was. Have you ever said my hair stood on end? Job chapter four and verse 15. My life is a breath. Maybe you don't use that one too often. Chapter seven, verse seven. Take my life. I took my life in my own hands. Job 13, 14. There's no justice. Job 19, seven. I escaped by the skin of my teeth. Job 19, 20. I wanna get to the root of the matter, chapter 19, verse 28. The smell of battle, chapter 39, verse 25. Put your hand over your mouth, 21.5. The land of the living, 28.13. Spit in my face, 30.10. Great men are not always wise men, 32.9. Words without knowledge. And of course, the most famous phrase is I know that my Redeemer liveth because George Friedrich Handel made it famous in the Messiah. But all those phrases came from the book of Job. Well, let's look at the prerequisites, and I've kind of underlined here, but these are the first two verses of the book of Job. There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and upright, one that feared God and eschewed evil. Let me read it to you from a little more modern translation, the Lexham English Bible. There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright and God-fearing and turning away from evil. So I want you to notice the four prerequisites to being able to pray a hedge around your family members. First of all is that you have a right relationship with yourself. This word perfect, when he says he was perfect, it means he was morally innocent, he had integrity, he was morally and ethically pure. Now, I think our society's forgotten what integrity means. All you have to do is listen to the newscast and you know there's nobody in Washington, D.C. that seems to have any. But integrity's important. Spencer Johnson said, integrity is telling myself the truth. Honesty is telling the truth to other people. That's not a bad quote. Alan Simpson says, if you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters. I'm gonna chew on that one for a minute. Chew on that one for a minute. Then there's the word upright. It means to be right, pleasing, correct, righteous, and dealing with others. Alistair Begg is one of my favorite preachers to listen to. He says, our relationship with God will never be right as long as our relationship with others is wrong. You know guys, if you're not in a right spirit with your wife and you fighting with her or your tension between you and her, I'm not so sure God's really gonna listen to your prayers that much. You know how I know that? Because in 1 Peter, it says, treat your wives with honor as the weaker vessel so that your prayers together be not hindered. Now, first of all, there's two things you ought to know there. One is in Greek, it actually says your, we need to say it in Texan to make sense, y'alls prayers. because they're both plural. See, when we say that your prayers be not hindered, we don't know what that means in English, because your is singular or plural, but in Greek, it's very clear, it's plural. So you, as in you and your wife, so it's basically saying treat your wife right, or the two of you are gonna have trouble praying together, and I'm gonna have trouble answering your prayers because y'all aren't praying in harmony. Because I said where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. And if you agree on touching anything you ask, I shall do it for you, what you ask in prayer. But it starts with, you gotta be in a right relationship with your wife. So there's two things you guys need to know. One, treat your wife right so that, and two, pray with her. Not just pray by yourself, but pray with her because there's a power to those couple prayers. So two things there. Now, you need to also have a right relationship to God. He says he was fearing God. What does that mean? It means to have reverence for God. It means to understand that he's holy, that he judges the ungodly and he chastises his own children. He disciplines them. And that he does let us live with the consequences of our own actions. And then we need to have a right opposition to Satan. It says he was eschewing evil or avoiding evil, staying away from evil, continually departing from evil. Martin Luther made an interesting comment about this, that this was something your church ought to help you with. Here's what he said. No man should be alone when he opposes Satan. The church and the ministry of the word were instituted for this purpose, that hands may be joined together and one may help another. I tell you what, When you feel like you're under attack, find somebody in your church that'll stop and pray with you. Find somebody you can be accountable with. Find somebody that knows that you can tell what's going through and you know they're discreet and they're not going to blab it all over creation. The fact of the matter is we're under attack and it's not some cute cartoon character with a pitchfork. Billy Graham said this, he says, don't think of Satan as a harmless cartoon character with a red suit and a pitchfork. He's very clever and powerful. His unchanging purpose is to defeat God's plan at every turn, including his plans for your life. That's what he's out to do. Most of us think the devil looks like the guy on the left. The truth is the first Corinthians says, and no marvel for Satan himself has transformed into an angel of light. Now, let me share something with you. I think this verse means, because the devil really looks more like the guy on the right. Let me share what I think this verse means is that I think one of the things that the devil is a master of is getting you focused on the good instead of the best. We focus on what looks good for our family rather than what gives God the greatest glory. And so we start getting off into these, maybe these good projects, but they're not the thing that has us out doing visitation and sharing the gospel. and sharing Jesus with people, but they're good things to do. We get involved in good commitments. We think financial commitments to go out and say, hey, here's a car. My car is broke down. I really need a new car. And so we see that, hey, the payments are only $354 a month. We can cut that. And what happens is you get into the $354 a month car payment. And isn't it interesting? that your tithe check was about that too and you can no longer give the tithe check because you're paying the car payment. By the way, my favorite car, I'm sad to say that in my garage there's two, it's a two-car garage. I only have room for one car because with eight bikes it's kind of hard. to fit the other cars in. And I hadn't figured out how to deal with that yet. So I have to make a decision between all the vehicles in my driveway, which one gets to be in the garage. So I always put, when I can, my favorite car in the garage, the one I don't want getting scratched up or deemed by a hailstorm. And that car is, I paid $3,000 for, and it's 17 years old. But the Subaru Outback goes in the garage. Everything else will go out where it gets dinged. Why? Because that's the favorite car. You protect what your favorite one is. That's the one that you take care of. But listen, I don't have any car payments and there's no joy in having them, trust me. But the good distracts us from the bad. Now, there's this prayer of protection and I just want you to see a few notes about this and then I'm gonna close and we'll pick up here next time. In Job 1.5 it says this, then when the days of the feast had run their course, now this is earlier before all the bad stuff starts to happen. It says when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would sin and he would sanctify them, talking about their kids. They would have these family feasts or birthday parties or whatever, and before the party would start, he'd call them, he'd sanctify them, he'd make an offering for them, he'd pray to God for them. He said he would arise early in the morning, offer burnt offerings according to the number of all them, because Job thought perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their heart. That's what Job used to do all the time. Isn't that interesting? He knew that too much pleasure can distract us from our spiritual duties and from our spiritual life. And he watched his kids getting out in the world and doing worldly things. And he says, Lord, please keep them from doing stupid. You will do that too when your parents reach their teens, if you haven't started already. But I got a big question for you, a theology question. Did Job's prayer work? Because all his kids died, we just read about it a while ago, right? Wind came up, blew on the four corners of the house, the ceiling fell in, crushed all his kids in the midst of the reveling. Did his prayer actually do any good? Well, listen to Satan talking to God before the storm, He says this to God, Job 110, have you not made a hedge about him, talking about Job and about his house and about all that he has on every side? You've blessed the work of his hands and the substances increased in the land. Now we can talk another whole time about all the reasons that God allowed the devil to do these things to Job's family. But I just want you to see something. His prayers were so effective that Satan complains, and listen, if anybody's gonna be complaining, it shouldn't be us, Brother Eric. It should be the devil complaining that God has got a hedge around us. That's a good, let's let him do the complaining because we've taken the time to pray a hedge around us. I know this is one of the verses that's most important to Richard in his life. I guess if Richard has a life verse, maybe this is it, Ezekiel 22 30. And I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none. He says, you know, it's like, The nation of Judah had gaps in its protection. He says, where are the people to stand in the gap and protect it? Now, interesting story in the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah was a brilliant administrator. If you ever want to know how to be a great business leader, read Nehemiah. But basically, it's easy to remember what was going on in Nehemiah because when he came to Jerusalem, the walls were knee high, knee high, knee high, Nehemiah. Okay, got it? So the walls were torn down. So the first thing he had to do is rebuild the walls of Jerusalem to protect it. And he's really smart. He told the men, he says, I want you to rebuild the part of the wall closest to your own house. You know why he did that? If there's any part of the wall, you're gonna do a good mortar job on it. What part of the wall is it gonna be? the part to protect your home and your family. So they were highly motivated and incentivized to do a good job. And he also told them, by the way, he says, you need to carry a trowel, that's for putting on the mortar, carry a trowel in one hand and carry a sword in the other one. This is my modern day sword. Okay, put a trowel in one hand, put a sword in the other one in case you have to fight while you're out there rebuilding the wall. And he actually told him, he says, and you fight for one another. He even tells him, you need to fight for one another. It's actually a lot of people get this whole thing of self-defense messed up in their minds. They say, oh, Christians should never self-defend. Let me tell you something. There's a big difference between being a martyr because you have a choice between dying or recanting your faith to Christ. And I say, die and get that crown of glory. That's what we ought to do. There's a big difference between that and defending yourself from being a victim of something that's senseless and meaningless. And by the way, the Bible talks a whole lot about self-defense and that's a subject for another sermon entirely. But he says, you need to stand in the gap. And what happens when men stand in the gap? Well, we look later in the book of Ezekiel and it tells us chapter 34, verse 28. And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them, but they shall dwell safely and none shall make them afraid. If there's one thing I want, it's for my children to grow up to be strong and to thrive in the Lord Jesus Christ and to live boldly for Jesus and not live in the fear of men, but to always live out their faith. So as we conclude today, I just wanna ask you, is it time for you to defend your family? And I apologize if this sounds like a man thing, a man sermon. Ladies, your husbands need you praying hedge protection over them every day as they go to work. And they go to work with ladies who don't dress as godly as you. They have to travel and they have to eat out with people who are defrauding. They may have to stay in a hotel room where there's temptations to watch the wrong kind of things. They hear off color jokes and bad language, and your husband's trying not to use profanity, but if he's around it so much, it can be difficult for him to keep those words out of his own vocabulary, because it's a matter of garbage in, garbage out. Your husband's under attack, ladies, and if you're not praying a hedge protection around him every day, would you start now? Would you start now? So, my question to you, is are you ready? First of all, remember to pray the hedge protection, you have to be perfect. And that doesn't mean perfect in the sense that you'll never mess up again, but it means is your heart right before God that you have integrity, that what you say and what you think and what you do all matches? If not, then confess any hypocrisy that you're hiding in your heart, because God says if I hide iniquity, The Lord will not hear me. But whoso takes out his iniquity and confesses and forsakes it, the same shall prosper. So we need to quit hiding stuff, bringing it out, confess it so that God can prosper. Are we ready to admit maybe we've gotten distracted from what God wanted us to do and from our Christian duties because we had some wrong priorities? Started enjoying worldly pleasures we shouldn't have enjoyed. We made purchases that we couldn't afford. We developed relationships that we shouldn't have. Would you admit the distraction and ask God to remove it from your life? And I just wanna know who will maybe come to the altar as Richard comes and leads us in a song of invitation today. Who will come up here and join me in praying a gap, standing in the gap and praying a hedge protection over your family. Not a week goes by in my life that I don't realize that we're under attack spiritually, that we're under attack by the world. Not a week goes by that I don't share Job's concerns about whether my children will grow up to be godly or whether they'll let the world distract them. I want to invite you to join me at the altar and pray for your families. Let's stand, please. answer that.