This afternoon, we're still in that 10th verse, chapter 56. His watchmen are all blind. They are all ignorant. They are all dumb dogs. They cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they all are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand. They all look to their own way, everyone for his own gain, from his own quarter. Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine and we will fill ourselves with strong drink, and tomorrow shall be the same as today, and much more abundant. I tell you, the other day, we have to look at that as for what those words slumber, sleep, sleeping, ignorant, blind, and dumb what they mean. And we're trying to break it down. That word also slumber, that word in that slumber, not just sleep, but slumber. We want to look at it spiritual apathy and lethargy. That word apathy means a lack of feelings or emotion, or impassiveness. a lack of interest, a concern. People come to church today, a lot of people in church or whatever, they may come for years and years, but by focusing on the trees and missing the forest, they're missing the bigger picture of what purpose that they're there for and what they're supposed to be doing. They're supposed to be becoming a family in God, being made in the image and likeness of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. As they got focused in Christ, I tell you, the focus shifted in the New Testament. And once a lot of people get in the church, or once a lot of people think that they've been saved, they become apathetic. It's like the seed that was sown by the sower that was sown among the thorns, whereas I think it's the one of the thorns where the cares of dislike choked the word out of it. The resourcefulness is not for the church. In other words, the church, they don't have the joy. They don't have the happiness of the zeal of looking forward. coming to the church and extracting the Word of God, extracting understanding out of the Word of God. In other words, they're not panning, as David says, my soul panned for the Word of God to be at the church. In other words, Because if you're hungering and thirsting for righteousness each time you come you're looking to meet the Lord here You're looking for the Lord to speak to you. You listen looking for God to meet you here And if you have that expectation It says those that thirst and hunger for righteousness Shall be filled. But if you come here to go to sleep if you come here you barely make it through the service you In other words, a lot of them want the preacher to jump them off, you know, if the preacher don't start with them. And that's why a lot of them attend, a lot of congregations attend church that have programs and things to keep their interest peak, their emotions going. If you go to doctor's offices and places in the mall or whatever, they have music playing or the television on. They have something going to keep the people entertained or alert. They're always doing something, and that's what people are doing today. They have to be doing a lot of things. They can't just sit down and think, sit down and be interested in one thing. They can't stay on track. Their mind is used to a whole lot of it just flooding it. to where their attention span is so short, it's not for any one thing, because nothing is thought through. That's why, you know, with the news and things, it's just like a 10 or 15 second clip on something. They go there a minute or two, and they're on to the next thing, because nobody delves deep and search out a matter. Nobody seeks for the deep understanding. That word lethargic, or lethargy, It's an abnormal drowsiness. A drowsiness and God said he was the sinner spirit of slumber over the people. the quality of state of being lazy, sluggish, indifferent. You know, how you just don't care, don't make you a difference, you know, nothing really piques your interest, nothing really arouses you or whatever. That's what happened with porn addicts and drug addicts, the thing is that after a while, they become even indifferent to what they use. They're never satisfied actually with pornography or sex or whatever. That's why they become addicted to it, because they just feed off of it. And really, some people that drink, they drink day in and day out. They don't really drunk, because why? and become indifferent and insensitive to it. You wonder why can some people rise up in the morning drinking a 40 ounce, or drinking wine or beer or something, and you always see them. They could have a drink or something in their hand, but they're not drunk. They're fully functioning, as some people say, a fully functioning alcoholic. The things that they do, and that was about that picture the other day about this man, and I was telling you about on that story. That he was a sex addict and then he left his son in the bar while he was off doing something else. And that's what it says, they're greedy, they'll never feel. The greatest shepherds, you never hear the false prophets say, stop, we got enough money, don't bring any more. Remember Moses told the people not to bring any more, they had enough, they had to use what they had or whatever. But it's always some scheme or some device the church is putting on to keep people aroused or interested in the church because they're like Judas, they're feeding off what goes in the pot. They're feeding off of the church and it says greeted dogs that never have enough. They have an insatiable lust. And it says, come you say I will fetch wine and we will fill ourselves with strong drink and tomorrow shall be as this day because they move from house to house. They want to love your house. They want a bigger car. Now they need a check. They need more clothes. They're always wanting something new. They have a closet for the clothes, but they still need more clothes. Nothing ingratiates them, nothing satiates them, and that causes you to become dull. Actually, there's no warning signs. There's no something to tell you the road out. So now you can't understand what's going on around you and you really can't warn others. So you don't have a grasp that the building is collapsing in on you. You don't have a grasp that society is coming to an end. The world as we know it, this world is passing away. but they're not seeing that, they're thinking that they will control this world and that's what the preachers are preaching a great revival and the bible doesn't say anything about a great revival it preaches about the end of the world so they struggle to maintain the world because they love the world and the things of the world, they're driven by mammon So with this dullness, they are not attentive to what's going on around them. They become dull of hearing. So the preachers are preaching God's word. Noah never changed his message. Notice that Jonah never changed his message. The message was being proclaimed. Only the people of Nineveh heard it though. It says when Jesus came, he says that those cities where he preached the gospel, where he had came preaching, he says, the men of Nineveh shall rise up and condemn this generation because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. They were able to hear the words of Jonah. But what happens now that you're listening at all these different preachers and different voices, you've become dull of hearing. And the only thing that can fill that void is the world, the things of the world, the activities of the world. A good example is streaming on television. You start streaming a program, you'll sit there and watch if necessary. You had enough time. You'll watch it to that season end and to the next. If it have nine seasons in that program, you'll watch all those seasons. And then after they go off, you look for another program. Why? Because now you feed on entertainment. You feed on movies. And if necessary, you have to feed on the rebrands. all that time pushing out the word of God. That's why I consistently give y'all and still say, well, look, you need to read this. You need, because you need to start pushing that stuff back out. The television have taken over your life, the computers, the job, whatever it would be. You know, I tell my daughter, I was telling this the afternoon, she was talking about some event that she was trying to have. And I said, honey, slow down because all money ain't good money. You don't want to just stay busy. You don't want to stay doing things. If the devil can't do anything else, if he can't make you just idle, he'll cause you to be too busy. My mother-in-law used to tell me, slow down, Brother Jackson, and smell the roses. See, because you have to realize what's going on. You become dull of hearing. You're hearing too many voices. You're hearing everything going on into the world that's going on in the world. You love the world and the things of the world, so what? You become dull to hearing the things of God. You come in God's house. What I'm saying or doing, it'll put you to sleep. That's why he says they sleep with slumber because they're not warning the people that, hey, you going to sleep. Wake up. You on the verge, you know, so the ones who's coming in there that could be offended and say, you talking about me? Probably, yes, if you're offended at it, yes, probably, but if you're not offended at it, maybe it's for someone else, but maybe it's directly to you. God talks directly to you through other people. It's not gonna be the voice of God that come down and talk to you. He can talk to you through man. God warns us through man, sometimes through animals, sometimes through other things. But the preaching comes through the preacher. That's why they didn't want the prophet to come to town, because normally the prophet came with a warning from God, and it was a dire warning. It was a time of death or whatever, and that's what the prophets, well, the preachers are doing today. They're not warning the people. In other words, they're not barking. They're not waking the people up, making the people sit up and examine themselves. They're thinking they all right. because they're not hearing a message as, hey, you, you need to wake up, the car going off the road, you're going to sleep at the wheel. Dullness, Psalm 82 in five says, the rulers do not know, nor do they understand. They walk on in darkness, that is of complacent satisfaction. All the foundations of the earth, the fundamental principles of the administration of justice are shaken. I don't know how many of y'all know that they did elect a Speaker of the House today, they did get a Speaker of the House, but he's farther right than any of the rest of them, or he may be farther right than Jim Jordan was. That's a key thing. I don't know, we don't know how many of the people in the world noticing this because, like I said, you can see what's going on in the physical. God may be giving you a peer into the spiritual happenings here. And so that's why you have to search the scriptures and plead and look to God to wake you up and bring you to consciousness so you can understand the world around you or else you'll become engrossed in the world and asking somebody else to explain the world to you. I don't need nobody to sit there and tell me who to vote for or what to vote for. If I don't know myself, if I can't go in that booth and I don't need a ticket thing or what the hell, the ballot thing, because I know this is what I'm voting for and why I'm doing it. I don't know why anybody else is doing it. I'm not doing it because you're doing it. No advertisement, so you can tell all these lying pictures you want to. You can say what you want to say and have as much money put on television as you want to. But God is my God, not my spouse, not my children, no one else. And I may join in in conversation just in everyday life, going through life, because we can't leave out of the world, we in the world. But the right hand never know what's the left hands do. There'll be some spouses, they may say this and that, but you don't know who your husband or wife voted for when they went in that booth. You have to answer to God if they set you and separate you and say, why you voted for this person? I'm not saying why your husband or wife. Are you alert to what's going on? See, because there's a reason he separates one in the bed taken and the other one left. You need to know God for yourself with fear and trembling. That's the alertness we have to have is that we don't know who's on whose side. We need God to show us who our enemy is, what's going on. You need to be alert because God starts to see things around you. Everything is a sign. That's why if I'm watching television and if I don't have time to watch television, if I have to do something else, because you'll be not watching if I have to explain it to you. You don't grasp what's going on. So are we grasping the Word of God? Because if we come in hungering and trying to hear God's Word, God explained His Word to you. He'll give you understanding of it. But if you come here and go to sleep, if you're going to sleep on God not aware, he says he's going to send such a strong delusion that you believe a lie. Now that's what's happening in the political scene today and in the churches because God's got you to where you believe in a lie, not you in this fix in this church or in this political organization or whatever. Now you warring against them and talking against them and you want me to help you talk against them. Why did you get hooked up with them? You should beware. They tell you watch what churches you go to, watch what political organizations you go to, watch your relatives. It says your enemy shall be those of your own own. Be alert, be circumspect. It says rescue the poor and helpless from the grasp of evil men. But you're so foolish and so ignorant because you are in the dark. All the foundations of society are being shaken, and you don't see it being shaken to the core. And then still, if you're looking for God and searching for God, you're still looking to men. You're looking to a man. God removed that man out of the way. You were following a false prophet and you were following Elisa as Azai was, and he took Azai out of the way, and that's when Isaiah saw the Lord lifted up. It's a reason he moved you preachers. It's a reason he moved people out of society. It's a reason he moved your parents and your children. You need to ask him for understanding or a reason why. You need to start waking up. Job kind of was asleep. That's why he said, safe. And all of this calamity come up on Job so that he could get him to that 42nd chapter where Job said, now I understand. I thought I knew. You can thank you doing good. Then God has to open up to show you weren't doing as well as you thought you were. Matthew the fourth chapter, I mean Micah, the book of Micah the fourth chapter in the twelfth verse says, But they, the Gentile nations, do not know the thoughts of the Lord, nor do they understand his purpose and plan. For he has gathered them The Gentiles like sheaves to the threshing floor for destruction. The Living Bible says, but they do not know the thoughts of the Lord nor understand his plan. For the time will come when the Lord will gather together the enemies of his people like the sheaves of the threshing floor helpless before Israel. and you read that and you don't understand and then you see what's going on in the news and you don't realize well that Israel that's over there murdering and bombarding the Palestinians and killing all the babies and the people and disrupting those neighborhoods that's not the Israel of God that's how Israel reacted the old Israel that God destroyed because Hamas is a terrorist organization, just like you have terrorist political and Christian people in this nation, Republicans and Democrats, that needs the same thing that's blowing up the nation. So those innocent people that are being murdered and destroyed, Israel is no better for what they're doing than Russia is for what they're doing to Ukraine. But so many Christian people, so many people think, well, that's God's people, that's the Jews, that's the chosen people. No, that's Israel that the United States created in the year 1946 or so during the Rockefeller years or whatever. So we have to realize that that little strip of land there, that's not the Israel of God. They don't have an identity now. The Israel of God is scattered. God's bringing back his people into a spiritual church. The Jerusalem that's coming down, the New Jerusalem is a spiritual Jerusalem. Don't get lost with the beast of the field and the beast of the world and the antichrist and the false prophets and all of these governments and things. Somebody has to give account for empowering these world governments that's doing all of this destruction, this murdering and killing. Matthew 13 and 13 says, for whoever has spiritual wisdom because he is receptive to God's word, to him more will be given, and he will be richly and abundantly supplied. But whoever does not have that ill spiritual wisdom because he had devalued God's word, even what he has will be taken away from him. This is the reason I speak to the crowds in parables, he said. Because while having the power of seeing, they do not see. And while having the power of hearing, they do not hear, nor do they understand or grasp spiritual things. Because they say, I do see and I understand. So you have all of these Christian so-called leaders, all of these political leaders, now after they're at one another's throats, you can't see the Satan's ministers of light in the church that are false lights that Satan's ministers has transformed themselves into ministers of light. In other words, they're not true ministers of light. They're like he said, it was five wise and five foolish. So the word foolishness denotes the fool that said in his heart, there is no God. That's why they were so far asleep and had to go buy oil because They hadn't purchased all through the sacrifice and through God's Word. They may have been born into a rich family. They might have married a nice husband or wife or somebody, and they were resting on their leaves. They thought they had it made. But notice the point what God does. He separates each man and woman. You have to stand off your own marriage. You can't get in on what your father was or what your mother was or what your husband or your wife was or what your, you understand what I mean? There's no nepotism with God. You have to actually believe God because he might just take one from a family. He said, two shall be sleeping, one taken and one left. So that God doesn't play partiality, he's impartial. Whoever hungers and thirsts after him, that's why Jesus said, who's my father, who's my mother? So don't think that you have a spouse that's going to meet you over on the other side. He said, they're only not given in marriage, neither are married in heaven. It doesn't work that way. There's no mother-in-laws and father-in-laws. We are what? Brothers and sisters in heaven. So you need to get a clear understanding of what God is. Wake up. He's waking you to consciousness so that you could learn. And he says, to he that had, and pray for wisdom and understanding, he'll give you more. But if you think you know it all, and now you ain't trying as hard, you know, some women stop trying hard or some men stop trying hard. Once they're married, well, I got mine, you have to get yours away. You might lose him though. God might move one of y'all, you know, because you may hinder him or her from their true purpose. It's a shame some of the people that get married that hold the other ones back. It's a shame sometimes the families you were born in. Understand what I'm saying? But you have to stay there until God moves you. That may be your lot in life. So you have to struggle the way God has you. You lose Seek not to be bound, but if you're bound, seek not to be loosed. Oh no, I got to leave her. She's my soulmate. That's a person of determination. God didn't tell you to leave your wife out of that. Okay. Acts 28 and 27 says, saying, go unto this people and say, hearing you shall hear and shall not understand, and seeing you shall see and not perceive. For the heart of this people is waxed gross, in other words, dull. You can't distinguish what you're hearing. It's like watching a movie over and over and then somebody start to explain it to you and I was listening at the lady who supposedly wrote The Matrix and The Terminator the other day and my son was telling me stuff about this lady or whatever. Not understanding, she's not a movie director, she says, she's not a director of this and that there. But what happened when the rest of the writers and the screenplay people adapted and took what she had, they developed it better than what she had. You understanding what I'm saying? The Word of God started back years ago, so we are built upon others' shoulders. That's why we study commentaries, Bibles, others' readings, and we listen to preachers and teachers, because you learn from others. You learn from other men. Those of us that won't learn from another man's brain or understanding, will have none of his own because it's of no private interpretation. So no one preacher knows it all that can learn. We're all learning and there's a period of time of enlightenment. So that germ of an idea wasn't necessarily just hers, as this world says. That's why I don't believe in plagiarism and all of these things of the world, because just like you've got an idea or whatever, that idea didn't originate with you. That idea originated with God. He gave you that idea. Whatever thoughts you have in ways, God gives them to you if it's good. Now if it's perverted and weird, then that's not of God. But anything that you have, you give God the glory for it. God enlarges on it that we be all of that same mind and we start seeing, we start seeing that same thing. That causes us not to worship man. There's no man on this earth that I would worship. There's no man on this earth, and that's what happened with us when we started worshiping athletes and movie stars. I have some favorite movie stars and different things because we're slow for, we're not aware of who God is or what God's doing to find out that God had put all of this here for us to enjoy. And if we were to be searching and seeking God, we would start to love all men and love our enemies. We could see how Jesus Christ existed because he loved everyone. And he was doing the work of God. But he didn't get entangled in other people or things because just like God was with him, God's gonna be with us and shows us, gives us a discerning of how far to go with hope. He gives us a discernment of spirit. Have you ever met somebody or something and something just told you not to fool with that person and not to go into that church and not to do these things and not doing something? That's being led by the spirit of God. There's a spirit within man, even though your carnal thing wants you to do it. And that's why sometimes people say, well, I should have listened at my first mind, or I shouldn't have listened at my first mind. You have to develop, and the only way that can be developed is scripturally. The first and second minds to find out which one is right. to get the proper understanding because everything is here. That's why you can't be dull of hearing. So I hope you're getting this. And like I say, you have to go back to God and pray to him and ask him because one day, it may die. Some of the things may dawn on us that Paul told Timothy that in the latter days, they said they would, second Timothy, that this is about the women mostly, when he was talking about silly women laden with sin. He says, but this is the men also, so don't think I'm being chauvinistic about this. He says, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of truth. Amplifies there's always learning and listening to anybody who would teach them But never able to come to the knowledge of the truth What happened there? God tells us to try the spirit, but if we know God's Word and we searching God's Word We could come to the knowledge of the truth. We choose the good and reject the evil even though you didn't heard both You're able to hear both and come to a decision and discern between good and evil. That's what you would call the judgments of God. To be able to judge and discern what's good and evil. That's why we pray to God for a discernment of spirit. That's how we know who to have for friends and who to have certain relationships with or whatever. Because we're depending upon God and not leaning to our own understanding. If we lean to our own understanding, there shall be problems and you shall make bad decisions. It's bad enough that you can make them anyhow. But we don't, you know, some things, some things are honest mistakes and some things were self-centered or selfish mistakes. Some people say, well, you know, the reason I got in trouble like that, I was going through lust. I wasn't going through this. I was following my heart, whatever. Because that's the worst thing that you can do, is follow your heart. Jeremiah tell you, the heart is deceitful and wicked above all things. It's deceptive. Watch the heart. You need a new heart. You need that way of thinking, that design from God. And so once you get into the church, you become apathetic to, how can I say this, lethargic. In other words, you thinking that you got it made, but that's why you tell each one of the churches in Revelation, he knows their works, but they must repent. There's some things that you still have to repent of and turn from. No one has it made. In other words, you may get so far and find out that was for then, but in the latter 30 years of your life or the latter 40 years of your life, this is what's for you. So if you to press on, like Paul says, you're pressing on toward the mark of high calling in Christ Jesus. So I'm saying that maybe the better time, the most spiritual time of my life is the next 20 years of my life, and that the first 67 years was a training ground. Can you look at it that way? Moses, for 40 years, Moses was raised by Pharaoh's daughter, right? raised the ways of the Egyptians. He walked away from that, but did he know he had another 40 years of training in the desert? And that he was in his 80s when he went back to lead the people of God? And he lived to some 120 years? So he was 80 before he started really doing his thing for God. And God preaches in the millennia how long people will live. He says a child being a hundred that dies at a hundred, people will see that he was cursed or did something wrong during the millennia time if you die at a hundred. So that means men's gonna live at a thousand. He says you can rule and reign with Christ and we know the millennia is a thousand year reign. And he promised that we'll rule and reign with him. That's why he says some men may not taste of death. Are you looking for God to give you eternal life? Are you taking him up on that promise that he says you have eternal life? Are you figuring that you have eternal life right now? Are you looking at it now that God can give you the energy, the strength, and the stamina to be stronger now than you was 20 years ago or 30 years ago? because he promises those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. He talks about regeneration. But then, suppose you with a spouse or with family members of people that, you know, all they do is kind of sit around all day and sleep, you know, day round, and they don't have a social life, don't have a life. They're ready to die, but they want to pull somebody else in that grave with them. They want to pull you down with their pity party. But there you're going, you know, you're like that child, my grandchild, you know, sometimes we'll say, sit down, sit down, sit down, because we can't keep up with her, she has energy. And that's why old people, when you're a grandfather or something like that, it's not really good to raise your grandchildren. It's good for them to come by and leave or whatever, and you enjoy your grandchildren or whatever. But if you raise that grandchild, More people could tell children that's raised by the grandparent because the children act like little old people sometimes because the grandparents, they say, don't do this. They don't take chances, they're not venturesome, and they won't do all these things. Because when I was younger, we were raised in a family. We would, I had nerves of steel, he could jump off of that dress if he wanted, but you know, you could hurt yourself or whatever. Not that I'm not praising it that way, that he could do it if he wanted to. But it wasn't so much on your nerves, but now you don't want him even attempting that or whatever, because you know all what can happen or whatever. At that time, you know, I was staying in Mayfair or whatever. My wife would walk all the way from our house while I'm gone. We just had that one car at that time or whatever. Something was going on or whatever. But I would be gone to work in the car or whatever, and the children would get her to take them to the park, to Mayfair Park, way over there. I don't know if I would have walked that far. But when she was young, she would walk five children that far to the park. You know, like I say, young people nowadays, they don't want to walk or go anywhere unless they got a car or something. But she would walk them to the park all the time and then sometimes have to tow one of them back, you know, put them in the stroller or something. But when we're young, we can do those things, but when we're older, we don't let them do as much or whatever. So can you see where our lives changes, but God can give us those years that we're taking away and restore that and put us in a better condition? Okay. So slow for leadership. In other words, if I'm lethargic and not leading you right, or not giving you, you can't operate any higher than what my battery is, I'm slowing you down. So God sometimes move one out of the way so that the other one can speed up or whatever. So it gives you young parents or whatever so that you can keep going or whatever. But a slow for leader, the way of the slow for me, As you get older, you're not cleaning your house the way you used to clean the house. You're not getting up every day cleaning that house from front to back or whatever. You may not be able to do your yard. You know, I know I'm that way. I can't do my yard like I used to. Boy, any time three or four leaves used to fall, I'd rake them up and get them up from there, you know. You couldn't see leaves on the ground or whatever. They passed by my house then and said, oh, man, it must have died or something. You know, the yard don't look like it used to look. It says, Proverbs says, the way of the slothful man is an hedge of thorns, but the way of the righteous is made plain. He went by the feel of a slugger that was raw growing up or whatever. Now I have to kind of pay someone to help me keep my yard up or whatever because due to my physical ailments or whatever. But I'm still out there doing things or whatever. I was out there in the backyard cleaning up the other day or whatever. My wife said, you didn't push that car over there, did you? I said, no, I got the help to help me push that car. But I was out there doing what I could do. But if you sit down in there and say what you can't do and your arms hurt and this happening, God won't give you strength to do that which you want to do, which you desire to do. You understand what I'm saying? You have to make the practical effort. You have to get up and go in the kitchen and try to cook. You have to clean up. You have to make the effort. So God helps those, as the old people used to say, that help themselves. so if you try to study his word try to come to understanding of his word he'll give you an understanding of the word he'll give you and he'll move those desires and he'll quench those things in the flood he'll push those programs you wanted to watch all of that other stuff that you want i sit down usually at lunchtime i'm watching a little tv or something while i'm eating lunch or whatever get a break, let my eyes and things rest. And I was going a little bit over. I was almost through something that I was watching, but I cut it off. I think I could try to finish watching this, but I'm going to end up not doing what I need to do. Time's going out. You have to be able to choose to lay the world down because the world will start back with you. But you have to have God with you. Your priorities have to be right. God has to be your top priority. You can't be slow in the things of God. God looks at the slow for serving. The straight course, the tried and true ones, and ultimately is the easiest walk and it produces the best way. So hard work and laboring, God looks at that and that's why he gave Adam a job of tending to the garden. But the lyre and all of these good, rich, and quick, and easy schemes, all of these things, that's not the best way to wealth. Now, we're in a capitalistic society, and Satan is the god of this world, and that's the way he has the world operating, and the smart people and the Christians and all that, they operate in an organized way. Man, the stock market is like the lottery and everything. It's at a different grade level. It's a different cultural level. But there are a lot of people that lose everything in the stock markets, and lose everything. It's a lot of people that lost their pensions and things with unrighteous people or whatever. So gambling is gambling. It's the lottery of the. But you'll hear preachers and things saying, well, this is a proper investment. Well, you could make an excuse for everything in the world. You can speak in a certain way. That's rhetoric that you could make anything seem right or justify just about anything. So when we're looking at the basics behind this, the feel of the slugger Proverbs 24 30 to 34 is what I was telling you about and that the slugger is ignorant of what's happening and not getting an understanding of what's happening about the field degrading and it's growing all up and as the lady used to own the Bobber Brothers I used to work with and say listen if you just get one day behind you let that one day go you'll never catch up You can't let things get behind upon you. That one day that we have the rest, we rest in God. That's our Sabbath day. God gave us that day of rest. But the rest of the days, we need to be busy doing something to get an understanding from God. He put us here for diligent work and making an effort. And he gave us all jobs, from the housewife to the laboring man that's a bond slave or whatever. And those that don't work, he say, shouldn't eat. If a man don't work, he shouldn't eat. But it says, if you work, you work as unto the Lord. Because it's the Lord that tells us to work and that we should labor. all of this, but to get an understanding from this, we have to follow God. As he start opening up our understanding, we ask him to open up our understanding and enlighten us. We have to labor. A lot of people say, well, that job doesn't pay enough. Well, you may need to work on that job until you can see clear to get a higher paying job or whatever. But don't go homeless or don't do anything and say, well, they just not paying me enough and it's better for me not to work. It's a lot of people that quit jobs or lose their job wanting more. Because God has given you a spirit of covetousness, of greed. He may not have opened those opportunities for you yet. I may not open it for you because some people at that same job 30 or 40 years, that may be your lot in life. And honestly, that's the way you did it. But God will give you contentment with such that you have. See, that's what Paul said. I've learned to be content with such that I have. So if you're laboring at a remedial job, maybe that's the place God wants you at. And you have to learn to find God there. You can't tell me God's not there because God's everywhere. If you search and seek, you could find him. So Solomon saying it's better to dwell on the rooftops of a house with a bawling or a dagging woman or whatever, but don't do as Solomon and get another woman, get another wife, then you have problems with God. You have to put up with that when you have. So laziness is not trying to figure out a way that God wants it to be done, that His will be done. We want to do it the easy way. We want to do it the shortcut way. But God says we have to labor to Him. We have to suffer to Him. But the laboring and the suffering that we're doing, it's through Jesus Christ because He's the one that works in us both to will and to do. Because he's our rest, so he gives us the strength to do whatever we're doing. When we wake up in the morning, we ask him to give us the strength to do whatever we do that day. Whether it's ironing, whether it's sweeping, whether it's cooking, whether it's mowing the yard, whether it's pouring concrete, whatever, with teaching or whatever the job is. Proverbs has much to say about laziness, and it does not matter whether the laziness is physical or spiritual. Because if you say your health, you're in ill health, and you don't have good health, and you can't do all of this work or whatever. Well, as I was telling Sister Harris one day, now she did a lot of physical work. She kept the church going. She still had an income where that was back and forth doing the work that she did with the children or whatever. Man, that was, to make an income, that was a lot of back and forth or whatever. But a person that's handicapped, that's physically challenged or whatever, are older and don't have the strength that they used to have. Tell me this, how much do you pray a day? See, that's a rhetorical question. You've got to learn the answer. This is kind of rhetorical. This was just for you to think in the mind because I don't know of anybody in here at this time that are not because you're working all day. I don't know if you can do the kind of praying that I'm talking about. What I'm seeing is the ones that's hearing this maybe on sermon audio that don't have a job. Because you can't work on a eight to nine job, that you can't work eight or nine hours on a job, you can pray seven, eight hours, can't you? So prayer, full-time prayer is your job. That's what Spurgeon was saying, that that's what kept his church going, is the prayer warriors, because praying is a, man, that's a hard job. That's how Anna, you wasn't able to stay at the temple unless you were doing something. And you read that Anna, you remember I said she probably was in her hundreds or so. We don't know how old Anna was, but we know that she was withered at a young age, but you know, maybe eighties or nineties at least. But Anna was in the temple praying daily. She was always praying. That's the only way you could stay in the temple. And she remained at the temple. And you see, that's what Paul says, don't take a wooder into the church that's under three score. Because when there are rats wanting against Christ, they'll marry or whatever. So the people that can't physically work and support the church and support themselves and no one else but a part of the church, they should be some of our strongest prayer warriors. They should be praying for the church. And I mean consistent, hard praying, fervent praying. So it's laziness. It's laziness. The other day, I remember I called you sometime. I said, I don't know if I'll make it or not. Well, I have to shut down what I'm doing or whatever. I'm running late. I still need to get here and pray that I will serve corporate prayer. But a lot of people don't come in and pray in corporate prayer the way they should. But then again, some may not be able to. You have to think about the people or the sheep that you serve. So if I'm strong and healthy and I don't have children and everything, I can have these prayer vigils or whatever, just like the people talking about praying the New Year in or whatever. I never did do that when I had a family. When my family was young or whatever, I said, no, I'm not gonna have my children and my wife and things on the highway. Here it is, New Year coming, midnight, that's when they start all the shooting going on. Well, you mean to tell me I'm gonna come one, two or three o'clock, I'm out with my family out there with all that's going on? No, we can pray from home. I know you ain't over, you ain't been born again. You love to be out on New Year's or seeing or whatever, we're not gonna do that. So all of this wanting people to do what you do, don't be lazy. Okay, and I hadn't even gotten to opening this thing up yet. We want to be spiritually rich. We want our relationship to be rich and to produce the right things. And the only way we can do that is work hard at it. So if you're not researching and studying the word of God, consistently praying and doing all of the other things, the same way you get physically rich, you get spiritually rich. The only thing with spirituality, it doesn't work in winning, like the winning the lottery, unless you come up with false spirituality. And that's the broad way. In the church, this lack of effort produces Laodiceanism. Now, the Laodicean is rich and wealthy, but he hasn't worked on his spiritual life, and that's why God says he was about to spew them out of his mouth, and that they were poor, wretched, miserable, blind, and naked. It's because they hadn't focused spiritually on that in which God was involved in. They had money, it was a wealthy church or whatever, but they didn't know God or see God. That word sleep in that, we have to come back with this another time, because I didn't talk much, I didn't get way off the beaten path here, I'm sorry about that. But this word sleep, it's a pine, you'll see that in some dictionaries or some place, it says, that's exhibited indolent or apathetic inertia or passivity. especially mentally or morally slack. Indolence, a stupid inactivity of the wicked. Romans 13, 11 through 12 says, and that knowing that the time now it is high time to wake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believe. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore ease, cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. In other words, we've been sleeping and in the wrong places, not knowing. But once God awakens us and births us again, we find out the purpose. The big picture is that we are saved. We were ruled and reigned in the kingdom of God. Now is the time to come to consciousness and work. Now is the time to walk in the light. Now is the time to get something done. So you diligently work that we don't have much time and you're trying to get as much accomplished as possible. That's why some people do a lot in the church and keep on working because They feel this need to get things done, and that's a faith that has worked. Faith drives those works, and those that increase in works, that way is the faith of God. I'm not saying all of it is the faith of God. Sometimes it's guilt to this, and not repentance, and it's not even born again. But you always have a You always have a truth and you always have a counterfeit. One is a true faith, one is a counterfeit faith. Jews say, I wanted to write to you about the common salvation. In other words, what he was warning us, because there was some men of old, ordained of old, to this condemnation, who's creppy and unaware. They came into the church without people noticing it, because you wasn't aware that wolves was going to enter into the church in sheep's clothes. Paul said, when he left, grievous wolves was going to enter into the church. Because these people came in and they were grievy as wolves, but also some of the people that allowed them to come in was unconverted themselves. There's a lot of unconverted people that are in larger number than the converted people in the church. And that's why they let the people in to rule and reign the church. And the small, the remnant that's in there, that's why the church goes amok and it becomes a mega church or something because anything goes. They're not preaching conversion. They're not preaching. Those are the dogs that start barking. That's how the church becomes so large because It's an unrepentant church. It's a church where anything goes. It's a church that's growing. It says, that didn't amplify, it says, do this, knowing that this is a critical time. It is already the last hour, the hour for you to awaken from your sleep, from your spiritual complacency. For our salvation is near and now, but there are some that's trying to take it away from you. you have to be aware because Jesus says in the last days there will be many a false Christ and Antichrist arrives. So when you get taken away, and I hear this all the time about people complaining about this church and that church, well, why you went into that church? What caused you to go into that church? Why you wasn't drawn to this church or that church? What caused, well, it's birds of a feather. I may feel sorry for you because he did say that's why some of you are sick and some of you are asleep. There will be people that die in churches, that die because of false prophets and false teachers. There will be those that get sick behind those, because why? God doesn't distinguish this to where you could know what is God and what is not God. But he warns you, all of that's out there. Be aware. Be circumspect. Now you might think you're smart and everything and you can tell a false prophet or false teacher or whatever, but he's telling you to beware and that you have to draw nigh to God to where God's leading you and showing you and warning you a lot of times so you'll be devout. You remember that was the first verse that I read in that chapter where he says, verse 9, it says, All ye beasts of the field, come to devour. Yea, all ye beasts of the forest, in other words, come and eat of my people. Because why? These aren't the ones that's worthy. These are the ones that I'm going to have to get you for killing them, but I'm going to have to kill them to get them out of the way so that only the strong, those that with the increased light are shown at this time. He invited Job, Satan, to get Job because he knew Job could withstand that. But are you a servant of God as Job is, can you withstand the onslaught of the devil? Because we're about to get it in these last days. And I consistently warn you, as Paul consistently warned his flock, please study the word of God and read the word of God as if because we're in those days. We're in those times and I can't tell you who to trust, but trust Jesus. Trust Jesus. He's the only one that we can trust. The book of Ephesians 5.14 says, Wherefore he said, Awake thou that sleepeth, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light. So if you start petitioning Christ, he's going to give you the light and the lamp for your path, and that he's going to lead you and guide you from where you are. You have to start from where you are, and it's not going to be an easy climb. The verse I was quoting earlier about some dies in 1 Corinthians 11.30, because a lot of them was partaking of the Lord's table. And it says, for this cause, many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. It says that careless and unworthy participation is the reason why many of you are weak and sick and asleep. And when you say sleep, or in other words, in death, because you're taking communion in an unworthy manner. You're not respecting the body of Christ. I wonder why this guy Kanye West failed so hard and so much. You know, in one day he lost a couple of billion dollars. when he came out against the Jewish, when he spoke slander to Jews and everything. You hadn't heard his name much here lately or whatever. He went somewhere and sat down after then or whatever. But he lost, and he lost all of his endorsements and sponsorships. He lost over, I think, $2 billion in those couple of days. But you remember a couple of years ago, he was playing with God in religion. You remember Bethany had sponsored him here, and he was going around with all of this? And it's gonna happen with many others, and that's gonna be the fall of this nation. We've played with Christianity, did not respect it in the body of Christ. And that's what's happening, I believe, with this Republican Party, because they think being Republican is synonymous with being Christian. It has become racist. It has become oppressive to the poor. There was an article the other day about how the Christianity doing... pandemic brought about Christians that would oppress the poor in the prosperity gospel and I think they showed a lot of people might not have seen Kenneth Copeland and some of the things he was doing then and saying against the people that was running against Trump and God had told him Trump was going to win and all of this and he was doing some old kind of stuff but the prosperity gospel and start telling people that they're poor and they don't have anything, it's because of a lack of faith in things they do. But prosperity Christianity now tends to look down on those that don't have and fault the poor for being poor. So there are a lot of preaching and teaching that's being accepted, but we have to learn not to be idle. And 1 Timothy 5, 11 to 16 talks about those young widows that learn to be idle. And it's a lot of people that learn to be idles and gossiping and calling and getting on the phone and talking to one another about what's happening. at this church and at this person's place and let's pray for him. Well, when somebody says let's pray for this person or whatever, sometimes it's a subtle way of learning somebody's personal business or telling somebody else's personal business or whatever. 1 Timothy 5, 11, 16 says, But refused to enroll the younger women, for when they feel their natural desires in disregard of Christ, they wish to marry again. And so they incurred condemnation for having set aside their previous pledge. Now at the same time, they also learn to be idle as they go from house to house. Not only idle, but also gossips and busybodies meddling in things that do not concern them, talking about things that they should not mention. So I want younger widows to get married, have children, manage their households, and not give opponents of the faith any occasion for slander. Some widows have already turned away from the faith to follow Satan. If any believing woman has dependent widows in her household, she must assist them according to her ability. And the church must not be burdened with them so that it may not assist those who are truly widows, so that it may assist those who are truly widows and dependent. Because, like I said, with all of the entitlement programs and the different things in the world, we've become an idle nation in some facts. In some facets, we've become very idle. Entitlement programs and the wealth we have today, some of us during the pandemic learned working more jobs or whatever. didn't accomplish for our family and our lives what we wanted to accomplish. And that's why they're wondering where all the workers and things have gone. God used a pandemic to show a lot of people that working two and three jobs is not the best thing in life that you could exist in. He could have you existing with one or two jobs as they used to. So that's why their unemployment levels are the way they are, plus mechanization and everything else. As Obama had told us, some jobs aren't coming back. But we have to, like I say, this is only a beginning, an elemental talking of this. We will be studying and talking of this in the millennia, during the time of Christ. Where the church error at is when we come into the church, and we preach about the world. We preach about homosexuality and all of those other things, same-sex marriage and all of that. Well, they're past warning if they're into that already. We have to preach to those that have other things. He says, let us go on to the perfecting of the saints. So we have to break down and we start having to talk about what things mean metaphorically in a spiritual sense. Actually, what does sleep mean? It's not sleep as in physical sleep. Slumber is not as in physical slumber. In other words, we have to grow in the understanding of the Word of God, what all else it could mean. that it means more than just on the label of somebody going to sleep in church. Maybe he worked too hard that day. Maybe they had to stay up with their child that night, or anything could happen to read that fellow sleep in church. So I'm not necessarily talking about that individually, that spirit, that physically sleep. Just like he's not talking about physical sleep here, he used that euphemism or metaphor of this was some of the things that this was a symbol of it, a sign of. Heavenly Father.