All right, well, take your Bible. Let's go to 2 Corinthians chapter 10, if you will. 2 Corinthians chapter 10. I've got to get back to my masculine side here quick. Preached from a woman's prayer last night and preached a woman's topic this morning so far. We think of emotions kind of on the feminine side of things. Ladies tend to be a little bit more emotional than men. But I think we all understand that we have those emotions as well that get us in trouble. But let's look at this passage, and I believe one that we need that will couple in with some of the things we've already heard. Second Corinthians chapter 10, look at verse number three. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Many Christians have defunded the thought police. And it's time that we invest back into guarding our thoughts. We need to put some thoughts under arrest. That's what he's saying here, bring into captivity. every thought to the obedience of Christ. We need to lock up some wrong thoughts in our life. It's easy to get good at covering our thoughts, excusing our thoughts, because no one can see them. It's easy to sort of mask what we're thinking. Those that are close to us may say, what are you thinking? You know, a penny for your thoughts is the old phrase. But it's easy to kind of shrug that off, nothing. You know, I'm fine. And we can have an Eliab look, but we need a David heart. It's easy to look the part, it's easy to act the part, it's easy to take on the aura of what we as Christian men are supposed to be, but we need to work in our inner man because while man looks on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart. They say that an average person has 48.6 thoughts per minute. almost one a second. That comes out to 70,000 thoughts a day. The brain is an amazing mechanism. And we get frustrated when we forget something, but it is amazing what can go through our mind. And so if that's true, if all of these thoughts have the potential of going through our minds every day, what direction are those thoughts taking us? And if we come to some negative conclusions about that, then which thoughts need to be arrested? Which thoughts need to be put into captivity? Which thoughts do we need to take an active role in getting into captivity. I want you to look at four critical components here to our thoughts. First of all, think about the gateway to our thoughts. How do things get into our mind? How is it that we have all these things whirling around in our brain? How do they get in there? When I was in school, I used to think that if I would take the textbook the night before a test, if I'd take that textbook and place it underneath my pillow, and then position my head on top of the pillow over the textbook, that somehow as I slept, the information in the textbook, by process of diffusion, would, through osmosis, enter my brain, and I could walk into the room the next morning and ace the test. That doesn't work. I tried that many, many times. It doesn't work. How does stuff get in our head? Well, there's two gateways. Our eyes and our ears. Everything gets into our mind through one or two of those gates, what we see, what we hear. This is why it's so important to back this process up and think about, okay, if I'm always thinking negatively, if I'm always thinking a wrong thought, then why? Okay, back it up. How is that negativity entering into my mind? How am I allowing that in? The Bible says the light of the body is the eye. If the eye be single, the whole body's full of light. But if the eye that is in thee be evil, the whole body's full of darkness. It's why the psalmist said, I'll set no wicked thing before my eyes. Why? Because he knew that what he looked upon, that which he saw, was going to go into his mind and thus affect him. Mine eye, Jeremiah said, affecteth my heart. We sometimes think of that in a negative way, but that's true in a positive way. Why do we take teenagers on a mission strip? Well, we want their eye, what they see on that mission strip, to affect their heart. Perhaps they will consider serving God as a missionary if they see, right, those things from the mission field. So our eye affects our heart. Likewise, our ear affects our heart. In the Old Testament, we have the story of Abraham and his nephew Lot. and both men were blessed of God, their fields, their flocks were flourishing, but there was a strife between the herdsmen of Lot's cattle and the herdsmen of Abram's cattle, and so Abraham, being the more spiritual and older of the two, he said, Lot, this isn't good. We be brethren, and we need to be able to dwell together properly, but our herdsmen are constantly at odds, they're fighting, and so it probably would be best for us to separate. And he said, Lot, if you want to go to the right, then I'll go to the left. If you want to go to the left, then I'll go to the right. And they determined that it would be best for them to part ways and go out on their own. And so Abraham gives Lot this choice between going to the right, and if he goes to the right, then Abraham will go left. If Lot wants to go left, then Abraham will go right. And I used to read that and I'd think, okay, I know from reading the rest of the story that Lot chose the wrong way. But what if he had chosen the right way? Would Abraham ended up in Sodom? Because we know Lot ends up in Sodom. So he obviously chose the wrong direction. But what if he had chosen the right direction? Does that mean Abraham would have ended up in Sodom? Well, the answer to that is no. Abraham said, Lot, if you want to go right, I'll go left. You want to go left? I'll go right. And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw the well-watered plains of Jordan, that it was well-watered everywhere, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest into Zor. And Lot pitched his tent towards Sodom. He didn't go right or left. He chose a whole different direction. Now, that was a bad decision. But I don't see where Lot was a wicked man at that point. I don't see Lot as a wicked person at that point. Certainly not like he was at the end of his life. Lot's living in a cave. He's drunk. He's committing incest with his daughters. He fathers two boys who become leaders of idolatrous, God-hating nations. So how does Lot go from making a bad decision? We all make bad decisions from time to time. So how does Lot go from making a bad choice one day to ending up like that? Well, sometimes the Bible is the best commentary on the Bible. But you have to read a little bit, because all that's back in Genesis, so you have to read all the way to 2 Peter 2. And it tells us in verse 8 that that righteous man, talking about Lot, now you read that phrase and you think, whoa, Lot was a righteous man? Well, Lot was positionally righteous, but he was not practically righteous. Lot was, as we would say today, a saved man. He knew God. His faith was in God. He was a just man, or a righteous man, positionally. But you can be saved and live a backslidden life, right? And so Lot was positionally a righteous man. But it says, that righteous man dwelling among them, the people of Sodom, in seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. Lot got in the wrong environment, and he allowed the wrong things to come into his eyes, the wrong things through his ears, and it affected his heart. So what are we looking at? What are we listening to? The gateway to our thoughts is our eyes and our ears. And we better set up a covenant with our eyes. We better make a promise concerning our eyes to God and our ears to God. Because notice, secondly, the garden of our thoughts. The garden of our thoughts. Now, 46.8 thoughts go through my mind every minute. Which of those should I allow to stay? There will be some negative thoughts, I suppose, that will go through my mind today. Someone could say something that would make me angry. I could listen to the news and get very angry, right? Maybe my team will lose today. Ah, right? Man, they should have won that game. What happened, you know? And so all kinds of thoughts. You could get a phone call that could be devastating or could be very encouraging. Our thoughts can be multiple. So as all these thoughts go through our mind, what do we allow to stay? The Bible says the thought of foolishness is sin, Proverbs 24, 9. So there are some thoughts that we need to put under arrest. There are some thoughts that we need to bring into captivity. Why? Because they are sinful thoughts. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. This is why the word of God is so important. The word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividedness under of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of our heart. See, it's tough to have a really wicked thought while you're listening to preaching. It's tough to have the wrong thought when you're serving the Lord. And so when the word of God is prevalent in our life, it's gonna reveal those thoughts that need to be placed under arrest. When's the last time we confessed a thought as sin to the Lord? If we said something that was wrong or we did something that was wrong, we might be convicted to make that right. But have we thought something we need to make right? Have we thought something that we need to ask forgiveness for? That we need to quit covering but rather turn from and forsake? We have to constantly be looking at the garden of our thoughts. Growing up on a farm, we, of course, had lots of crops. And the other thing we had a lot of was a garden. We had three acres of garden. I mean, and we didn't eat half that food. We gave half of it away. And I used to wonder, why do we have all these potatoes? Why do we have all these beets? and green beans and peas and all this stuff. We have just acres of gardens. And the reason I got frustrated with the gardens is because every week, almost every day, sometimes if it rained a lot, you had to go out there and weed the garden. You had to be pulling weeds. I remember we would sow a crop of oats. It was kind of our cover crop. We didn't do a lot with the oats, but it was kind of a cover crop to seed the fields with alfalfa for the next year. And so we'd grow this oats and it would be combined or used in some of our feed and so on. But that oats would come up, we'd sow it early in the year. It was the first crop we planted and it would come up and boy, just this dark green would cover those fields, it was beautiful. And I always enjoyed looking at that, at just that sea of forest green as that oats would come out of the ground. And then one day we'd go out and we'd look at our beautiful fields and there were these patches of yellow. And it was colorful. You know, in Wisconsin, it was the colors of the Green Bay Packers. I mean, it looked really good, you know, green and gold. And I remember my dad and I standing at a fence one time looking at this field of oats, and it had all these patches of this yellow. And he said, son, that's goldenrod. It's a weed. And it sucks all the nutrients out of the soil that the oats needs. And so you and I got to walk through this field today and pull it all up. And we would walk through those fields of oats, pulling up that weed of goldenrod. And boy, it had its roots down. It was a tough weed to even pull out once it got to that point where it showed itself. But we had to do that or we were gonna lose the blessing of the oats. We were gonna lose the content of the crop that we had sown. And gentlemen, every day, we're gonna be putting some good things into our mind, but if we're not weeding out that which is wrong, it's gonna overtake our thoughts. And so the garden of our thoughts, but notice thirdly, the gravity of our thoughts. Why is this subject so important? Well, Proverbs 23, seven says, as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. We eventually become what we think about. No one robs a bank without thinking about it. No one rapes somebody without thinking about it. There's a thought process that precedes sin. And our thoughts not only describe who we are, they prescribe who we're going to be. If we could take our thoughts, all 70,000 of them from yesterday, and throw them up here on a screen, well, they would kind of describe what we're all about. It would tell us who your favorite football team is, because you thought about it. It would tell us something about your church, because you thought about it. It would tell us something about the messages that were preached yesterday that you heard, because you thought about it. It would also tell us some negative things. And if we were to summarize those 70,000 thoughts, we'd have a pretty good idea of who you are. We'd have a description of who you are. But our thoughts not only describe who we are, they prescribe who we're gonna be. Because those thoughts set the prescription for what I'm going to do. As he thinketh in his heart, so is he. David got caught in some wrong thoughts, didn't he? And we all know the story. Adultery, lies, deception, murder, cover-up, bribery. Boy, David never would have thought that his thought of lust that night on the rooftop would have led him to all that. but there's a gravity to our thoughts. There was a young man years ago who got saved in a church in Louisville, Kentucky. He was just a junior high boy, nothing really special about him, his name was David. But when he got saved, God really got a hold of his heart and he went to his pastor one day and that's where I heard this story from, his pastor. He went to this pastor one day and he said, pastor, I'm just a kid, but I'd sure like to serve the Lord. What can I do around here? Well, you know, if somebody comes up to you, it doesn't matter how old they are or what talents they have, you can find something for them to do. And he said, young man, he said, if you want to help out on a bus route, I can get you on a bus route. We've got a number of buses that go out every weekend and pick up boys and girls and teenagers and even some adults. He said, if you'd like to work on one of those buses, I can get you hooked up. and you come Saturday morning, and I'll get you on a team, and you can go out and serve on that bus. Boy, David jumped at that, he's like 13 years old, something he can do. He jumped on that bus route, and boy, he had an excitement and enthusiasm that was contagious, and he was getting new kids to ride, and he was so excited. The kids that were riding, they got more excited about riding and bringing visitors. Pretty soon that bus was full, and the captain had to get a second bus. And this teenage boy, this young junior high boy was just on fire. And they had a second bus and it wasn't long until they filled the second bus. And finally the bus captain went to the pastor and he said, pastor, this kid's killing me. He said, I got so many kids. He said, why don't you get another bus and give it to him? Get him a driver. And that kid, he can fill a bus. Make him a bus captain. So here he is, you know, 14 now. And the pastor goes to the deacons, they buy another bus, they get a bus driver, and this kid becomes a bus captain. And every Sunday, he's filling that thing up, bringing people to church. Just God's using them. When he was a junior in high school, he got concerned about a military base nearby the church, an Air Force base, if I remember correctly. And he said, pastor, nobody's reaching those men out there. He said, could we possibly get on that base? and then talk to him about the Lord. And maybe we could run a van or something out there, pick him up and bring him to church. Well, the pastor said, I don't know, but I'll check. And he went out there and talked to the commander. And sure enough, they allowed this teenager to come on the base on Saturdays and just go around, talk to the men and the ladies, invite them to church. And they ran a van out there. And his pastor said there was a rare Sunday where David did not have a van load of servicemen come, and it was very unusual for him not to have five or six of those servicemen coming forward at the invitation to be saved. God was using this kid. It's amazing. But one day as he sat in church, his pastor said something in the sermon, and David didn't quite understand it, didn't quite resonate correctly with it. And it hit him wrong. But rather than doing what he should have done, and that would be to go to the pastor and say, pastor, you said this, and I didn't quite understand it. Could you explain it? I think I took it wrong, or I don't know what you meant by this. Rather than do that, he just kind of kept it inside. And it began to grow, kind of began to dominate his thinking. And now it seemed like every time he came to church, pastor was saying something he didn't quite agree with. It began to fester. Pretty soon as a senior in high school, he gave up his bus route. And the pastor and assistant pastor and others, they said, David, what's wrong? What's going on? Nothing, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm just busy, you know. Pretty soon he wasn't in church on Wednesday nights and then it wasn't long till he didn't come Sunday night. And pretty soon he had dropped out of church altogether. And all this time, people were coming to him saying, David, we love you. Come on, tell us what's going on. What's bothering you? Tell us. We want to help you fix it, whatever. But he said, no, no. When he graduated high school, he decided, I'm getting out of here. I'm tired of being badgered. I'm tired of these people trying to get me back to church. I'm moving out of here. And he left Louisville. And he moved to New York City. He wanted to be someplace where nobody knew him, he could start fresh. Long story short, David's still in New York. He'll be in New York for the rest of his life. Because David Berkowitz is not known as David Berkowitz. He's known as the son of Sam. A young man that went to New York and murdered several young nurses, cold blood. His parole has come up several times and been denied the maximum number of times to where he can never be paroled, he can never be let out. Now, David holds Bible studies in that prison every day. David wins people to Christ. One of my sons did his speech recital on David Berkowitz and wrote him, received several letters back. David's right with God today. But it was thoughts. Just a little thought of disagreement led him all the way to federal prison where he'll die one day in that prison. There's a gravity to our thoughts. But notice finally the greater thought. It's difficult to get rid of negative thoughts. In fact, sometimes I find it unwise to even pray about wrong thoughts. Because as you're praying about the wrong thought, you're thinking the wrong thought. I deal with college students, you know, and these guys come in, they're struggling with their mind, they're struggling with purity issues, and they'll pray, Lord, you know, deliver me from my lust, or deliver me from my, you know, and I'll say, stop praying like that. Every time you pray to get rid of your lust, you're lusting. You're thinking about the sin. God gives us an important principle. In Ephesians chapter four, I call it the replacement dynamic. If I asked you right now to think about the number eight, once you get number eight in your mind, can you see it? Get a picture of it in your mind, the number eight, the snowman, two circles, one on top of the other. Think of an eight ball in the game of pool, right? That one you want on the table at the end, the eight ball. Just think of the number eight. Number eight, maybe a player on one of your teams, where's number eight? Just think about the number eight, okay? Now, stop thinking about eight. Don't think about eight anymore. Don't even let eight come into your mind. Just don't think about eight. You say, really gotta quit saying eight. I'm trying not to think about eight. Every time you mention eight, I think about eight. You're never gonna forget eight while you're thinking about eight. You've gotta replace eight. So start thinking about two, number two. Think about two, a duet, a marriage, a pair of people, a pair of socks, two. You know, pretty soon, the more you think about two, all of a sudden eight is gone. And that's what God says, put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and then be renewed in the spirit of your mind by putting on the new man. You see, we've got to be proactive here, and not only realize, okay, I've got these wrong thoughts, and I've got to put them under arrest, I've got to put them into captivity, I've got to make an arrest here of these wrong thoughts, but then I've got to replace them with the right thoughts. And of course, we cannot go to a greater place than the Word of God, and read His Word, and memorize His Word, and sing His Word, and pray His Word, and get His Word into our heart. But Paul says whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good rapport, whatsoever things are pure. He lists all these things. It doesn't necessarily have to be a spiritual thing, but if it's true, think on it. If it's pure, think on it. If it's a lovely thing, think on it. If it has a good rapport, think on it. In other words, get the right things into your mind to replace the wrong. Someone said, read your Bible with the instead of's in mind. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitth in the sea of scornful, but instead of that, his delights in the law of the Lord. And it is the law that he meditate day and night. Let him that stole steal no more, but instead of that, let him labor with his hands, that he may have to give to him that is in need. So the replacement dynamic. Every thought to the obedience of Christ. Years ago I was preaching at teen camp and I was privileged to preach with Dr. Ed Nelson. Dr. Nelson pastored in Denver for many years and had a tremendous ministry there. Dr. Nelson was preaching to these teenagers and one day in a sermon he said, young people, he said, I have never watched more than 10 seconds of television in my life. When he said that, every jaw hit the floor, including mine. I thought, you gotta be kidding. There's no way. You can't walk through Walmart without watching 10 minutes of television. I mean, come on. He said, I've never watched television. He said, in fact, a few years ago, he said, my wife and I, we like to go out to eat once a week and she'll come to the church at noon and we'll drive down to one of our favorite little cafes there in Denver and have a little lunch date. He said, one day we went down there and we had to park a little bit further away than we wanted and had to walk a couple blocks. And as we were walking, we went past one of the newspaper vending machines and had the Denver Post in it. And he said, the front page of that paper that we could see through the glass had two words, big black letters, two words, Lucy dies. We both kind of looked at each other and He said, I went in the little cafe, sat down and waitress came over and we talked a little bit. And he said, I said to her, I said, ma'am, my wife and I are curious. We were walking here and we saw a newspaper and it said, Lucy dies. Who's Lucy? And she said, well, you know, Lucille Ball. I love Lucy. He didn't know who she was. He had never watched television. I remember going back to my room and I'm thinking, well, I've watched television. I've probably watched too much television. I've watched some football games and some basketball games, some baseball games. I've watched some news and I've watched a movie here and there. I thought that man's never watched 10 seconds of television. And I got to thinking, What's he missed? And you know what gentlemen, not a whole lot. I'm not preaching against television. What I'm saying is there's a lot of things that we think about that need to be eliminated, need to be put under arrest. They're useless thoughts and we need to have the mind of Christ. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Make an arrest today while you're here. Get out the handcuffs. Put some thoughts into captivity. Father, bless these men. Thank you for them. They have a lot on their minds, in their work, their families, their business, their ministries at church. A lot of things for them to think about, and many of those thoughts are not wrong. not sinful, but Lord, some of them are. And it just seems like the devil often uses those thoughts to ruin us as we've seen in many Bible characters as well. And so may we cast down imaginations, fantasies, bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Bless, Lord, the remaining sessions that we have to further layer things in our lives that we can use For your glory we pray in Jesus' name.