If you want to turn your Bibles this morning to Genesis chapter 42. I think that's where we're at. Chapter 42. Typically, I start out by reading what I've wrote down to give to you. I didn't get that far this morning, so I'll have to get that to you this week. We're going to talk about something that me and her have been talking about this for a long time. The more you scratch it, the deeper it gets. Week before last, when Gary was gone, I filled in for him and we talked about the spirit of indulgence. and how that is so prevalent in the day that we live in where everybody lives an indulgent lifestyle. And everything that we do and think and are affected by from other people comes from mostly what they indulge in and what we indulge in. and then the effects of that, and then how that affects our life. It all plays into how we process thought, and how we filter the truth, and what we hear, and what it's all about, and then how that comes back out of us, and how we live. Oh man, it's something else. We talked about indulgence being Kind of like the root of sin, it's parallel right there with selfishness, which Gary talked about when he came home the next week, which just dovetailed right in under what I was talking about the week before. But, you know, selfishness or a spirit of indulgence always results in you living for yourself. and not for anybody else, especially the Lord. You serve you. That's why you indulge in the things that serve you best. That's why the epitome of that is a selfish person that only is absorbed with what benefits them. Or if they do good, it's always got a hook in it that is going to somehow circle back and benefit them in some way, whether it's to make them, you know, I've seen there where the Chamber of Commerce at the Bluff You know, they had their big gala. And it's funny to me because there was people there, and I know because I've seen them before it took place. But they like to consider themselves do-gooders in the city, but they're not. They're not even involved in anything that goes on like movers and shakers, as it were. But there's a picture of them, and then there's that one guy standing in the background grinning. He's just like, he's straight up Jesse Jackson, that picture. And, you know, I guess, does anybody get that reference at all? Well, it didn't matter what was going on, Jesse Jackson would find a way to be in the picture in the media somehow. I mean, here's all the nuns from a convent and here's Jesse Jackson with his head stuck over in the picture somehow. Well, that's how this guy was. I mean, this guy, he told me himself, I'm going there because of who's catering the food. It's really good and it's free. And yet there he is in the pictures, you know. Well, why? Because it makes him look good. He's not a good person, but it makes him look good because he's there with, he's like good by association, you understand? Well, that is an indulgent, self-serving, selfish motive for even being identified with people who are supposed to represent anything good. Churches are full of people that are that way. So what is it that makes people be able to live this way and live with it and accept it and buy into it and completely just be appalled that you don't? Well, it's this matter of fantasy versus reality. You know, uh, fantasy is one of those words that wasn't part of our vernacular at home growing up because it had a, it had a connotation to it that was immoral. I mean, fantasy football, fantasy sports, fantasy, anything wasn't part of the world I grew up in, you know? Um, There's so much I want to say. I tell you what, let me read my notes and then I'll see where it all fits in. It's very prominent in our world today. There's many options to escape reality available to everyone. All right, here we go. When I was a kid, that's when Nintendo came out. And everybody had one, and I wanted one so bad. And we lived in Mexico, and all the neighbors had one. All these little Mexican kids, they all had Nintendos, and we didn't. And I'd be over at their house, and I'd play Mario with them, or Duck Hunt. And I wanted one so bad, so bad. And Dad's like, nope, we're not doing that. I'm like, why not? I don't understand. It's not fair. And I don't even know that he ever gave me. He always just said, there's better things to do than sit around and do that all the time. That's about the only reason I ever got. And I just look at it as the providence of God directing him in his raising of me, that that wasn't a part of my life. It didn't imprint into my psyche. And listen, it's not just entertainment. You need to understand what I'm saying about this. It is something that promotes fantasy. You know, nowadays, fast forward 35 years almost, 35 years, and the entire world is consumed with it. I work with men, grown men, who will literally make play dates with each other like little kids, where their children aren't at home, so they can play video games with their friends. Because it helps them de-stress, and decompress, And they all sit around and brag about how good they are at Call of Duty or all these other weird games. And what a bunch of pathetic losers. Because their sense of accomplishment, now listen to me, their sense of accomplishment is based in fantasy. It's not real. When Russia invaded the Ukraine, there was a bunch of British guys that went to Ukraine to help out, because they were super good at Call of Duty. And the Ukrainian president, As soon as they entered the country, he voided their visas or their passports so they couldn't leave. Because he said, you're here to fight, and that's what you're going to do. And they all went out and got slaughtered because they didn't know how to fight. They thought they did. They had all the gear to look like that guy on their game, but it wasn't real. And they really thought they had something to offer. That's the sad part to me. They lived their reality was a fantasy. And the reality was that they were not prepared for what they were cannon fodder. They just got ground up in the war machine. The whole time thinking they had something legitimate and real to offer and they didn't. It's been redefined like so many other things. Fantasy is now virtual reality. Now think about the wording, the blatant, unvarnished wording of that right there. Virtual reality. Virtual means not real. Reality. So it's not real reality. Instead of calling it fantasy, because it doesn't carry with it the condemning context of fantasy. You can't say, you know, fantasy reality because that's too blatant of a contradiction. So they call it virtual reality because there's not a condemning tone to that, see. It don't make you sound insane as much as fantasy reality would if that's what you were flying the flag of, see. Fantasy is pretending 2.0. Think about it. It's when you start to believe and buy into and subscribe to accepting as reality what is make-believe, what is fantasy, what is not real, while at the same time a voluntary releasing of one's grip on what is in fact real. Now I said a lot right there. It's voluntary. And I'm not just talking about like sounding like some bald headed guy up here ranting about kids playing video games. Okay. That was just a very innocuous example to use. This is, this is spiritual. This is a spiritual thing. Okay. Because there is reality. And then there is make-believe. There's fantasy that is not real. There's what's real. And something that I want to say at the beginning of all this first is this. There is only reality. There only ever has been reality and only ever will be reality. Fantasy is in your mind. Fantasy is a lie. Fantasy is what the serpent sold Eve And that's how all this began. It was a fantasy. It was a lie. And Adam partook of it because the fantasy was intriguing and enticing. It wasn't an involuntary thing that he did out of the goodness of his heart because two wrongs don't make a right. And he still suffered the consequences of his sin, just like Eve did because God is just. He never changed. It's fantasy. It was fantasy. It was a lie. And they had to, I mean, think about it. We talked about this in the church. God created Eden, a utopia free of sin and put two people in it that never knew sin until they decided to go with the fantasy. And what was it that the devil convinced them of? Reality was a lie. And fantasy was the better option that put you back in control of your own destiny. And that was the lie. And they bought it, man, voluntarily. They turned loose of reality and clung to the fantasy. And now thousands of years later, here we all sit, and death is part of this world because of sin. And what is man trying to figure out how to do? not die. They're trying to figure out how to live forever and perpetuate immortality without God and without consequences of reality. To live however you want, be able to somehow cryogenically freeze yourself or bank your mental data or whatever. What do you think all this interfacing between, what do they call that? Transhumanism. where you're trying to integrate robot with human brain. That sounds so science fiction, but it's literally what they're working on right now. Because if they can do that, then the, the hypothesis of being able to, to transfer data from your brain into a something else, they've created a clone. Let's say of you, then they've bypassed. the consequence of sin, they've bypassed the creative of God being the creator and the giver of life, and now man is as God. And it's all a fantasy. God will never allow that to happen. because that's not how it works. But man sure thinks it is. And there's things that make you step back and say, whoa, that's close. That's super close. They make prosthetics that tie into your nervous system where you can think about it and you can move that prosthesis. You can move the fingers with your mind. Well, that's getting pretty close. But God let him build a tower at Babel pretty high before he just changed their language and that was the end of that, so. Here's some things about fantasy versus reality that affect your life whether you accept it or not, okay? No matter how hard you believe in a fantasy or commit to it or want it to be real, it never will be. At the end of the day, it's still just you pretending and lying to yourself. Now, you ask yourself, I don't live in a fantasy. I mean, I'm pretty well grounded. I don't live in an imagination or anything like that. The thing is, is that I believe this affects all of us in some area of our life. Whether it's things that's wishful thinking or imaginative of you or me to indulge in mentally or to nurture in our mind or allow to exist in our mind, or whether it's something that we don't even hardly realize we're doing. This happens a lot in families where there's things that go on in our homes that are tolerated or entertained and we don't even consider that it is the long-term effects of what it's going to have on our kids. There'll always come a time, sooner or later, when reality will force your hand to have to deal with life in reality. These people committed to their fantasies will at some point be forced by reality to have to deal in real life ways with their actual life. There's no other dimension that we can exist in but in reality. See, the devil's lie is that you can create something other than what God has created for you to live in. which is your life. And that's why so many people have so many weird ideas about who they are or what they are or what they entertain themselves with or what they spend their life doing. And it's all empty. Outside of God and what he's give us to have is our identity and what is real. It's all fake. It's all a lie. And I've told my kids forever that, you know, hypocrisy always has a shelf life. It does not last forever. It can't because when it comes time, it's, it's part of that wood, hay and stubble stuff that burns up when the fire comes. Why do you think that suicide is so high in the world today? when you have such a majority of the population that literally live in whatever fantasy that they indulge in and entertain and nurture in their life and in their mind, but after a while, it's not real. They know it's not, but they're pretending like it is until real life demands that they can't do that no more. And a lot of people, what do you think mental illness is? If not a inability to hang on to reality or to endure it or to be able to take it because then reality for lots of people is rough. Yeah. And most people don't know the Lord. So there's no way for them to cope with it other than to create some alternate Reality. And the whole wide world is full of a million things to supplement or to supply that. Television, you know, virtual reality, video games, computer games. What would you call like what Fortnite is? I mean, is that like a game or is that like a whole virtual world, really? I mean, even Minecraft, the kids play Minecraft all the time, and it seems so innocuous and, you know, harmless, which, yeah, it's just like playing Legos, but with a video game. Except they build worlds with people, and towns, and stores, and all this kind of stuff. And I see grown men that have, they come uncorked when someone deletes their world they've been working on in Minecraft for three or four months. Because there's so much time spent there. And to them, it's like an investment of their real life into something that is fantasy. To the point where they'll come unhinged because someone did something to their world. Do you hear the insanity in this? While their real life and their real children and their real wife go unattended to, their relationships aren't nurtured or cultured to be what they're supposed to be, their spiritual life with God is completely ignored and abandoned. Because they have a virtual world where nobody stresses them out, and nobody's nagging on them, and the kids ain't crying, and everybody that is in that world, they've allowed there. And realize this, we're not just talking about video games. People do this with their very real life. And turn it into their fantasy. That's what compartmentalization is all about. That's what cancel culture is all about. What, you don't benefit my life in some way, you're out. They just pinch you up and throw you in the trash and you're done. You're not part of my life no more. They do it to their parents. They do it to their family, their wife or husband, their children, their grandparents, their loved ones, their church family. People do this all the time. That's what cancel culture is. And it's justified by the fantasy. Remember, it's a lie. It's not real. Fantasy doesn't exist. You really do throw away people when you cancel them out. And it really does have long-term devastating real effects on your life and on their life too. Try explaining to a child that's been neglected or thrown away, you know, metaphorically, if you will, because, yeah, and emotionally, because a parent has chosen to live in the fantasy of a swinger culture. Happens all around you all the time. Best not pretend it don't. The schools are full of kids whose parents do not care where they're at or what they're doing as long as they're not bothering them. They indulge in a fantasy and the price is paid by the innocent in real life. Okay. What makes a person give themselves over to a life of fantasy versus reality? It all begins with an indulgent spirit nurtured in someone. All right. We look at these little children. Okay. Now stay with me. Don't cut me off because something sounds a little rough. We look at little kids with a big imagination and We, we, it's almost like we put a star on them. And then a kid who doesn't have a vivid imagination is more of a burden or more needy or more of like a, you know, but this kid over here, they, they play their imagination takes them all over the place. We like that kid. Cause why? Because they're smarter. Well, that's what we say, but it's really because they don't bother us. Not in our hair. And we will let them be that for way too long because it serves you. Because guess what? You're indulgent. You live in a fantasy that is all about you, that serves you. And that kid is just a by-product of some of your fantasy, but now it's annoying unless it entertained itself. That's ugly, sounds ugly to say, but just start paying attention and thinking about it this way and see if it don't ring, man, I'm telling you. People will let their children grow up in an imagination, like pretending. I'm 44 years old, if I walked in here and I was talking to people that you can't see, and I was playing with stuff that You cannot see. And I was talking about my horse outside that you cannot see. What would you deduce about me based on the information that I volunteered to you? I'm mentally ill. I'm crazy as a pet coon. That man, don't let him around the kids. He's nuts. And yet somehow it's okay for children to do that. Now don't get me wrong, we've all had children and they've all had crazy things they play and see and all that kind of stuff, but as their parent, isn't it our duty to help them be able to learn by training them and raising them up to be able to divinate between reality and fantasy? Yes. Okay. Yes. That is God's going to hold you accountable for having not done that or done that among a bunch of other things too. And yet we give them TV and these and books and everything else that is pure fantasy. And it just nurtures that. It's just like mainlining it right into their little mind that that's real and this is not. That's why you have a generation of people now that range from 16 to 40 years old that literally can't even sweep the floor on a job. They can't walk in and look around and in five minutes figure out, okay, there's my spot. And here's what I'm gonna do. Until somebody teaches me something new, I can find something to do. No, they'll stand there like a stump. Until you say, stand there. They'll step over there. And then you say, now do this. Well, they'll do this. They're literally like something in one of their virtual reality avatars. They're willing. They just don't know. They don't know how to think because they have been spawned from fantasy and raised in fantasy and nurtured in fantasy until now it's the only reality they know. And you're the boomer. You're the problem that lives in some fantasy. And if it wasn't for you, They wouldn't even know where to go eat lunch or even be able to buy lunch. Why? What is the problem here? Well, this is it. Everybody lives in a fantasy and they raise their kids in a fantasy. While at the same time, reality is going on around us. With or without you, reality, the clock's running. It's like two tracks that are playing at the same time, except reality is the only real one. And you decide whether you're going to live in this imagination over here, or in reality. Let me tell you something, God only exists in one of those, and that's in reality. And you will never, never, never correct this problem while still entertaining any fantasy in your life of any kind, of any kind. You never expose these kids, let's see, never exposing them to or dealing with children in reality. For example, like going to funerals. How many people nowadays do you know that take their kids to the funeral home and let them walk up and view the body? Hardly none. No. How many adults do you know that ain't 50 or older that go to funerals nowadays? When we went to your Uncle Eldon's memorial service, because there wasn't a body to view, the place was packed. And the funeral director told us, as the family, he said, I can't believe this. He said, we've not seen this many people, especially young people here, at a funeral service in years and years. We can't believe it. They were blown away. Why? People don't do it no more. They call it different things. I hope I don't offend anybody by saying this, but look, reality, fantasy, okay? The Bible calls a funeral home the house of mourning. It's not a celebration of life. They're dead. They lived and they died. And the Bible says it's better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting. And there's a reason for that. Why? Makes you deal with reality. A lot of people won't take their kids to funerals no more. Why? Well, because they'd rather lie to them about reality to protect them. For example, little kid goes to school, their dog gets run over in the street. Little kid comes home and says, where's little Benji? Oh, he ran away. We're looking for him. Where's my fish? Oh, he went for a swim in the big pond. We'll have to wait. Yeah, he died. You flushed him down the toilet while they were going to school. But you'll lie to them instead of saying, he died. And we can get another one because God made lots of dogs and lots of fish. And you ought to thank the Lord that he let you have that little dog as long as he did. You know, God gave us animals to take care of. And they're a blessing in our life, not the other way around. The animals out there, listen, God gave them to us to be stewards of. Hello, it's not about us. But we've made it all about us because that's the fantasy. And the reason why people do this to their children is because they are indulgent, self-centered, narcissistic, fantasy living people that are just raising more of them. That's just going to be 10 times worse. And now we've done this like two or three times, maybe four times now through the last four decades. and the world's full of people that don't live in reality. And then we're gonna sit here and try to tell them about faith, and God, and sin. They don't even live in reality. They've got to abandon fantasy before they can ever believe the truth of God. And they're stuck there. And we're just like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. And nothing's sticking, and we can't figure out why, and this is why. They don't live in the reality of God. They cannot know it. They're not of God. And the devil, he don't even have to try, man. He don't even have to try. The whole wide world is set up for fantasy, and that's where everybody lives. And so when you try to deal with them about the reality of the consequences of their sin, You're the one living in fantasy, you crazy guy. Faith, God, some invisible person you talk to all the time, you're nuts. Yeah, call him all kinds of horrible, blasphemous things. And somehow, they flip it around and gaslight you into being the crazy person, believing in God that you can't even see. And Christians just hang their head and drag themselves back into the darkness because, well, you know, I mean, I can kind of see their reasoning. Why? Because you live in a fantasy too, sir, ma'am. You do. People think they're just letting them be kids, when in truth, you're letting the seeds of an indulgent spirit start to take root in their hearts and their minds. The Bible says, when I became a man, I put away childish things. Didn't say you now condemn them. No, they have their place. But you put them away when you become a man. When you reach adult, when you reach maturity of mind, is when you've put away childish things. There's not an age. Should be a lot younger than 18, I can tell you that. Well then, this person reaches an age where their imagination and behavior isn't socially acceptable anymore, so they grow up. Or do they? But here's what remains. They might stop playing with their imaginary friends in front of people. But their right to, their commitment to indulgence has grown into their governing voice in their life now. And it's driving the bus, so to speak. Now, this is how they handle their life. They decide everything. That's why they can cancel you out. That's why they don't, you know, fantasy is their reality. But they're the only person that thinks it's real. Even people who don't go to church or know God or anything can look at some people's life and say, What's wrong with them? You know, like all of the carrying on right now going on in schools about these furries and all these kids identifying as cats and all this kind of stuff and then demanding to have litter boxes in the bathrooms for them to use and all this kind of stuff. Are you, everybody's appalled. And to me, I'm just like, you know, what did you think was next? And if you don't think, if you think that's nuts, wait till you see what's next. Why are you acting so appalled when last week you were defending the right for them to have their gay pride clubs in high schools now, in rural places like here? Same line of reasoning that justifies that ought to justify the litter box in the bathroom. And you're going to stand up and raise cane about it now? You're living in a fantasy too. Here's how it works. You start out indulgent, and then a spirit of indulgence that is indulged, that's going to lead to fantasy accepted as reality. That's gonna lead to sin in your life, because fantasy is sin. There ain't no way, you just keep boiling it down, like Wyatt does his syrup, and what you're left with is a big pile of sinfulness. There's no Christian fantasy. No, it always leads to perversion. Well, then sin in your life results in guilt and fear. Guilt and fear demand accountability. Accountability demands that you deal with things in reality. And this is where people reach the crossroads and they say, Okay. I surrender. I abandoned my fantasy. I'm going to cling to the truth of God. That's going to be my reality now because it's the only thing that's real or they double down and they say, you're not good. You don't have a right to tell me that this isn't real. That's the world we live in now, okay? This is why we're surrounded by a world of people that feel entitled to, justified in, and will violently defend their fantasies. And just let me throw this in. They will and do demand that you accept and believe them to be reality too, just like they say they do, even though they don't deep down. Remember this, they just need your cooperation to validate their fantasy. What is the argument for homosexuals nowadays? How can it be wrong if so many millions of people say that it isn't? That's their main line of defense is that what makes you think that you saying it's wrong makes 10 million people or 100 million, whatever it is, that say it's right. Well, the thing is, I know this about, because I've worked with a lot of potheads, and I'm gonna tell you something. They, their biggest feather in their cap is if they can get you to smoke with them. It doesn't, because they're trying to find a way to justify and say that it ain't wrong. But they also look at you as better than them because they smoke and you don't. Tell me I'm wrong. I don't care who you are. It's the facts. And if they can get you to participate in that with them, it doesn't make you, as far as they'll say, not a bad person. It doesn't make you worse than what you are. It just makes them better than what they felt like they were. That's how sinners are. That's why they like to have participants enter in with them. Why do you think Eve gave the fruit to her husband? It's the first reaction that you have to fantasy when it starts taking you down a road away from God. Same thing here. You got homosexuality, you have furries, Which that's a whole nother thing, that's bestiality. That's where it's gonna wind up. That's the next thing that's coming. It's a desensitizing program going on right now to make it to where when they start marrying horses and dogs and things like that, you can't say nothing because now it's protected because hey, you let them grow up with litter boxes in their school bathroom. And now you're gonna say that it's wrong? Nope. Infidelity, how about that? Plurality in marriages and things like that. What about all that? That's all fantasy, right? No, in reality, somebody's paying the price. What about substance abuse? Just like what I just talked about, you know, everybody, whether they're a drinker, a doper, a drugger, whatever, it's a fantasy that they're trying to justify. What about self-importance? Probably gonna come back to all this. But I'm just saying, fantasy versus reality. You can't live in fantasy and be a Christian. And I'm gonna tell you something, too. If there's anything in your life that you entertain as a fantasy, and when I say fantasy, I mean, here's reality, and you're pretending like this ain't real. And we're just gonna pretend like that didn't happen, and we're just gonna go on with real life, and that one thing is fantasy. We're just gonna pretend Like that's not real. Then you are a participant in fantasy. And it kind of, it stains all the rest of the good you're doing because you're making a lie. What does that verse say about those who lie and make a lie, love to make a lie? Loveth and maketh a lie. Well, when you are a participant in a fantasy, That then you're a liar by, by definition of trade. Uh, I ain't even touched it off. There's so much more to say about that, but I'm telling you how much of a fantasy is your life. There's so there, it's so more profound than what we think.