And I thought I had it on overhead for you guys. It'd be a lot easier. But I looked. And the overheads I thought I had on this, I don't. So you're going to have to kind of take notes. And we'll go over these things in a little more detail because we don't have the overheads. But I want to look at curses here. Let me get my stuff on curses. And I have this on overheads, too. So I'm sorry I don't have the overheads. But I didn't know I was doing you guys anyway, so that's half my excuse. We want to pray and ask God to speak to us about this whole issue because it's a really, there's a lot involved in this issue and you may be under it or you may not be under it, but it's a good study in scripture and we can understand some stuff. So let's pray. Father, we just come to you now and As we look into your word, we just don't want to look at something and think it's kind of good or kind of interesting what you said, but Lord, that somehow those words on the page may become part of our life. That we would see all of this and what it all means. And we pray, Father, that it would be a real blessing. And if anyone here is struggling in any way in that area, it could even be broken today. So we are committed to you and pray that you would help me to communicate this material in a way that would be very understandable and very practical. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Now, there are, the study of curses is Very important if you're going to be a missionary. If you're a missionary, you have to understand curses because the majority of people in the world are what we call animists. An animist is someone who believes that there's a God and that God created the world. I'm going to give you a simplified definition of someone who has an animistic belief system. They believe that God created the world. They believe that God created good spirits and bad spirits. And they believe that God is very busy, so he's kind of gone away, and he's left everything in the control of good and bad spirits. And so when you live your life, you don't have to worry about the good spirits, because what do good spirits do? Good. I have to worry about offending bad spirits. And so if there's a drought, then did we or did our tribe or our group of people offend spirits and so they're not letting it rain? If someone's sick in the family, did we do something wrong? When we planted the field, did we try to contact and do what we needed to do so the bad spirits would let stuff grow? So these people lived their whole life in fear of offending bad spirits. And then the worst thing that can happen is to be cursed. For someone to curse you. I think I'll tell you three curses. You get an idea of curses. Curses, we don't think of curses so much in our American Western culture. But all over the world, people live really in fear of somebody cursing them. because the Bible talks about curses. The Bible has a lot to say about curses, more than you'd ever think. So just get your concord to look up curses and start looking in scripture about curses, when curses were pronounced on people, what happened, and so on. I'll go to this Indian. I was in Canada speaking to the Ojibwe Creed Indians. way out somewhere and all the people that were there basically were native Canadians and so as we were ministering to these people and I began to share spirits then they wanted counseling and so as I was here and then they had other meetings and I was counseling at a room right off of the sanctuary and I was counseling all morning and all night, I mean really late at night. In fact, one night it was 2 o'clock in the morning, I finished and I had to walk down an icy hill and the weather was like 15 or 20 below zero actual temperature and my feet went out from under me. No one's there and I fell and hit my head on the ice. It was ice covered, hit my head. Wasn't sure if I broke anything and wonder what am I going to do? I mean, I'll freeze to death here if I broke a leg or whatever and Because I was sort of knocked out and came to and it was really a difficult thing but There was an Indian lady. I noticed her that was there and she never talked to anybody and And she was old. And they all know each other. And they live on reserves. And often they're, you know, relatives. My third cousin we moved to my father's side and so on. So there's a lot of, you know, connections. And this lady, I just noticed her. She never talked to anybody. And they had an appointment. And so they came in and sat down. And she could speak very well. She could speak English really clearly. And so she was telling me her story. And what she did when she was a little girl, when she would be sleeping and she would wake up, she would wake up and around her bed would be clouds. I remember this spirit world kind of a thing. But she was really awake. It wasn't like she was dreaming this. This really happened. And she was like three or four. Thank you, sir. One day, as she was in the bed and the clouds were all around her bed, a snake came up through the clouds and on her bed and the snake talked to her and said, I want you to go with me. And she, and if you've read Jeanne Dixon's book, who was, you know, into heavy occult stuff, a snake also crawled up and that's where she got her power from, a snake. Well, as she was thinking, what do you do at three or four, whatever she was four go with the snake? Should she be obedient? Should she obey and go? And as she was thinking about going, she looked over at the doorway and her grandfather was standing in the doorway. And her grandfather said, don't go with the snake, go with me. And so her grandfather took her into the woods and she didn't know what happened, but she spent the day with her grandfather in the woods, whatever he was doing. Well, to me, I'd want to know. And if I remember that, I'd say, Grandpa, what happened? Why'd you take me in the woods? What did we say? But he never told her anything. And on his deathbed, here she is seeing Grandpa now, and he's dying. And he said to her, because she was beginning to wonder, did it really happen? And he said, do you remember when you were a little girl and the snake came? And she said, yes. Now she's a married woman. And he said, do you remember we went in the woods? And she said, yes. And he said, you need to find the Lord Jesus, and he died. He never said what happened in the woods, he never said what he did, she didn't know if he, you know, did incantations or whatever over her, she has no idea what happened. But, because he said he needed to find her, that's how she became a believer. Because then, because her grandfather wanted her to find Jesus, because he had become a Christian, she became a Christian. Well, here she's there, and she said, I really believe I was cursed. There was some type of, you know, ritual cursing done over me. So I have, I didn't bring it with me, but we have something we use to break curses that are done with, you know, that kind of thing. Because we're not going to talk about that today, the kind of curses we may be under. But I just want you to know that curses are, many people are living under horrible fear of being cursed by somebody. And we went through this thing and she said, can I pray? She was praying it back to God. Can I pray it in Ojibwe? And I said, yes. because that's her heart language. I mean, she could speak English, yes, but Ojibwe was her tribal language. That was her heart language, and she's going to talk to God. She'd rather talk to God in Ojibwe than using her second language. And so she prayed, and God broke that curse, that fear of people, and all of that was over. It was totally broken, which I didn't know. She was a very stoic. A stoic person is one who doesn't show much emotion or anything. She didn't show much emotion, but I was going on counseling and what happened was the people there were shocked because they've known her their whole life. She asked if she could get up and talk to the group and she got up and talked to all of them and gave her testimony how God had set her free and people couldn't believe this woman. They've known her all life. Never would talk to anybody. Hardly would look at them or anything. And here she was free then to be the person she wanted to be. Somehow something was done in the woods. He may have thought he was blessing her, but it turned out to be really negative. Okay, so it was there the first time I ever used this material on how to break a curse. Well, I was down in Guatemala, Central America, and I was working with Woodcliffe Bible translators. And I take, now when I go anywhere in the world, I take my curse stuff with me because I know I'm going to have to deal with people that have been cursed or under the bondage of curses. So I took it with me, and they said, there's a pastor's son. Would you be willing to see this boy? And I said, yes, he's laboring under a curse. Well, it took them about seven hours on buses to get there, on public transportation to get to Guatemala City, where I was with Lakewood. And when they came in, it was very interesting. The father's a pastor. The boy was about 13. And they came in. And what happened was, in Guatemala, the people are extremely poor. I mean, extremely poor. You just can't believe how poor the Christians are. and how little they have. I mean, usually, you don't say, what are we having for dinner? Because you know what you're going to have for dinner. You're going to have black beans and tortillas. Period. You're going to have tortillas probably for breakfast, and black beans, and tortillas, and black beans for lunch, and tortillas, and black beans for dinner. That's what you eat in a week. And we go, now what lunch meat should I have? You know, and we can't make them. There's nothing to eat here, you know. You know, and the refrigerator is falling out when we open the door. And here are these people who don't have anything, you know. And they don't even think about it. They just thank God that they have beans and tortillas. Well, I took an HCI boy to be my prayer partner down there. He was only 14, but he was extremely, going 14, going 50. He's now in medical school. He went as my prayer partner. And the very last night, and their tortillas are awful. Sorry, but they're awful. They're thick like pancakes. And they put a lot of, it's white, and it's powder they dig out of the side of the hill. And it's in all tortillas. This is real thin. What is that stuff? Lime. I always say lye, but that would kill you. This is lime. And they're real thick, and when you eat them, they're sour. It tasted like, I mean, I like sourdough bread, but not necessarily sour tortillas. And you eat what people give you. And you don't even ask what it is. You don't want to know what it is because it's probably something that crawls. You know, you just don't want to know. You just eat it and ask God to keep it down. And if you don't know what it is, it stays down easier. You know, because you eat things that you don't normally eat. And I know in the... What can I tell you the fun things to eat? I've got to tell you. We got all our missionaries together and we were talking about what was the most difficult things to eat when you go overseas. Well, one of them said they had a real trouble with fish eye soup. You know, soup with little fish eyes in it. They didn't like that very well. Another one, they were on a mission field and where they were, they got a bowl of rice with a dressed mouse on it. The mouse had been skinned and they had a little mouse on it. Everybody got a little mouse to eat. That was the meat. If you go to Ecuador, what they do is they kill guinea pigs. They have guinea pigs in the house, and the mom just takes a guinea pig, sticks it's nose in the dirt, and kills it, and then she fixes it. But for missionaries, what they like to do is they take the guinea pig's head and put it on the right, and you get this little thing looking at you, you know, with a seat. Now, you know, Singapore is beautiful. It's probably the most beautiful, clean city in the world. And they were in Singapore, and this Chinese lady, they were at their home, said, oh, I know that you Americans have been traveling, and I know you like soft-boiled eggs. And I'm going to soft-boil you some eggs today for your breakfast, so that you can have an American breakfast. And you ever seen those little cups that the Chinese have? I mean, you know, they're just, if you ever go to a Chinese restaurant, you know, they have those little tiny bowls that they kind of stick right there. Well, she took a bowl like that, and she poured hot water in it, and then she put an egg in it, you know, for both the husband and wife, and looked at her watch for a minute, or whatever it was, and she opened the egg and cracked it, and it goes boop, you know, and it wasn't even warm. So, here you have, each one of them had raw eggs on the plate for breakfast. And the wife, I don't know if I can eat this. I mean, how do you eat a raw egg? You know, it comes off the food before you eat it. And I was yucky. And they go, how do we get this down? And it happened to be sort of a modern home. And they had a bathroom off the kitchen. And the baby cried. And she went, and he went, quick, give me the plate. And they slid the egg off the plate into the toilet. And they flushed it. And they came back. And she said, would you like seconds? They said no. I think the worst thing that I've ever heard of missionaries eating, and these are some real dear friends of mine, they're two ladies that travel with Child Advantage, they're godly, godly women, and they said, in Turkey or Greece, they had goat's eye soup. And a goat's eye, you know, would be the same size as your eye. And here, you know, you look at your soup, and it's looking back at you. What did you do, you know? You put it in your mouth, and I'd be this. Oh, it's good. Yeah, it's good. I said, oh, what did you do? And they said, we ate it. I said, what did it taste like? They said, crunchy. I'm going, oh. I had to swallow it whole. Like okra, swallow it whole. Don't chew it at all. You know, if you guys have scrapbooks, you can use leftover okra. That's the most slimy, awful stuff. I don't know how you guys can eat it. Anyway, I'm in Guatemala, and so this family's coming with a boy. And so they bring this boy in to see me, and they're telling this story. Because they're poor, there are three older brothers and a mother. The dad had died, and they have this When I say farm, don't think of, you can't think of anything western. When we talk about they have a place. And their place is so small and so difficult that one brother's a pastor, so he kind of works out. The other brother who's married works in Guatemala City and goes back and forth because they can't live. Three brothers and their children cannot live on this place. There's not enough, they can't raise enough food to eat. It's too small. And then there was the father that brought the boy, who's the pastor. The other brother who worked in Guatemala City went back and forth on the weekends to be with his wife. And then there was a single young man, a single uncle that was there. Well, the single uncle was cursed. And the reason they were cursed, because at the gate there was a dish with the entrails of the chicken laid out in a certain way that you do if you want to put a bad Cursed on somebody so that this was all laid out So they they knew he was cursed and immediately after that this uncle an older fellow in his 30s began to space out and have epileptic seizures and They never had the you know, he never had seizures before and They all knew that it was not Epilepsy that really was some kind of demonic curse that was doing it. So they got the church out there and And the church prayed over this uncle and they broke the curse. But all of a sudden one day after they broke the curse, this nephew, the boy that was crossing the pasture stone, is spacing out and started having seizures. So where they freed the uncle of the demonic spirits that were released to him, they went to this young boy. And then the young boy met with us, and I was sharing how he could break, we checked his life, you know, was his heart right with the Lord, and did he know the Lord, and was there major sin in his life, all of that kind of thing, and the boy was doing really well. And then I used that same thing, and he prayed it in Spanish, or his Mayan dialect to God, and he was set free of his seizures and all of that. Now let me give you two definitions of a curse. Now we're thinking, I think the first one will probably fit our study more. I mean, these are what I do when I'm talking to missionaries and understanding curses and when we go to the Bible, look at all the type of things God says about curses. But, okay, the first definition is this. The definition of curse is to release negative spiritual power. When someone pronounces a curse, they are releasing negative spiritual power towards a person object or place being cursed. Now we're going to talk about different kind of curse, but when people are cursing, they're releasing this negative spiritual power towards the person, object, or place of being cursed. That's why God says don't curse people. We're told not to do that. And where people were cursed in the Bible, even you can see in the Bible, some of them died. They put a death curse. Once you read curses and you read curses, I'll give you a death curse. I get these guys mixed up. Who's the guy that worked for Laban for seven years? Jacob? Okay. And then remember he got Leah and then he worked again and got Rachel. Remember that story? And when they left, they stole the family idols. Do you remember all that? Okay, if you read the story, once you get curses in mind, you start reading the Old Testament, it's like, wow, I can't believe how much the Bible's talking about this. I mean, I just, because I don't think in those terms, because we're Western, we don't pay people to curse people. But he, his father-in-law came to him, and you know, the angels ministered. Because if the angels hadn't ministered, his father-in-law was going to kill him. And the father-in-law said, you don't need to worry, I'm not going to kill you. Because, you know, your god sent angels last night or whatever, and they told me not to touch you. Or I was in big trouble. So he kind of took the fun out of killing your nephew or whatever, your son-in-law, when the angel said something bad's going to happen if you touch him. And he said this. He said, why did you steal our family idols? I said, we didn't. He said, yes, you did. They're gone. And I know you stole them. He said, no, we didn't. And then he said, Whoever has the idol, let him die. He didn't know, he just put a death curse on his wife. And who died in childbirth? Rachel or Leah, the one who was cursed. And you go through scripture and you look at curses, let me tell you, that's just one. It's amazing how much is there. But see, we don't have to deal with curses so much, but when we do, You have to go through Scripture and look at everything it says because we've got to help these people who live in fear of this. Now the second definition of curses is really a very good one because it comes from Romley, the theological dictionary of the New Testament, which is a one-volume thing of kettles, which is the most expensive Greek set of books you can buy. I don't know how many hundreds of dollars it is. And it just goes for volumes, volumes, volumes, and it's considered The final word in Greek. If you want to spend six, seven hundred dollars on a set of books or more than that. And it's the final word on Greek. It's the most complicated thing. Well, they took it down and put it in one volume. So when you get a definition from this in the Greek of curses, you're almost quoting the King James Bible in Greek circles. I mean, you can't quote anything more important than Bromley. And this is what it says in the Theological Dictionary of New Testament Words by Bromley, Greek words. And that's this. are utterances that are designed to bring harm by supernatural operations. So when someone utters a curse, what they're doing is putting demonic forces, they're signaling and getting demonic forces into operation against that very person. And we're not to curse, we're not to do that. The third curse, some of you have seen the videos, are utterances that are designed to bring harm by supernatural operations. somehow you're going to set the supernatural moving by cursing. And remember they were very afraid of curses because remember the girl that said, weren't you with, remember at the crucifixion, weren't you with him? No, I wasn't. Remember again, she said, weren't you with him? He said, I wasn't. She said a third time and he threatened to put a curse on her. Repeated it. begin to swear and curse. When you read curse in the New Testament, it's not saying bad words. It's actually putting a curse on somebody. It's not talking about, oh, that guy at the gas station, you know, said bad words. We call that cursing. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about literally saying things to bring harm to an individual with your mouth. And so that's very powerful. Well, the third one I want to give you was when I was cursed. And some of you have heard the story and some of you haven't. And I was working on a reservation with the Sioux Indians in a mission, South Dakota. And this is, I was living on the reserve, I was staying in a motel, and I mentioned, I think it was on the tape probably here before, I share this a lot because I think we need to not be afraid of curses. And I was staying at a real cheap motel, it was the only motel they had, and they had neon lights that ran around the outside, just right outside. And the sidewalk went right up to your window. And they had these real old spun glass drapes that came out in the 40s. And they didn't quite come together. So if you want to change your clothes and didn't want everybody to see you, you went in the bathroom. Because there's no way you could change your clothes in the bedroom because they just didn't come together. And the hooks were gone. And it was not necessarily the most, it's not a motel that you maybe want to go take a vacation at. And then the door didn't quite come to the ground, and there was a blizzard all the time I was there, and I had three or four inches of snow in my motel room, you know, inside the door that never melted the whole week I was there. Well, one night I spoke late, but what they were telling me is that every night they were having a UEFA meeting against me. Well, I didn't know it was against me. I found out later it was. They're saying, you know, the medicine man is having a UEFA meeting every night, and you're having your meeting. on spiritual warfare. Well, I didn't know what a Yupi meeting was. I do now. Yupi meeting is where they put sage on the floor, they tie the medicine man in a star quilt, and then they begin to chant and use a form of music to have demons manifest themselves in their special meeting. It's like an Indian prayer meeting where they want to make contact with the spirits. And so they do that. And when the spirits come in the room, the room goes pitch black and blue lights float around the room. We have a video with a lot of these Indians giving their testimony of their demonic experience and being set free from it. And the first night I was in the church, as I was speaking in the church, it was sort of like this. The aisles were on the side, but I was getting creepy feelings from over the side of the church. And I don't usually get creepy feelings. I mean, it has to be really bad. Everybody else has creepy feelings before I do. I just, I'm not sensitive that way to creepy feelings. I usually can look over an audience and pick out people that are demonized. But I don't get creepy feelings, I just see it in their face. And so there was somebody over here, and I kept thinking, and here I'm trying to teach, and I'm getting just real negative, really not good feelings from this side of the church. And I kept trying to figure out what it was. Well, finally I figured it was from this very attractive 16-year-old Indian girl. And so after the service, I told the missionary, I said, you know, I was having some very strong negative feelings come from this side of the church from a girl there. And they said, oh, she's the granddaughter of the medicine man. She's now the daughter of the medicine man. Well, her mom is on our video, and because of what she said about her daughter, you cannot show that video within 150 miles of the reservation. They were so angry. Her daughter and brothers were angry because she shared the spirit dimension in their life that they can't show that video in that area, but it's an excellent video. The mother, whose husband is now the medicine man, but she's not married to him anymore, told me that she was in a Uipi meeting with her baby, this girl, this baby, and the white buffalo lady came in. Now, the white buffalo lady's been in our newspapers. When I speak in Maui, the fellows there and the girls are very afraid of the lady in white that walks. She walks in Trinidad. You get the Filipino spirit world, which is the doctrinal thesis of a missionary in the Philippines. She walks in the Philippines, and I tell young men, Don't pick up this lady at night. She's walking at night. She's wearing white. It comes down very low. If you look, she has goat's feet. Anybody who picks her up dies in a single car accident. So any single car accident in Maui or Philippines or Trinidad or whatever, obviously he picked up this lady and she killed him because she's really a spirit. And so they call her different names in different parts of the world. Well, the white buffalo lady comes in. It's a lady in white buckskin. She walked over to this woman and tells her to name this baby this name. And so she has to name the baby because she did. Now this girl that was named by this demonic spirit, this girl began to have and manifest tremendous demonic powers as a child. She would levitate objects and homes because the people are telling me the reservation. Here she's a toddler. She'd come into your home and a lamp would go raise up and down. Or she'd raise a table up and down, this little toddler girl that had all this demonic power, because she really got the spirit from her grandfather. She really had the familiar spirit. The Bible talks about familiar spirit. So this girl has tremendous power. I mean, unbelievable stuff. The mother wanted to take her to get shot, and she couldn't turn the car, because she didn't want to go up that street. The doctor was there, so the car wouldn't turn and shoot through intersections, and the brakes wouldn't work. This little girl was controlling the car with a demonic spirit. And so now here she is, 16. And today, she's in her 20s, and she's one of the most powerful medicine ladies in all the Sioux Nation. The older ladies want interpretations from this girl. She has a familiar spirit, which is a spirit that gives you the occultic abilities that comes down in family. Well, anyway, back to the motel. It was, like, Wednesday night. So there are these UVBs going, and Keith's calling spirits. And this night, I was in the motel. And I laid down to go to sleep. I was really tired. And when I shut my eyes, I got a creepy feeling. So you're going to think I have a lot of creepy feelings. But anyway, I don't. But I got this creepy feeling. I just got an uneasy feeling. You ever have that kind of feeling? And I opened my eyes, and the room was pitch black. And I thought, well, you know, the electricity went out. But most of you, if you live in Arkansas, have never really been probably in a real blizzard. But in a real blizzard, it's light. It's not dark. And you can see really well in a blizzard, if you're not out in it. I mean, you look out, you can see quite a ways in it, because somehow it picks up the moon or whatever, and it's light. It's always light out. So I realized, wait a minute, this is not just the electricity that was outside these windows went off, because whether you have electricity right outside the windows and your drapes don't go together, the room is always light. So I was pitch black, and I just woke up, and I just said this. I said, I command what is ever here. to go back to whoever sent it in the name of Jesus. And immediately the room filled with light. I turned over and went to sleep. The next day the medicine man called and asked if he could meet with us. And so I called back and I told people to be praying in Sioux City and we met with the medicine man. The medicine man had sent spirits to harass me into my room and I had just commanded them to go back to him and when they went back to him he knew that there was a power in the room Stronger than his demonic power and he wanted to talk to us about it We were able to explain I think we're two or three hours of the stand able to explain to this medicine man Who's always calling spirits and doing all this kind of stuff the power of Jesus and how I need to be saved So what was meant for evil God turned it around so we don't need to be afraid of that kind of curses Now what I want to do is to move to a different kind of curse and in our Western culture many of us are under a Another kind of curse, you know, you're not going to find, you know, chicken parts outside of your door, although we saw some, what's it, armadillo parts on, I thought maybe, you know, we were short of meat for dinner, we could take a shovel and bring some of that stuff home. But I mean, you know, if you did find an armadillo part laying out or whatever, you don't have dogs, you're going, what's going on here? There's a way that it's laid out and it's been sacrificed and all that. Yes? No, there wasn't a blue light in my room. There was a blue light, there's a blue light when the spirits come into the, where they're doing the UEP meeting. It's the blue lights. No, it wasn't in my room. If they were, I didn't notice them. But also, when they do a sweat lodge, blue lights come in the sweat lodge. And when the Indians are doing a sweat lodge and the blue lights are there, at least on the Sioux Reservation, it can be different in different areas of the country, but there when the blue lights come in and the spirits are there, and in all that heat and steam, the men have visions. So the enemy is giving them visions when they're really hot and all of that stuff. But all over the world, you'll find people dealing with spirits, either trying to have power over others with the spirits, or trying to protect themselves from spirits. But their whole life is just all wrapped around the fear of spirits. Now, as we said, we want to go into a different kind of things. We teach a counseling course. I think we're going to do it this year. We've had a lot of people write and ask for it. It was a counseling course that I taught in college where we trained pastors and missionaries to be counselors. And one of my students, I was telling him, told me he's earned two PhDs. He has two master's degrees, two PhDs in two different areas. But he said he's taken the exact course that I taught him in counseling and had to put it into Bible colleges. So we thought, why don't we just teach it? You know, to make people want to get some help and deeper ways of counseling and how to counsel from scripture and all that. And so we're going to teach the course again. And the course is free. We do not charge for the course, but we do have it at the Best Western. in Sioux City, which gives you a free breakfast. So it's $44 a day. You have to pay them. And you'll get materials. We don't charge for anything. We just, if we can just help people to help others, that's what we're about. We want to do that. And there's no age limit. We have some teenagers. You know, some ATI families brought their teenagers. Like a mom came with a couple boys and stuff like that. So it's not limited to any, not little kids, because it's quite long. It's really intense because it's all day long. We try to do a whole semester of college in one week. And plus adding our psychologist and two other counselors to put their two cents in, too. So it's really quite intense. You take a lot of notes and get a lot of material and counseling. Now, one of the things that if you look in Scripture, you'll find the power of words. And it's very interesting. If you just look at words in Proverbs, Many of you know that we were the ones that initiated what was called the Life Notebook. Now, it's not the one that Bill Gothard has, but we had one before his. And in the Life Notebook, we shared the one thing, how to get insights from scripture, that we gave you that. It was just one part of a notebook about Yapik that our kids had, because it was materials that we gave them related to their life. To help our kids to have godly character, and to walk with the Lord and to love Him and so on. And we had this notebook we put together for them. And in that notebook, they had a section and we would often discipline with Proverbs. And we had a daughter that had a very difficult time in telling the truth. And it just was so easy for her to lie. And sometimes she would lie for no reason. She would just lie. Now, it says in Proverbs, if a man steals bread because he's hungry, it makes sense. He still thinks he has to do it, but it makes sense because he's hungry. But if a baker steals bread, it doesn't make sense. Now, if this young man in the front row, if I said, did you do that? And he may be tempted to say, no, not me. And that would make kind of sense that he lied. I'm not saying kids you ought to lie. Logan says it makes sense to lie. So that's why I lie. That's all I got out of what he said today. I'm not saying that. But there's times when people lie. It makes sense. But when they just lie to lie. And they're not kidding. It's not a joke. It's just not true. All of a sudden, you don't know whether to believe them or not ever. And we had a real hard time believing our daughter. And we didn't know what to do. I mean, we tried the soap on the tongue trick, you know. But that didn't seem to work. And so what we did, and what really worked for her, because she was, you know, a young teenager, we had to go through Proverbs and write every verse down on mouth, tongue, and speech. And she wrote them all out in longhand. And then I would meet with her, and we'd put in plain English. We did this all the time anyway. We gave life-related topics to our kids to go through Proverbs. There's 105 different kinds of people mentioned in Proverbs and all this kind of stuff. So they were going through Proverbs and really getting Proverbs and lifting out these things, and they were really doing a topical study on Proverbs that they were doing themselves. So we did this thing about lying, mouth, tongue, and speech. After she wrote down all the things, you can't believe all that God says about your mouth, tongue, and speech, it broke her lying. When she really saw it from God's perspective, it just broke that. And so as you look at mouth, tongue, and all of that stuff in Proverbs, it has some very interesting statements there. In one of them, it says, death and life are in the power of the tongue. And when I was growing up, my folks, in the good old days, you didn't punch out models of plastic and snap them together. And you guys don't even know how to make models. I mean, who can't snap glasses together? In the good old days, we had X-Acto knives and had to carve the models out of balsa wood and all this stuff. It really took a lot of work to do a model. And so an X-Acto knife, my folks bought me a really sharp, and they had these different blades you put in there. Well, when I went into the medical field when I was a older teenager, I saw my first surgical kit. at the hospital where we had to do x-rays while they were doing surgeries. And you do, there's different surgeries that they, I don't know if they do it today, but in the day I was trained, we would go up and do x-rays and do hip nailings and things like that. And I saw my first surgical kit, and there in the surgical kit is the most phenomenal, effective knife you ever saw. We call them scalpels. They're just, I mean, I wish I had one of those. They're not a bendy blade like the other stuff. And if you take a scalpel and you put it in the hand of a, of a skillful surgeon like Dr. Stanton, and he did a couple of surgeries yesterday, it can bring healing. But you take the same scalpel and put it in the hand of a madman, and it can cause a lot of damage and a lot of pain and a lot of bleeding and so on. And so as we go here, we want to look at words, negative words, that may have been spoken over us and that we may be under those words. And I want you to go to James 3. We want to look at the power of words from James 3. Now, I have to say something. Probably should say it tonight, but I'll say it now. Maybe I'll say it tonight, too. Because a couple of kids came up to me and asked me a question. And what I said, I was saying it in fun, But I'm not sure they didn't take me seriously. And then that would be Ron. And I said that Zach got up at noon. I didn't think I said that. I said he didn't awaken until noon. He's a night person, not a morning person. But Zach is up early. The kid said, was Zach up this morning? Yes, he was up this morning. He doesn't sleep in until noon, OK? I was kidding. I want you to know that he does get up. Don't you, Zach? He does get up. In fact, just to prove me wrong, he was up at two the night before, three o'clock this morning. That was just teasing. I didn't think anyone would think I was serious, but I guess some people did. I want you to go to James 3, because James 3 is, people consider James the Proverbs of the New Testament. Do you have Proverbs in the New Testament, the book that relates? Because he deals with so many life-related things in Proverbs. It's such a practical book. I mean, James is such a practical book by Proverbs in dealing with it. And so as we do this study, what I'm going to do is ask you to help me. We're going to look at a verse, and I want you to think about it for a little bit, because I want you to write down, what is that verse saying? What comes to your mind? What is he trying to tell us? Because he's going to use It's kind of like he was using an object lesson with no objects. But he was making us visualize in our mind what he's saying. And what he's saying, it has a real meaning to it. But if we just read James real quick, James 3 real quick, we really don't get what he's saying. We have to think about what is he really trying to say here? What was the message? So James 3, he's talking about words. My brethren, be not many masters. knowing that ye shall receive the greater condemnation. For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in the word, the same is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. Behold, we put bits in horses' mouths, that they may obey us, and that we may turn about their whole body. The power of words. The first point is verse Three, what James is saying here. Now, as you think about that, he's saying that words can have the same effect on me as a bit in a horse's mouth. Does anybody have any ideas? What's he trying to say there? Because if I can't visualize that, I can't grab a hold of it for me. See, otherwise, if we don't visualize truth, we can't internalize it. And so it just becomes stuff in my head. Oh, I know that, I know this, I know that. I was telling the guys this morning, some of us went to breakfast, some of the teenage fellows went to breakfast early this morning, and I was sharing how the, probably the most wicked man that ever came to our center for counseling had memorized most of the New Testament. There's only three or four chapters he had not memorized. And he went to a Christian school in an area and quoted Revelation. King James worked perfectly in 22 minutes. But he gave one of our receptionists really a creepy feeling. And she said, when he comes in, please don't let him sit in the waiting room. Please take him in your office. I don't feel comfortable with that man at all. But here's a man that has memorized not chapters of scriptures, but books and books of the New Testament and a lot of the Old Testament that he probably by now has the whole New Testament memorized. But see, it was all up here. He could just rattle off chapters and books. But it never became, obviously, a part of his life or he wouldn't have been to us for counseling if he had internalized that. So God doesn't want you just to know stuff. He wants it to be a part of your life. But you have to know it first, right? If I don't know it, I can't make it a part of my life. But I've got to know it first. But it needs to become a part of my life. So anybody have any idea? Anybody here have horses? You guys have horses? Oh, good. My first real experience on a horse was a cattle drive. Because I was living out in no man's land where we had cattle. And I think they did it purposely. They gave me a horse and a saddle where the stirrups were too high. Now, I don't know if you've never ridden a horse in your... And I'll tell you, it was more than the saddle was sore when that day was over with. Now I know why cowboys walk like this. I've never been in so much pain in all my life. So that was my great horse days, one day. But I'm glad I had a bit in the bridle. It was sort of like a steering wheel to a car. But what do you think about it? Why would you do that? I mean, I know people have really neat horses just with their knees. Just they guide the horse with their knees and so on. But what he's trying to tell us a bit, remember he's talking about words here and putting a bit in the horse's mouth. Anybody got any ideas what it was? Anybody? Come on. You've been wrong before. Sir. You're right, but it's more than that. Pardon me? It's controlling the whole body. You're all right, but literally, what he's saying here, that as you control a horse with this, negative words can't control my life. Negative words spoken at me. Like what? You never listen. Now is that really true? Anybody here never listen? I'm not going to speak to these dumb kids that go to this stupid church. They never listen. I just, that's curses of words. Those kinds of things spoken over us can grab a hold of us and begin to control our lives. That's what we're talking about. Negative words spoken over us can control our lives. We were talking today about Dr. Dobson was talking about the public school, and we're saying that being homeschooled, you're not under near the peer pressure that kids are in public school. You know, to fit, dress right, be there, you know, every day. And Dr. Dobson was talking about a teacher that told Sally to come up. She said, Sally, come up front. And Sally came up front. She stood there, and she said, Sally is large. First grader, Sally is large. This is what large is. Billy, come up, Billy. Billy is small. This is what small is. I mean, how would you like, I mean, how do you suppose that that little illustration affected that child's life the rest of their life, of what she did over them? And that's what he's saying here, that negative words spoken over somebody, in anger or whatever, If it grabs a hold of them, it may begin to control their lives like a bit controls a horse. That's the first thing. It's going to get more stuff here. But we want to say that these words can be very, very powerful spoken over your life. My dad said I would never amount to anything, and my grades in high school looked like it. I had more. I mean, if the grades would have been better at the bottom of the alphabet, I'd have been better. My report cards had more Fs on them than Cs. And I just believed that I couldn't do anything. I believed I was dumb. I believed I would never amount to anything. And those are the kinds of things my dad would say to me again and again. And I believed him. And I let those words control my response in school. I mean, you can't believe. I hated reading. You know all the reading I do now? I hated reading. And we just recently found out I have a learning disability. And I have two problems. I'm partially dyslexic, and I have a learning disability. And I don't learn like you learn. I am a non-visual learner. And I say, here's a horse with a bit in its mouth. Some of you can see a horse with a bit in its mouth in your mind. I never see anything. I never visualize anything in my mind. I cannot see it. And I learned different. And so if people don't understand, when kids don't visualize, they can't learn like a visual learner. And so it just proved that I was dumb. You know what I mean? My dad said I was dumb. I wasn't learning like other kids. My grades always had, you know, somehow I had the same colored pen. I could have put a leg on that F, and if it looked at A's, you know, before I got home from school. But they always had pens that we didn't have access to. And then that just proved to my dad, yes, I was dumb. Say, look, you're dumb. Look at your grades. All that kind of stuff. Okay, so I've been under there. I've seen these words work. Okay, look at verse four. Behold, also ships, though they be so great, are driven with first winds, yet they're turned about with a very small helm, whatsoever the governor listeth. Now, what is he saying there? Remember, this is all about negative words spoken over us. What's what's the point that he's trying to get to us? Yes, ma'am Yes, and and more than that the the one word can change the course of our life You see that because where the guy wants to change the course of the ship he uses the helm. I had never I Didn't know how to drive a car when I graduated from high school, because my dad was afraid that if he taught me to drive a car, being a dumb kid, I would wreck one of our cars. So I didn't know how to drive a car. When I got drafted in the Army, guess what they put me into? The half tracks, which is a truck with a tank thing on the back. I don't even know how to drive a car, and I'm supposed to drive a half-tack with quad 50 machine guns on the back. Makes sense in the Army. I didn't know how to drive a car until after I was married and we had two kids. And that doesn't do a lot for your self-image as a fellow that your family won't allow you to drive a car. But anyway, so I don't know how to drive a car. I am to drive a boat in the ocean. Anybody ever been in the ocean with a boat, in a yacht, you know, where you have the steering wheel? Well, we were going from Los Angeles down to Balboa, San Diego, and the Balboa Islands. And so I was to drive the boat down there. I couldn't drive a car. Well, you have a compass. I mean, you're out in the ocean. You don't say, well, it's by that building or this building, and you turn at the corner. I mean, it's just water. And so you really can't see anything to guide by it. So I was driving by the compass, and I was making everybody seasick. Because as we're going, the wave would hit the boat, which would make it go this way. So I would correct it, and we'd go this way. Then the wave would hit the boat, and we'd go that way. So besides doing this, we were doing this. And I'm going, who is driving this thing? And then he said, you're not looking far enough in the ocean. Just look out at a wave or something way out there and steer toward it. But I was correcting all the time. I was causing this boat to go every which way. But that's what he's saying. In the same way when you drive a car. You ever seen people drive, when they're first driving a car, and they grab the steering wheel like it's going to fall off? And they're always doing this. And you just know that they're just learning. So, words can do this. I mean, what God wants us to see is how powerful these negative words are in our life. They control our life. They can change the whole course of my life. One of the worst things that I could tell you is this, you know what you'd be good at? Now, why would it be bad for me to tell any one of you, you know what you'd be good at? What's bad about me saying that? I'm trying to be positive, I'm trying to encourage, and I want to be real specific. You know, you would be really good as a trapeze artist. I just know it. Okay? What would be wrong with saying that? Yes, sir. Yes. Now I changed the course of your life, but all of a sudden what I did is I put into your mind, how many kids here don't want to be good at something? I mean, how many want to grow up to be failures? You know, and just flop and fail. No. So when someone says you'd be good at something, what's locked into my mind? Maybe that's what I ought to do. So all of a sudden, the words I spoke are putting you in a course of a life that is not what God wanted you to do. There's nothing wrong with visualizing character for somebody. But when you get specific for somebody, and you don't have an insight from God, and you find people going out, doing a job they totally hate and can't imagine why they did that. Our oldest daughter's really, really sweet. She's still really sweet. She's one of the sweetest persons you want to meet. If there's such thing as a triple gift of mercy, she got the quadruple one. I mean, she is so merciful and so kind. And so someone said, you know, you're so kind and you're so sweet, you ought to be a nurse. I don't know who said it to her, but whoever did, didn't really know my daughter. And I'm going, oh, brother. So she comes to me in high school and said, Danny, I think I want to be a nurse. And I said, well, that's fine. But I said, you know at the hospital here, they have candy stripers. And that's girls that wear these aprons, and they take books around, and they feed the elderly. And you just work at a hospital for a whole year, and you make a commitment. I said, I want you to make a commitment to work at the hospital for a whole year and be a candy striper. She said, that'd be wonderful. I said, you could see what nurses do. She wasn't there two weeks. She says, how do I get out of this? She says, daddy, people die there. And I said, yeah, I know. And she was weeping. She was just too, what, tenderhearted to be a nurse. It's like you give a kid a shot, it'll hurt him. I got to tell you, this is a good one. I was working for a doctor, and I was drawing blood out of a kid. You draw blood out of a kid's toe? How do you get blood out of a baby? You get it out of their toe. And so I'm in the smallest examining room we have. I have the mother. and the elderly grandmother, and I have this baby. And the elderly grandmother was the grandmother type. You know, real grandmotherly, and just like you'd think grandmothers ought to be. And so I'm in this room, and I got this baby, and I did his foot, and the blood's running out of his toe, taking the pipette in those days, and suck the blood up in it. The kid's screaming, of course. I mean, why wouldn't a baby scream when you stick his, you know, foot with a knife? you know, that thing, if you ever had your thing done. And the grandmother faints. So I've got a screaming baby that I'm trying to hold on the table in one hand. I've got a grandmother in the other hand that's headed for the floor. I go, help! Help! I need help. Now, how did that fit into this? But I didn't drop the grandmother, OK, if you're wondering. But I thought, oh, brother. But I've got to tell you, I did it in the army. See in the army I had to draw blood from every guy that came into the army and I love to do this. There is what they call a 50cc syringe. Now a 50cc syringe is about that big around. You have a big plunger on it, so I held the plunger all the way open So you have the syringe about this long and I had a 16 inch spinal needle on it 16 inch needle on this thing and someone they came in to get their shots and to draw blood there where they were sitting was this thing a towel I mean it looked like you know they go clear through this arm and take blood out of this one you know if you ever went with it and I had these big macho guys come in you know they look at that thing and Everyone guy came in with his wife. I had to do the blood stuff They could get married and he's really tough and I draw the blood from the gal and he watched me draw blood Since you want to marry this hero come on give me a break this protector. You know oh my You know, one of the fun things about being old is thinking about all the crazy fun stuff that happened all the time you're going through life. A lot of screwy stuff. Look at verse five. So, the tongue is a little member that boasts great things. Behold, a greater matter, a little fire, kinlet. So, we gotta read six too. Oh, it's hard five and six kind of go together here, and so the tongue is a fire a world of iniquity So the tongue among our members that it defiles the whole body and seteth on fire the course of nature and set on the fire of hell Okay, um The first part of five so the tongue is a little member in both those great things and This would be a hard one, but you can put it down. Literally what he's saying there is there's just a tremendous amount of power in the tongue. And that power can be positive or negative. Tremendous power there. And he talks about this thing. Now we're gonna look at the awful problem of words now, where it goes really negative. And let's look at verse five again. as we looked at that, and we went just seeing what he said about words in general, three, four, and five. Now we're gonna look at what he talks about the terrible problem of words and the problems that they can cause. Verse five, even so the tongue as a little membrane boasts its great things, a greater matter, a little fire kindled. See, with the power of words, the key is, it is not always used beneficially. So we can edify with words or we can tear down with words. And so yes, words are powerful, but often many people are not benefited by the words, the powerful words that escape our mouth. Okay, six, goes on again. The tongue is a fire, a word of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members. It defileth the whole body, is set on fire the course of nature, and set on fire the course of hell, or set on fire of hell. So in verse six here, put down, our tongues and habits of speech are connected with our hearts, and our hearts is the center of iniquity. So if I don't know the Lord, it's pretty easy to tell someone who's not a Christian usually why. by what comes out of their mouth, the kind of things that they say. And you say, I just, it's hard for me to believe this person would be a believer by what they say, because bad stuff is coming out of their mouth. Seven and eight, for every kind of beast and of birds and of serpents, of things in the sea is tamed and have been tamed of mankind, but the tongue no man can tame. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Of all the animals that contain, I want to see if you can think this, what do you suppose is the one animal in the zoo that the zookeepers fear the most? Of all the animals in the zoo, zookeepers are afraid of that animal. Yes sir, way back there. No. No, they're not afraid of snakes. Yes. No. The lion makes the loudest noise of any animal, because they've got the decimals of the lion's roar. It's the loudest roar of every animal. It's not a lion. I never would have thought of it until I read the book of you from the zoo. Yes. No. Yes, sir. You're getting more. What kind of bear? Somebody said, polar bear. Polar bear is the most fierce animal in the zoo. And so the guy, I loved reading the book, A View from the Zoo. This guy went to Swindoll's church. So I knew if Swindoll said this book was a good book, it was going to have a lot of humor in it, because Swindoll's got the good sense of humor. What they have to do every now and then again is they have to, I don't know how often they do it, they hose out with like a fireman's hose and a nozzle the cage areas of the animals. And most of the bears, you know, they're open. You have a pit, but they're open. And so they have to go in with a fire hose and clean the whole thing up with food and droppings and all that, just wash it all out. And what they do is they put food in the back. The bears go in the back. They raise up this thing and it comes clunking down. And they're in a cage behind while they go in there. Because if you went in there with a polar bear in there, it's all over with. And so this guy is washing out this thing. And the zoo, the guy at the head of the zoo, walks in behind the guy. And he goes, mwah! And the guy goes, ah! The hole's just going everywhere. He thought he was going to meet his maker right there. He was saying that one day, he was in there doing this. And what happened is, when he put the thing down, it got caught and he didn't notice. And so he's right in with the polar bear area. And he thanked the Lord the polar bear had a particular habit when it came out from the back. It would walk one direction and then turn around and walk back. Always, it always went one way in the cage, or not a cage, whatever you call those things, the open pit things. Went one way, turned around and came back. And because it went that way, it was able to throw the hose down and got out and just slammed the door in time as the polar bear came at him. It's the most vicious animal that there is. And so he's saying here that, and I don't know if you'll ever see a polar bear tamed. I guess you can. God said every animal you could tame, Now I want to share this, because we read seven and eight. It's unrelatable, a deadly poison, and so on. We wanted a dog really bad. And we had a wonderful dog that was a poodle. If you ever had a poodle, you never would want any other dog, if you have a good one. Our poodle was brilliant and wonderful and phenomenal dog, absolutely awesome. He always felt strange, you know, me and my little poodle. But this little dog would, in the kitchen when wife was cooking, this dog would walk around on his hind legs. Swat all over the kitchen. And then he would jump up and down. And what we didn't know, he ruptured his discs. And I had to take the dog to the vet. Put him asleep. It really was very difficult. We love this dog so much It was such a smart and intelligent just told dog one thing how to roll over sit up how to pray or whatever the dog did it I mean it was so intelligent and so here. We are had the windows wrote down. I got this dog That's paralyzed now from the waist down on the seat with me And we pull up a signal guys are talking and this little dogs growling and trying to drag itself across my lap to protect me You don't think I didn't cry. I'm sitting there crying. Here's this dog to protect me. Can't even walk. You know, a sweet little dog. But we had to get rid of it. So we thought, we bought that one. And we thought, we're not going to buy other dogs. I mean, that's kind of a waste of the Lord's money when the dog pounds are full of dogs. So we went to the dog pound, and we got scamp. And scamp was totally different than our poodle. I mean, it didn't look like a poodle and didn't act like a poodle. And Scamp was awful. You loved the dog. I mean, he was the scurriest, sweetest dog you'd ever want to meet. But he was Scamp. We called him the right thing. And if you had him in the backyard, and we had fences around the backyard, if you unleashed him, he would leap the fence, get his paws up, scrape his belly going over this big fence, and he was gone. Scamp, when unleashed, ran away. And the Bible is saying that our tongue can be like runaway. And a runaway tongue is going to do a lot of damage. An unleashed tongue is going to do a lot of damage. And don't let your tongue run free. I told you Dr. McGee was my pastor, and I told you last night about the Bible camp he went to, where the boy got up and thank God he didn't do all this stuff. But McGee also said there was some lady that came up. I think I probably shared this because I thought it was so cute when he said some lady came up to him to share a piece of her mind that she couldn't afford to part with. And he wanted to describe her. And he said, this lady looked like she was weaned on a dill pickle. Mickey. Sam, this lady had a runaway tongue and was slicing him up because she didn't agree with what McGee said and was really bad. So be careful about having a runaway tongue. Don't have a scamp tongue. You know, if it's not chained off here, off there, you don't know where the dog is. Finally, he comes back and I wanted to say, now, why didn't you get run over when you're running all over the place? Here you are back again. You know, people have good dogs that get run over. You got a scampy kind of dog. They never get run over. They never anything you know they just the bummy dog first aid Says the tongue no man contained. It's full of unruly evil and full of deadly Poison and he's saying the tongue can be filled with infection You know they they just told me that armadillos carry leprosy." And I said, oh, that makes sense. I mean, don't give me an armadillo for a pet. I don't think I want leprosy. I mean, you're talking about something deadly, and a tongue is like giving leprosy, spreading a disease. All this kind of stuff. He said that's what the tongue can do. That's what scripture is saying. It can be a horrible thing. And see, if someone has an infectious disease, the last thing you want to do is be around them. Right? You want to catch it? You want to catch something? We get people that have AIDS that come for counseling. I told you the first person that had HIV I ever counseled was an ATI 17 and a half year old boy. And he's dying. I saw him just recently. I spoke at a huge conference, and he was there. They came before I could see him, and he's now moving from HIV to AIDS, and he's 27. But he was rebellious, went out and did his own thing, and in the process got this disease. And my heart just goes out to him. He's beginning to not be able to track mentally with you and all that kind of stuff. Sad, a sad situation. For this young man because when he wanted to do his own thing he had no idea where it's gonna lead him And it's just I'll be my own boss. I want to do what I want to I'll be a moral live in a moral lifestyle But he didn't plan on getting a life-killing disease And so when we have AIDS in the office someone with AIDS in our office we get him in there guys that are dying of this Our ladies want to know please tell us when you're counseling an AIDS patient Because we want to be very careful about the restroom and all that stuff is sterile And I didn't tell them about one, and they weren't very happy. They said, I don't think it's right that you bring someone in that's got something contagious. They still don't know exactly how you could get this in the office and not tell us. Well, I didn't even think about it. It wasn't I purposely kept it from them. I didn't think about it. But if you're around somebody that's got a horrible disease, you're going to protect yourself. And that's the idea here of the talk. 9 and 10. Therewith we bless God, even the Father. And therewith curse we. Men, and that curse there is not saying bad words. That's not the Greek word for swearing. That's the Greek word for saying negative stuff to people, putting them under curses. Where we curse men, which are made at the similitude of God, out of the same mouth proceeded blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. So the tongue is evil in its inconsistency. Where one time we're blessing, next time we're cursing, out of the same mouth is coming all this inconsistency. And many people have turned aside from becoming believers because the inconsistency of the speech of believers that they know. Some believers are very foul-mouthed. And it's just inconsistent. And so people say, I've met a Christian. I know what Christianity is about. Forget it. And we don't want to have inconsistent speech. Then 11 and 12. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries, neither a vine figs? So no fountain both can yield salt water and fresh water. So inconsistency is contrary to the laws of nature that God established. Inconsistency, you're not gonna get salt water out of the spring, the next day get fresh water, the next day get salt water, it's not gonna happen. And if we don't walk closely with God, our tongue will become inconsistent, sometimes putting God first, sometimes putting others first, and sometimes just, you know, saying stuff. Now, if negative words have been spoken over you, if negative words have been said, how do we break it? Here are these words someone has I've been under this and I'm sort of under this thing It's kind of driving my life. It's it's doing the changing the course of my life and so on I know I want to say one thing we didn't say it I Would be very I know that Larry. What's his name the guy does the money stuff your cat? I know he has a test. I would be very careful about taking an aptitude test for the course of your life Now, we have all kinds of tests we can administer in our office because we have a psychologist as one of our staff members. But there are tests that you take. What would you rather do? Change the oil in the car, be a grave digger, or plant roses? Well, of those three choices, I'd rather plant roses. Well, anyway, I took one of those tests. And I got all through what they said I should do with all the choices I have. You know, the choices they give you, what you would like to do, and all this stuff. That I should be involved in accounting. So my first year in high school, I hated it. Can't you see me as an accountant? I mean, you know me well enough that it just isn't me. An accountant is someone who hardly talks. You know, they're just very, you know, very in the head, very intelligent people, and they do all this stuff. So be very careful, because that test can what? move you into a course of life that maybe God absolutely doesn't want you to do. So I'd be very, very careful about taking one of these tests that's gonna tell you what you ought to do with your life. I know who knows what I'll do with my life. He's up there and he's God, and God is able to speak to my heart and give me direction. And I'd be very careful about that. And I'm not saying all testing, but those kinds of tests I've seen backfiring in the lives of so many kids, because they went off. And what's worse is if you get four years of college, if you have to have a college degree, I know that a lot of you, all of you are homeschoolers, but I want to be very kind. I don't care what teenage fellow's in here. If he studied brain surgery in his basement homeschooling watching videos, he's not going to cut on my brain. You know what I'm saying? And I'm glad that the government sometimes says if you're going to do this, you need to be, you need to have some kind of qualifications. It doesn't mean because you went through school that you know how to do anything, do it well, but at least I know that you did more than do brain surgery on mice. Before you did me. I'm just not interested in that. So if you understand what I'm trying to say, I think sometimes you need to have a specific education for a specific thing you're doing that you can't necessarily get homeschooling. And I'm for homeschooling the whole thing. But to go through and get all this education because you took a test, and then you get out there, and you do it, and you hate it. There's something not right. You understand what I'm trying to tell you kids? Just be careful. Folks want to give you one. So why don't you talk to Mr. Logan before I take this test? And I don't really think a test should guide my life. I think a book should guide my life. I think the board can guide my life. But I'm concerned about people whose whole life is going because they took this guy's test or that guy's test, and they said they'd be good as clowns in the circus or something. OK. Now how do we break this? And God has given us three powerful weapons to break the curse of words. And these weapons that God has given us, we wield them through prayer to break this. Number one, and write this down, the first one is the word of God. And just put this insight down. It's so easy for you and I to accept what others say about us. We just accept it. But overlook what God's word says about us. And we're so connected to what people say. And we get connected to that. And let me give you one. Are you really worthless? See, if people said, are you worthless? Well, how do I know I'm not worthless? Because Jesus Christ did not die for worthless people. Jesus Christ died for unworthy people. And Jesus Christ's death proves that I'm a person of worth because he would have died just for me. And not only does his death prove that I'm a person of worth, he dignified my person by making it the temple of His Holy Spirit. I'm not worthless. And so we have materials there. We don't have them here, but we have them in the office. I think your husband has them, Pastor's wife, Pastor John has them, but we have stuff on who I am in Christ, this is by the grace of God and so on, where I can get my identity from who I am in Christ, not by what I do or can't do. Think of Johnny Erickson. Any of you ever seen Johnny in person? Johnny Erickson can't do anything. She can barely move her fingers, just barely move her fingers to guide her wheelchair. So if her worth was based on doing a lot of things, she has no worth, because she cannot do anything. Isn't it wonderful that it's not on what we do or whatever? If your worth is based on your looks, when you get older, your girls are in trouble. You're going to ask the Avon lady if it comes in gallon sizes with a paint roller, you know. And if that's where it is, you're going to do all kinds of strange things, you know, have your face lifted, you know, and your mouth will be up higher than it ever was before, you know, and whatever all they do. And we put, you know, because it's all the wrong thing. And you're gonna change, and this stuff's gonna happen. So I need to believe what God said, not what people say. The second thing, I need to break it with the character of Christ. What do we mean? God is at work in all of our lives, he says, conforming us to the image of Jesus. That's what all things work together for what purpose? To conform us to the image of God's Son. God wants all of us to look like Jesus. And the looking like Jesus is a inner thing, not necessarily an outer thing. I want to share just partially. I had a character come to get free. And this guy was a character. He was rough, tough, Hard-as-nails guy. I mean he had his arms were huge. He had tattoos all over his arms There were tattoos sticking out of his shirt, but I wasn't sure what they were and probably didn't want to see them He had so many holes put in his ears I think the wind whistled when it blew on one side of his head or the other I mean you the things were out of there. He had a ring through his nose Had a ring to his lip Had a ring through his tongue. He had put safety pins through this part of his body. Had body piercing other places. All over him. And I'll tell you, this guy loved the Lord, you can't believe. This old hard-hearted, you know, knocking-head ex-Navy man would talk about lost souls and tears would trickle down. I mean, he still had the scars of the, you know, the bar scene and the drugs. I mean, this guy's a drug addict. All of that, but let me tell you, God is gonna transform that guy. The tattoos will always be there as a reminder of when he wasn't walking in the Lord, but a heart for the Lord. I gotta tell you about last week. This is really, I laugh so hard because it could be so awful. I got a call from a 23-year-old kid that was going to Trinidad. I didn't tell you this, that I'm going to Trinidad as a missionary. And he wanted to come as a prayer partner. And he said, because I know we're gonna do a lot of demonic stuff. I've been to Trinidad. He had just come back. So I said yes, I didn't know who he was But we had some of the same friends and some of the same friends are ati kids that are on reservations in Canada I'll put some of the Indians up there to work with so we had some of the same friends so this kid and their men and I and You remember the guy that came to the church who sat behind the people with the doilies on their head about died? What's his name? He was telling me last night Yeah, he was talking to us last night, and he heard all horrible things about this church you know the ladies could never speak to their husbands, and oh, I don't know all the stuff and and the ladies had to wear doilies on their head and You know all this kind of stuff, and they warned them don't go there. It's a cult It's awful and all this and everybody drives a vans you know because I have so many babies if you didn't go there you got to have all the babies you can have and So he drives in. It looks like a used car lot for vans. He comes to church and sits behind a family. All the ladies have doilies on their heads. And he's going, oh, no. What am I into? It's just like they said. This is some kind of cult. I knew it. I knew it. Well, anyway, where this guy was connected with, the ladies wear doilies. They all have these. And the guys don't even have collars on their coats because that's worldly. So this one guy was introducing me. And I thought, I've got to do this. I've been with the Indians long enough and stuff and I put my arm on I said brother I really thank you for introducing me, but I just noticed something I said the collar fell off your coat But thank God you know I I'm so thrilled when I see people with some kind of convictions You know if my wife wanted to wear a doily I buy the most expensive doily she could stick on her head and You know, if a guy thinks collars are wrong, and he cuts him off his coat, thank God he's willing to believe something and stand for something he believes. So here's this kid, connected with this group, going to come to be my prayer partner. Well, he comes in on Sunday night, and he said, I don't have any money, and just let me sleep on somebody's floor anywhere, any floor anywhere. So we had him stay at a youth pastor's house, who's single, that my son had hired when he was over this guy, and sleep on his floor. which I guess he slept on the floor. Well, here I am, I don't know who's coming in. I get the, I look at the stuff on Friday usually, or early Monday morning, because we have check sheets, just, you know, look at again, who's coming, what's their, how they're messed up and all that stuff. So I'm looking at that, but I don't know if they're ATI or not. And in walks my peer partner, loves Jesus. The only thing that was maybe a little distraction, some Catholic family coming in. This is our prayer partner, you know. He looks more like your daughter. I know. But what a heart for the Lord. This guy's winning souls. I mean, we can get caught up. I'm not saying go out and get a ponytail, guys. But I'm just saying, you know, it's the inside thing. This this this this Navy guy, if you saw him in the alley, he'd freak you out. I'd probably give you a track. But I mean, you see this burly guy that's obviously, you know, been down a rough road, you see this guy with a ponytail, you're going, this guy couldn't be a Christian. Man, I'll tell you, he would put a lot of us to shame for his love for the Lord. And so I was talking about, I need to get a Baptist haircut before I came here, you know, cause you guys are so squeaky. And my hair's a little bit long and I didn't get a chance to get a Baptist haircut. So he comes in, guess what? He says, look, I got a Baptist haircut. And here the thing was shaved up almost like the bowl kind, you know, the kids that have the bowl haircuts. It's horrible, but I guess they're the end thing or almost the end thing. But the one thing they didn't cut off was his ponytail. He had it knotted up. He missed something. I got scissors, I'll help you. But I just want you to realize, you know, we can't be careful about judging people because you don't know where they are and where they're going. And you know, God can work on the lies. But I mean, this guy was so, and he was real. I mean, this guy, there was nothing fake about him at all. I mean, what you saw is what you got. You know, he said, you're gonna wear a tie at that place? I said, yeah. He said, man, I wouldn't even go with you down there. But one day, guess what? You'll see this guy in a monkey suit and a tie and the whole business. He'll be all gushied up and carrying his Bible, right? And he'll be a blue suit too with a white shirt and whatever. But you know, that's not where he is today. But God's working in his life and God is using this guy. He has such a burden for the inner city. the roughnecks, the rejects, the throwaways. And he just wants to give his life to go down there and reach these people. And his commitment to Christ and he stays open to the Word, God's able to speak to his heart about his hairstyle or whatever. Okay. So the character of Christ, God wants us to look like Jesus and it's an insight thing. Here are three insights that you could put down here that God wants us to break these words, Our focus is not being driven by what people have said over us, but I want to be conformed to Christ. Philippians 2.13, in fact, you could put Philippians 1.6, being confident of everything, he which began a good work in you will perform it the day of Christ. Philippians 2.13, as God that worketh in you, both the will and to do of us good pleasure, God is working Ephesians 2 10 it says we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus under good works. God is working in my life. God is conforming me to the image of the Son. Then look at Ephesians 5 27 if you haven't looked at that recently I want to read it to you. It's really a neat verse. So God is working in our lives and so the key is Are you and I cooperating with God or not in the process? But God is working. But at 527, it tells us that God is going to present us as a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing that we should be holy without blame in love. And one day, God is gonna present us to himself in heaven. and to his glorious son without any wrinkles or any such thing, and that we could be holy without blame before him in love." Very, very beautiful verse. So God says that's who we are in Christ. God is conforming me into being like Jesus Christ. And these harmful words will have no consequences over me if my focus is on the word of God and the character of Christ. And then the last one is this. What is the third thing that we need to do? It's Revelation 12, 11. And this is where we go on Monday when I'm counseling, whether I'm counseling teenagers or whatever, we always end up Revelation chapter 12, verse 11. Because this is the first commitment someone has to make if they want to be free from their bondage, free from demonic involvement in their life. 12, 11 says, and they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony, and they love not their lives so much to shrink from death. See, so all our and others transgressions against us, all of them, all of our weaknesses, all of our flaws, all of the sin, all of the defeats we have are covered by what? The blood of Christ. It's all covered, it's all under the blood of Christ. There's not a single problem that we have or a single thing spoken over us for which the atonement of Christ does not have an answer. He died to set me free. 2 Corinthians 5.21 is one of my thrilling verses. I love it. It says, Jesus Christ became sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made his righteousness before God. And when I came to Jesus Christ and asked him to save me, he took all of my sins And Jesus Christ gave to me what? All of his holiness and righteousness. Isn't that a wonderful transfer? When God looks at us, he sees us clothed in the Shekinah glory of God. All of us here, if you're a believer, you are clothed in God's glory. When you and I go to heaven, I know that we're gonna be clothed in the light of Christ. And people are going to see that light of Christ. That's what, remember, Jesus had it. I remember when he was transfigured.