00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Jeff, as vice president there,
Ellen George, who was president, had a fabulous prayer life. I mean, just a man of prayer.
I just thought, oh, it's so neat. You know, just touch me. It was
so neat being around this guy and praying with him. And then
when they booted me out of there and Mark in pity took me into
ICBC, we met with Mark once a week praying. And if you haven't ever
prayed with Mark, I mean, Harry's praying psalms back to God with
his Bible closed, tears running down his cheeks, and it's like,
God's in this room someplace. I know, he must be over there
in the shadows, but God is in this room when you pray with
Mark Bubeck. So I've had all of this for years in my life.
And I'm going, why? Why is it taking me so long?
I liked what Marcus said, because Marcus stole my thunder. Although
he never heard me say it, never heard him say it. But I'm reading
the Bible through again in a new Bible. And I was reading Genesis
about where God told Adam to yada Eve. And then God wants
us to have that yada relationship, that intimate relationship. And
how Adam and Eve walked in the garden with the voice of God.
And then Marcus picked up on that. I thought, man, that's
so great because we were agreeing with him. When you have the same
message, you always agree with the speaker. He's really sharp,
smart, and intelligent. And I was reading all these You
know, so-and-so lived so long, so-and-so where he did that,
but just before that, where the kid's son, I forget whose son
it was, Enos or whatever son, Sam or somebody's son, began
to worship God. Then you read all these people,
and then all of a sudden out of that list, Marcus pulled out
again, and I saw it, Enoch. Walked with God and was not. Between Enoch and Adam, all these
people did the religious stuff. You know, the sacrifices, they
did the religious stuff. But every now and then again,
God calls somebody to walk with Him. And I got my call late in
life. I'm a doer. I'll do, you pray,
okay? You know, I mean, I'm just real
hyper-whatever. Probably drove everybody nuts.
My parents and the Juvenile Delinquents Society in L.A. and everything
else, I've just always been wound up tight. And so doing, and you
pray. You know, I'm the Martha and
not a whole lot of Mary in me. And all of a sudden, I'm working
up to Potter, he's in here. Don't get out and leave if I'm
embarrassing you. But Aaron's in here. And I got Aaron's book. And I had to ask my question,
and all my counselees, why don't I pray? Why pray? You know, now I lay me and bless
the food, and almost an accident, you know, the skylobs and those
kinds of things. But why didn't I have an intimate,
deep walk with God personally when I saw it all around me?
And I realized that I had, I didn't know God by name. And I began
to get to know, remember that's the third thing in warfare? A
distorted view of God? I didn't have a distorted view
of God. I had no view of God. Well, I could pass the names.
I mean, after all, you know, I've taught in Bible colleges,
so I could go, oh, yeah, Jehovah, blah, blah, blah. But what did
that mean? Say, what did those names mean? Well, he does this
in this book. And I only found three good books
on the names of God. And we have one at our office
because I know that most of my counselees, they're not in sexual
bondage, they're not in a mess if they have a walk with God.
Sorry, they just don't. And if I don't get them walking
with God when they leave there, all I did is remove some of the
stuff, but they're going to be the dog back to his stuff, right?
Pearls Before the Swine, all that stuff. But anyway, this
book is there, and Aaron did a phenomenal job on the names
of God and explaining what they mean. You say, what book do we
have? The other book, two books, this
is all free beer to get into our stuff, but this is part of
the stuff. What do you do after someone's
delivered? Well, if we have teenagers that don't have a, we have them
go through and we sell the book there. Lord, I Want to Know You
by Kay Arthur. Because you interact in that
book with the names of God. The other one is My Father's
Name by Elmer Townes. And I've got all the names of
God books that there were there. Now you have some books now praying
God's names, excellent books, that the whole book is how to
pray the names of God, using the names of God in your prayer
time. But these others, we're getting to know who he is. So
that was very important. So Aaron is here. His stuff is
good, and I recommend it very, very highly, and I was really
blessed by Aaron's stuff. Please buy this book. He has
a wife and desolate children. Show them the hole in the bottom
of your foot, Aaron, and the shoe. Show them, show them. When I fly, which I don't like
flying, I'm not a white knuckler. I just don't, I got long legs
and they made the seats closer together and all this stuff.
So I take one of the new books. I think I got 27 or 37 books
waiting for me to read. So I picked up this one, I thought,
spiritual formation as if the church mattered, and how to have
formation in a group. That's interesting. This is a
real emphasis of the school that I run, is that every fellow would
have an intimate relationship with God in the three years,
and giving them tools that they can develop that, and then all
the tools are secondary. because I taught in two other
Bible colleges, and we saw a lot of guys graduated, you know,
summa cum laude or whatever it is, and their lives were summa
cum lousy. And there was somehow a breakdown between all this
up here and down here, and I didn't want our guys to leave the school
with lousy lives. Man, I don't care if they can't
do the Greek. But if they can walk with God
and hear God's voice and be directed by God, hey, that's unique. But let me, I read this. Dallas
Willard is one of my favorites. He and Neil Foster and that whole
crowd, the formational crowd. And that just means becoming
Christ-like, how to become more like the Lord, the stuff they
write. This is what he wrote. Dallas Willer reminds us, your
system is perfectly designed to produce the results you are
getting. That is a phenomenal, phenomenal
statement. Your system of counseling is
perfectly designed to produce the results you are getting.
Do you like the results? Then maybe you better look at
what? What you're doing. And we're always looking. How can we make it better? Are
we missing something? We better pray. Father, thank you for this time
and I just pray that you would help me to share and Lord, we
know there are so many families that are hurting because of enemy
activity and just crazy sexual stuff. And so I just pray, Father,
what I share here may be a real help to those that are here. In Christ's name we pray, amen.
Yesterday when I mentioned the young people that I had to deal
with that were sexually addicted, one of the people in here, who
is pretty well known, said his three-year-old granddaughter
is sexually addicted. And, you know, I mean, some are
like, oh, really? That can't be so. I mean, you've
got a guy right here that most of you would know if he stood
up that talked to me yesterday and said, yes, what do we do? I'm sure you would know if I
asked you, what would you do if someone is, you know, between
1 and 2, 2 and 3, 4 and 5, in that age group that are sexually
addicted, in a conservative family, no television, not putting kids
in the church nursery because they've heard so many horrible
stories, and never had babysitters. So you can rule out a lot of
that stuff. So what would have to be the obvious explanation
for these kids being sexually addicted that have never seen
anything? This one little girl would take a doll, she was three,
take a doll and imitate the sexual love act with a doll and reach
up in church and grab men in their sexual parts. Three years
old. I mean, the folks are crying. Where did she get this stuff?
Where in the world? This is sick. Okay. Anybody? Pardon me? No, it wasn't hospital. Basically, what would you look
for in something like this when little kids are sexually addicted?
What? Generational stuff. My book has generational stuff
in it. Others talk about generational stuff. Remember, the iniquities
of the father visit to three and four generations. And that
can start again. You know, a grandfather. I don't know how many monkeys
are up our tree. My wife grew up on welfare. My wife grew up
in inner city type situation where her family was all evil
and wicked. Her sisters had babies. I don't know if they knew who
the husbands were. My wife was a virgin. My wife witnessed at school about
the Lord and Jim, when he found out my wife grew up in welfare,
could not believe it. Your wife was not in welfare.
I said, yes, she was. a brother in prison, a terrible
hellhole of a family. I mean, you couldn't be more
of a cesspool. But God can lay his hand on someone
there and keep them safe and sweet. My wife is sweet and safe
and godly. If you ever met her, you'd say,
what a godly woman. She just looks godly. She had to be. You know why? I said, do you
ever wish you said I don't? So the generational thing, and
it's interesting the first time, and we won't go there because
my things are not generational, someone did, but the first time
the Ten Commandments are given it says God visits the iniquity.
The second time the Ten Commandments are given it says God says sin,
transgressions and iniquity and out of that list he says the
iniquity of the fathers will be visited to children of those
who hate me. And people say well I don't hate
God so obviously it's not going to affect my kids. I don't hate
God, I'm a Christian. But we got the wrong definition of hate.
There is a verse I hope you brought your Bibles, because this is
going to be out of the Bible. I'm sorry, I counsel out of the Bible, and
I teach out of the Bible. Because I feel opinions are like
noses, and everybody's got at least one. And so what God says
is far more important than any opinion I give you. I want you
to go to, I can't remember where, it's Mark, Luke, or someplace
in the Gospels. It's on top of the page. But when I was a counselor, Not only
did I teach in the Bible college, and was teaching the counseling
courses and so on, I also counseled all the kids, and we had 600
kids. And it was, you know, I told
you what I said to them. They come in, because I, I mean,
600, how do you get through 600 in a semester? And I just say,
is there anything you thought about not telling me? Something
you don't want us to talk about? I said, start there. You know,
instead of, well, let's work, and how do you feel? We haven't
got time. Dump it! You know? And then I'm
real good. I have handouts. You can't believe.
Handouts. Well, that notebook we gave you
at the prayer retreat. I invite all of you to the prayer retreat.
Not women, but men. 673 page notebook out of seven three-ring notebooks that
I have full of notes on prayer. So I have seven three-ring notebooks,
and out of that we took 600 and some pages to give you. I could
write a book on praying the Lord's Prayer with about 20 different
ways of praying the Lord's Prayer, or maybe more than that. And
I love the prayer retreat, and that's really good for our guys
to get alone with God. and you're only taught in the
morning, then all afternoon you're in the most gorgeous place, thousands
of acres, lakes, paved roads, and nobody. You ever been to
upper Michigan in the pine trees and all of that and the retreat
center is absolutely classy, classy, classy with a an airstrip
a mile behind it if you want to fly your private plane in
and taxi it in under the whatever. Yeah, I'll tell you. It's Wolf
Lake right in front of the place. Acres and acres and acres of
lake. And you can go in the woods and meet God. We teach you how
to have solitude and silence and how to connect with Him.
Because someone said this, without silence there's no knowing. Be
still and what? And if there's no stillness,
there's no knowing. And it was very hard for me to
get still, so I can teach you how to get still, because none
of you are as nervous and jumpy around as I am. But this verse
is what these lousy kids in Bible school would give me. And I just
hated it. And I knew it had to be a King
James heir or something. I think maybe his wife wanted
it in there. Anyway. And that is Luke 14, 26. And I read it
wrong, the same way I read about hating God and that the Ten Commandments
and iniquities aren't going to affect my families, no matter
what the family iniquities are, because I don't hate God. Okay,
in Luke 14.26, if any man come after me and hate not his father,
any man I hated my dad, I can come. I didn't quite hate my
mother. And I really didn't hate my wife.
At times, my kids drove me nuts, but I don't think I ever hated
them. Some of the brethren in the church I pastored maybe fell
in the hate category. I could still be spiritual. And
sisters, and yea, his own life also cannot be my disciple. I've
heard people preach this thing away. You know, Dr. McGee was
my pastor for a number of years. Best expositor of the Bible,
as far as I'm concerned, you know, that has been on planet
Earth since I've been around. And he explained it away. And
then when I looked up the word hate in the Greek, I'm going,
why did I start there? You know, Paul to make a living,
because we don't pay him, we don't have the money, so he works
at Olive Garden. You know, it's a place that they
press olives or something in the garden. I don't know what
Paul does there, but anyway, he works at Olive Garden at night
so he can straighten me out in the daytime. So, anyway, this
thing here at the Olive Garden, when you go in, the girl gives
you something. Sometimes the waitress brings
out the table with your water, but what do they give you when
you come in? They give you a menu. And I look in the menu, and I
look at the Olive Garden menu, and I've got to make a choice.
Well, anything with broccoli is real easy. What isn't broccoli
here? But when I choose one, I'm choosing against all the
other options. And hate means to what? Choose
against. If I choose any of these things
over Him, then it's as if I what? Hate Him with 10 Commandments.
How's it start? love him with all my heart. Remember first
God first and all these other things and so when I put something
in the place of God it's as though I hate him. I'm choosing against
him. That's why God is a jealous God. What is jealousy? Jealousy
is the fear of being displaced in the heart of someone you love.
That's why he's jealous and his jealousy is right. In our dealing with all the sexual
addictive stuff, so the first thing we want to do is pray against
generational stuff. I've never had a man in bondage
that it didn't start at five years of age. I've already talked
to some guys here that remember it was a five. Five years of
age, they begin to have these sexual feelings, they begin to
act out on this stuff, and begin to struggle. Even teenagers that
we get, and you look at the thing, we had a ton of teenagers in
sexual bondages this year already. And then some on the phone that
call me and ask if I can just maybe give them some help on
the phone. It will start at five or four years old when they become
sexually aware when they shouldn't. There's no reason for a kid in
a godly home You know, to have all of us that are careful about
what they're watching and trying to, you know, they just can't
watch anything, begin to have all of these strange feelings.
Feelings that they wish they weren't male. I mean, a five-year-old
boy wishing he wasn't a male. There's something not right there,
right? You know, or in all kinds of weird stuff they're acting
out. And so when you know it started at five, and it just
begins to unfold year after year, and they add, and they begin
to experiment, and they begin to get deeper and deeper and
all kinds of stuff. Well, you know that at five years old,
I had to be generational. Now, I have a different spin
on generational. I'm not saying I'm right. I just have to do with what I
believe. I believe that the generational thing stops being a problem after
a kid's eight or nine. It becomes his choices now. You
say, well, I can't help it. I had a weird grandfather. He
was sort of an ape in the tree. No, that may have been there
because I believe that what happens when there's inequities coming
down generationally that it gives the enemy a right to bring destructive
temptation in the area in which the adult, you know, grandfather,
great-grandfather, open their lives up to the control of the
enemy. So it can pass down. And so it doesn't mean the person
has to do this, but what does a five-year-old do? The confusion
in a five-year-old with all this stuff going on, it's very, very
difficult. And what is really good is when
kids will talk, I was trying to think. If I do the big seminar
stuff, and I don't know how many I've been in, maybe 300,000 in some of the big stuff we've
been in. I tell them this, and I get all
kinds of phone calls. Why don't you at some time ask your kids
at the proper moment, do you ever hear anything no one else
hears? Or do you ever see anything no
one else sees? And you would be amazed. at the phone calls
I get of parents crying because they didn't know the kids were
hearing stuff. They never had any idea because they never asked
them or that they were seeing things. It's a good question to ask.
And sometimes a young kid, you begin to sense there's something
telling him to do evil or this kind of thing, and he's struggling
with what's going on here. And kids just think everything
up there is themselves, right? A lot of adults do, too. That
everything going on up there is just me, but not necessarily
me. Okay, I want to go on. So we're
looking at that. The sexual stuff can be iniquities
coming on to the family, to the third and fourth generation,
and so they're struggling under all this sexual stuff, sexual
thoughts, acting out, all this kind of stuff. But in dealing
with the sexual, if you only deal with the sexual, they will
not have freedom. Now we're not talking about DID.
I don't even like talking about DID because I'm always nervous
I'm going to hurt them or say something wrong. The more I go
to these classes, the less confidence I have. Am I going to send them
back ten years? Dan deals with them. I don't,
basically because I only see people from out of state or out
of the country. So you don't deal with a DID in a week. I
don't want to do some damage there in my week with them. if
they pop up. But Daryl and Vicki are very
good. They're really close. They're in Colorado Springs.
They're only one dial away. And if you have a DID that is
absolutely extremely difficult and you don't know what to do,
call Daryl or call Vicki. And they have been a real godsend
for me with some really difficult, difficult, unbelievable, evil,
evil, evil stuff. You know, not just a little disassociation,
but really wicked, evil stuff done to them, up through college
age, by their parents. It's hard to believe that a college
kid could be so triggered, brilliant guy, triggered. I can only tell
you, it's not even fit for men's ears, let alone women's ears,
of what this family did to their son. Sick, sick stuff. And so
I'm thankful that Daryl and them could deal with this. I call
the guy every Monday. I'm mentoring him. I'm there for him. I love
him. I want him to know I care. But I'm not going to get in Daryl's
road. I try not to. And I'm so thankful there are
people that are experts. And sometimes these real fractured
people need an expert, not someone playing with them. You know what
I'm saying? Just try this, or try this, or try this. if they're
super fractured. Okay, so we found that just dealing
in the beginning with the first thing we did was call up a demon,
what's your name, sexual or homosexuality rather, and we cast them out
and told them go home, God bless you, everything's going to be
fine. Got the demon out, they're going to go back and be fine.
Well, we didn't ever call them on the phone to see what really
was happening. We just hoped everything was fine. And, you
know, so I looked at my method and I said, we better do something
more than that. We began to work because we found that casting
a sexual demon out of someone's life was not even the beginning
of the end. Because there's a deeper problem.
And that's what I want to share with you. I want to share the
thing. If you talk to anybody who went through our counseling,
that was sexually addicted, they will tell you that when we dealt
with the sexual stuff on Thursday for three hours, their sexual
stuff, was not the thing that gave freedom. The freedom came
on Wednesday. Even though they hadn't prayed
about the sexual stuff, it was still there. And I want to share
Wednesday with you. Because if you can get this,
I know, I just tell you, this is one of the keys of the success
of our office is Wednesday. And I stumbled on this over a
period of years. It isn't like, boom. I want you
to go back, and I'm just gonna take you through as if you were
there for counseling. I want you to go to Isaiah. Isaiah 14. If I'm counseling
teenagers, I'll go to Ezekiel 28. But if I'm not, I'll just
go to Isaiah 14. Because the question is, what
did Satan do that God booted him out of heaven? What was it? Was it some sexual thing? Did
he look at magazines? Was he listening to bad music? Was he doing drugs? What was
he doing? So verse 12, and it's a good question, if they have
an NIV or that, it's really hard because people read Lucifer,
it's translated Morning Star, and they read it as a shooting
star. You know, the star shot out of heaven and it's not a
shooting star. How art thou fallen from heaven?
Oh, I'm sorry, 1412. How art thou fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the
ground to weaken the nations? My counselees do all the reading. I mean, they're counseled for
three hours straight with no break unless someone has to use
the restroom. So we have 15 hours, but with three hours a day straight,
they do all the reading. If they're home-teached, I like
the kid, oh, you're one of the home-teach kids? Yeah, can you
read? Okay, get your Bible, let's go. And they all laugh, home-teach,
sure, I can read, what do you think? "'For thou hast said in
thine heart, "'I will ascend unto heaven, "'I will exalt my
throne above the stars of God, "'I will sit upon the mount of
the congregation "'of the sides of the north, "'I will ascend
above the heights of the clouds, "'I will be like the Most High.'"
The first question I asked my counselor after I read that,
who did Satan say the five I wills to? And almost 90% of them will
say God. That's not what it says. Where
did he say it? In his heart. The most important
conversations you have, you have with yourself. As a man speaks
in his heart, what did Jesus say? So is he. If I could get
your self-talk, I'd know exactly where you are spiritually. Yeah? I went to the Bible, and I always,
when I read the Bible through, I'm always looking for things.
The last thing I look for, when a guy, I read his book, he said,
the most important word in the Bible is here. Well, I went through
this Bible and marked every verse on listening. Not here, but listening. What
does God say about listening, or what a man says inside of
himself? And I was amazed at how many
times what a person says in the heart, that exact phrase is used
over and over and over again in scripture. It says a wicked
man says certain things in his heart. It says a fool says certain
things in his heart. It says a righteous man says
certain things in his heart. You can stop an activity by obedience,
right? God said don't. That's the beginning. You know how you know the end?
Is when you don't think like that anymore. When this has changed,
I was saved when I was almost 20 by the Navigators. Thank God
for the Navigators. Best organization in the world
outside of ICBC. Wonderful group. They discipled
me. Three months later, I'm in the Army. No Christian background.
Nothing. And they gave me a little packet
of verses to memorize. I didn't know I had learning
disabilities, and it was taking me forever to memorize 1 Corinthians 10.13.
You know, there's no temptation to take any of it, such as common
man and so on, if you've been through the NAV stuff. And so
I was putting together a Quad 50 machine gun under a blanket.
I didn't have it right. The thing came back, smashed
my thumb. I pulled it out. It's a wonder
I had a thumb there. It could take your thumb off.
I pulled my thumb out, stuck it in my mouth, and sucked it.
I said, praise God. The guy next to me said, what
are you praising God about? I said, I smashed my thumb. He said,
why are you praising God? I said, I didn't even think of swearing.
Something had happened. I mean, I grew up in a family,
we had a real good vocabulary, literally taught us all kinds
of words, you know what I mean? Or we maybe just picked them
up, you know? And I knew something had happened, why? I didn't even
say it, I didn't even think it, because I was biting my tongue
before. That's a change, you understand? That's a biblical
change, you hear me? A biblical change is when I don't think
like that anymore. But it's a process, I have to keep what? Washing
my mind, renewing my mind, and so on. Okay, now, it's the last
I will that fits our study. He said, I will be like the Most
High. Satan did not ex... I mean, pardon
me. Satan did not ex out God. He
didn't say God could be God. That's not what he did. He said,
I want to be, what? Like God. Now this is where you
need Aaron's book. What does Most High mean? Did
he want to be like Jehovah-Jireh, provide a sacrifice? Did he want
to be like Jehovah-Raphae and heal people? No. So if we know
what this name means, we know exactly what's... See how important
the names are? We know exactly what Satan wanted.
Satan wanted to be like El Elyon. El Elyon is the one who rules
sovereignly in the heavens and on the earth. What was Satan
saying? He said, God, you can rule heaven,
and you can rule earth, but you can't rule me. The final authority
in my life is going to be what? Me. When are you most like Satan? When you are running your own
life. Fred Dickinson, my mentor, taught
me warfare counseling at Moody's, said this, Satan became creature-centered. And Satan is selling his creature-centered
philosophy to mankind. And if you buy into that, he'll
rule over your life. Anybody that is being defeated
with enemy stuff, what do you know? You know just from this
one thing. They're creature-centered. What's
the final authority in your life? Me. So if I cast demons out of
them and send them out creature-centered, what's going to happen? Well,
me is going to take over again. And we may get the demons clear
in the parking lot. Or maybe even across the street. But they're
going to be right back to their stuff. Because the problem was
what? Me. And what do we mean, me? See, someone said this. I like
this. I don't know who said it. Anything profound just really
grabs you, I read somewhere. You know, I am not a real, original,
profound person. But this is profound. Satan desired
to be like God in control. but not character. Character. Now, I want you to go to Proverbs. We'll try to run through it barefoot.
What time am I through? Does anybody know? We got some time? I got time?
Okay. Well, we may put some running
shoes on and go through Proverbs. Okay, Proverbs. When we're building life around
ourselves, what we call that is pride. And the word has I
in the middle, you know, I. When life revolves around me
is really what pride is all about. And let's just look at verses
on pride in your Bible, in Proverbs, and you're not gonna find a good
one. And it can really make me say, I better deal with this.
I mean, what God is saying is gonna happen if I don't do this,
I'm in trouble. There are six things, verse 16, there are six
things the Lord hates, yea, seven are an abomination unto him.
The word abomination is the worst word in the Old Testament. Six. 16. So abomination, there's
no, it's worse than hate, it's way down there. Like, I hate
broccoli, And it's almost abomination, but I really can't put it in
that classification. Because it's the worst there is. And
what's the first thing on God's list? A proud look. Pride on the kisser. God hates
that. Go to Proverbs 8.13. The fear
of the Lord is to hate evil. Pride and arrogancy, God says,
and the evil way and the forward mouth do I hate. What's an evil
way, an evil lifestyle? God said, I hate pride and arrogancy
as much as any evil lifestyle you would choose. Why? Because
pride and arrogancy will lead you into an evil lifestyle. When
you're the final authority, where it's going to take you? When
you're a Christian, you know the enemy wants you out there. What's the difference between
pride and arrogancy? In English, I knew. But I didn't know in
Hebrew. I really had to wrestle. I'm
not a Hebrew person, although one of our students is super
in Hebrew. who's teaching at our school. It's nice when your
students leave and come back and teach Hebrew and stuff, but he's
teaching Hebrew. And pride and arrogancy is the
same in Hebrew as it is in English. And that is, you here can be
very prideful, but it's not obvious. See, it's private. But when someone's
arrogant, what do you say? Oh, that person's so prideful.
Look, they're so arrogant. It's pride, what, all over the
place. It's displayed, and you can just
pick up, and you say, oh, that person's so sickening. They're
so sad on themselves, or, you know, whatever, whatever. But
anyway, God says, I hate both of them, whether your pride is
private or whether it's obvious, because it will lead you to an
evil lifestyle. You'll keep choosing to an evil lifestyle. Okay, Proverbs
11, 2. Only by pride comes contention.
We hate those verses. It should be usually. You ever
been in a church squabble over the color of the rug? or what
have you, you know, the new chandelier or what have you. They want the
one from, what was it, Phantom of the Opera. They really wanted
that one in the church, you know. So if the pastor wasn't really
good, it could come swinging down towards the pulpit, you
know, and let them know time's up or what have you. But, you
know, churches squabble. You just get so sick of it. I
can't imagine why a new Christian would even want to go to most
churches. Are they through fighting? I'll go. And they go there, and
whose side are you on? What side? I'm on God's side.
No, that's not enough. Are you standing with these deacons? You know what I'm saying? Who's behind all of that? It's
an enemy thing. He says, only by pride comes
contention. You see contention, what do you
know? You're not being critical, you're just discerning. There's
pride issues here. When my wife disagrees with me, I want to
be a godly husband and point out, you have a point of pride,
Marguerite. No, I don't. My wife's sweet, but maybe not
that sweet. I want to know why am I getting
upset with the wife of my youth? Why am I standing up on the inside?
What's the pride issue here in me? Right? It's in me. That's
what we're worried about. Not them, me. What is the pride
issue? God, show me. Because you're
going to see pride is the most devastating thing that you could
ever, ever be involved in. We're gonna see that, because
you're gonna end up a disaster. Look at Proverbs 15, 25. This
is a strong one. The Lord will destroy the house
of the proud. Guys, if you will not deal with
your pride, it will take your family down. God promises, that's
a promise in the word of God. That's not a promise we like
to claim. You'll never get anybody claiming any pride promise at
a promise meeting. Give your favorite verse. Oh,
pride takes a family down, hallelujah. So I gotta realize I'm in big
trouble. And the worst verse in pride in all the Old Testaments,
the very next one, the strongest verse on pride, and that is Proverbs
16, five. Everyone, not some, Everyone
that is proud in the heart is an abomination to God. When do
I become an abomination to God as a child of God? When I stand
with Satan. Do you see what's going on here?
That's what he is. And I stand with him, I become
an abomination to God at that point. If I even regard iniquity
in my heart, God won't hear my prayers. Imagine if you're an
abomination standing with the enemy. Though hand join in hand,
they'll not go unpunished. Some of the modern translations
really help. Though they join forces. A church split is never
one guy by himself. He's got to go out and get a
crowd, right? Got to get out a group. How big the group is? You're going to go down. Okay,
look at Proverbs 16, 18. Oh brother, I went too far. 1618,
everybody knows this. Pride goes before destruction
and a haughty spirit before a fall. Even unsaved know that verse.
Somehow pride's gonna take you down. If you don't deal with
it, unless the spirit of God show you where it is in your
life, it'll take you down. You know, one of the things that's
really, really helped me is when I realized that I never have
ever delivered anybody. Never have. And I've never given
anybody freedom or victory. I like to spook out some of my
counselees. I'm glad you're here. Did you
come here to get victory? Oh, yeah. I said, we don't have
it. Well, you already got it, right?
All we got to do is help you stand in what's already yours.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could sell Victory? I'm telling
you, I'd be dressed better. I would have been further in
the airplane, up front, if I could sell. I'm what they call the
second class flyers. First class and the rest. One
plane I was going so far back I thought maybe I had the private
room. Okay, where were we? Let me look. I've got to go back. You guys
interrupted me and I didn't know where I was going. Am I going to the very last one?
We just did what, Proverbs 16, what? 16, 18. See, the reason
I'm so smart is I write the next reference right under that verse.
You guys thought I had all this memorized. Proverbs 28, 25. Yeah, this is the last one in Proverbs. No, it isn't the last one. He
that is a proud heart stirs up strife. And in Proverbs 29.23,
a man's pride shall bring him down. And the question is why?
What's the correlation between pride and my life crumbling? And we wanna see that. I wanna
say something that I tell a lot of kids. There's one thing that
has destroyed more Christian ministries, more Christian individuals
than failure. Success. Look what we have, what? Accomplished. Look what we have. Be careful. You're on thin ice. Anything
that you do that has any lasting significance is God working through
you. You hear me? Get out of the road. Get out of the road. Don't stand
in his way. And when I counsel people, I'm
constantly praying in my heart, God, show me what to do next. Where should we go? And it's
amazing. Verses will pop up that I didn't
even know I knew, because I don't memorize scripture because of
my learning disabilities. It takes me forever. My wife
is horrid. She doesn't understand submission.
We were going to memorize Matthew 5, 6, and 7. I was on verse three
of Matthew five and she finished all three chapters. This isn't
a race. But I didn't know I had learning
disabilities, so you wonder why can't I memorize? What is wrong
with me? And then when I found out, at
least I know what's wrong, so I don't try to memorize them.
I just read scripture over and over and over again. And I'm
getting it that way rather than trying to memorize a verse. trying
to pull it up in my mind and all this stuff. It's really difficult.
So I had a kid that came. He was ready to give up on life.
16-year-old kid. Good-looking kid. Even his muscles
had a few muscles. You know, you want to see my
muscle slogan? Oh, wow. Do you lift weight or just steal
food? What's going on here? And he was telling me he was
worthless because he had dyslexia. And he didn't visualize. I don't
either. And I said, I don't either. I said, if God can use me, a
guy who can't visualize. You know, I said, I graduated
from school, come lucky. They said, we need the desk. Really,
I mean, if you went back to the Bible school and they said they
taught you, had you teach in a Bible college? Cheap pay or
what? Why did they hire you? I mean,
I was likely not to succeed. Just because of my learning disabilities.
You don't know you have learning disabilities and they teach you
like you have all everything in place and you don't, you fail. And that just lets you know how
dumb you are. So I told you about my dumb stuff. I want you to
go to James 4 because this is where it really starts making
sense. We looked at what did Satan do? He wanted to run his
own life. We looked in Proverbs that when
I am running my own life, there's a lot of consequences in Proverbs
as is going to happen if I do that. James 4 puts it all together.
Why is it that if I have pride in my life, I will live a defeated
life? And where I'm defeated is not
important, you understand? Whether it's sexual, whether
you're stealing, whatever you're doing, you will be defeated. Okay, we got involved in the Swaggart situation. I know this
is being videoed, you always gotta be careful. Not dealing
with him, but dealing with people involved with him. I don't wanna
go any further than that. And I'm gonna share only newspaper
stuff, so there's no problem, right? This is a newspaper. Okay,
Swaggart, they realized that obviously a pastor that's struggling
like this needed help, so they brought in a big name demon caster
that came and cast lust demons out of this man. Hallelujah,
thank God, right? Praise God. This guy is a good
preacher. This guy loves the Lord, I really believe with all
my heart, but he was trapped. It's easy, we've had good people
doing rotten stuff. My wife is a prophet. I come
home, I said, you know, we've got this person doing this, and
we've had, you name it on the spectrum, from a guy who made
his living in pono films and being a male stripper, to the
other end. I mean, everything. There's nothing
that you could do that hasn't come through our office more
than once. And so I'll say, you know, he's
really a nice person. My wife's a prophet. Nice people
don't do that. I said, but inside he's nice.
Now we have rotten people. You know, there's some rotten
people who do rotten stuff. And I never tell a guy who's,
if a guy's rotten, I say, you know, you're really rotten. I
mean, you don't want to counsel with me. I'm not the typical,
whatever, I don't know what all it's supposed to be, but I'll
call it like it is, but I'll love them anyway. And they know
I'm not rejecting them, but you are rotten. You better realize
this. You're one of the worst guys I've ever had in here. Hoping maybe the Holy Spirit
will use it. It just falls out of my mouth. I can't help it. I
don't plan what I'm going to say to these people. It just
comes, and I'm doing it because I love them. I care. I don't
think you look fine. Anybody that ever counseled me,
no matter how evil, wicked, screwy stuff they were doing that didn't
feel right, I loved them and cared for them. I do. God just
gave me a tremendous love for hurting people. And especially
hurting because of wrong choices and just destroying their lives.
How many HIV people have we counseled? Tons of them. They should have
said no, but they said yes. Now they're suffering eternal
consequences, or at least now, you know, here and now consequences.
But this horrible disease is getting them. Okay. Now let's
look in James, because James tells us why pride will take
a stand. James 4.6. And I have them read
this. But he giveth more grace, wherefore
he saith, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
My question is, what does God want to give? And they'll say,
grace. And I say, you're wrong. Okay, wrong. I said, yeah, you're
right. It says God will give what? More grace. I said, if
you had financial problems, in this hand I had some money, in
this hand I had more money, what would you take? More money. Well then, the question is, what's
grace? And we had this guy running around
the platform trying to tell us. But one of the definitions he
uses didn't help me. Because it's a good Bible school
definition. I think the teachers use that because they don't know
what grace is. They say it's unmerited favor of God. Well
so is love and mercy. Are love and mercy and grace
all the same thing or are they different things? It just means I didn't
earn it. You know what I'm saying? There's
got to be more to it than that. And I really heard this and it
stuck with me. You can react if you want to.
Just say it is a definition of grace or a working definition
of grace. But let me tell you, it'll help you more to understand
grace with this particular aspect of it. And I've looked at it
in all the Hebrew and Greek and all that other stuff. Grace, or it's
not grace in the Old Testament, but all the Greek stuff. Philippians
1.6 says, he that hath begun a good work in you will perform
it on the day of Christ. Paul is committed to work on
my life. But then he picks that thought up again in chapter two,
verse 13. And he said, for it is God that worketh in
you. And you're going, is he stuttering? He just said it in
chapter one. Why are you saying that again? Saying the very same
thing. But he adds something, both. Both, that's two things.
To will and to do of God's good pleasure. What's he saying? He's
saying there, God is going to give me the desire, number one,
and the ability to make choices that would honor God. That's
what grace is. It's the empowering of God to live the way God wants
me to live. It's His power. I was saved by
what? I didn't one day say, well, I think I'll become a Christian.
First of all, I went all through a high school in Hollywood, and
we never had any Christians in our school. I think it was 5,000
kids that went through that school, and I was there, or 6,000 went
through. There wasn't one Christian. So I didn't know what a Christian
was. I didn't know what Catholics were. I knew what Ash Wednesday
was, because on Ash Wednesday, we got permission to get ashes,
so we went out of school, smoked our cigarettes, and went back
in. That was some of my religious
moments as a teenager. I mean, that was my background.
I mean, just nothing Christian at all. Okay, so it wasn't, it
was God that called me. Go through the scripture, look
at called, chosen. But I don't get all that stuff.
I'm not as Reformed Presbyterian as my Reformed Presbyterian friends
over here. Because they had to know if I was chosen. My wife
chose me. I love Larry and Nora. Anyway,
but I started looking at that and I see everybody fighting
over that. I've got it answered. Someone wants to fight over all
this 5 point Calvinism or 10 point Calvinism or whatever.
It's very simple. I said, God chose me before the
foundation of the world because he never would have afterwards. Hey, would he have chosen you?
Think about it. Couldn't he have done better? I got answers, everybody wants
to fight with me, I got these real profound answers. They laugh
and walk away, we're so glad that they did this to me. Okay, so if we could see grace
as the empowering of God in my life to make right choices, let
me give you a wonderful verse from Romans. If God be for us,
what? But if God is resisting you,
does it make any differences for you? And who does God resist? The proud. And don't think the
enemy doesn't know scripture. If he can get you to be prideful,
he's got you in whatever issues you're doing. Can you say we
can cast all the lust demons out of somebody? after Swaggart
had lust demons cast out of him. And the assembly of God, this
is all newspaper stuff, said, please step out of the church
for a year and a half. We're your authority. He said, you can't tell me what
to do. And a few months later, he was arrested in California
for the same stuff. So the lust demons probably just stayed in
the parking lot until they got in the parking lot. Do you see?
So can I really help someone at all with any issue if I don't
deal with this one? I don't care what the issue is.
See, the issue is up here. We're looking at the hole in
the bottom of the shoe. This has got to be dealt with
or you'll never help anybody permanently. Maybe we don't help
them permanently, at least they'll know what's going on. You know,
if they do fall, they'll go, I lived probably back in my life.
You know? Okay. So, let's go back and look
at this. But God has more grace. Wherefore
you say, if God resists, and the word resist means push away,
not to allow to remain or enter in the Greek. God pushes away
the proud, but he will give his empowering to the humble. Pardon
me? It's in the Bible, honey. James 4.6. Okay, this is one
of my favorite places. Now, I think sometimes we have a distorted
view of pride and humility. See, pride is not feeling good
that you've been used by God. You know, where it goes. One of the hardest things to
do is when people praise you, what do you do with it? You know,
because it can be flattery and it's a net for your feet and
all this stuff. Are you trying to trap me? You said you liked what I
said. Are you trying to trap me? Name
of Jesus! I'm sorry, I said something.
You know, if you do something and you do it well, whether you
sing or play or whatever, as long as you weren't showing off
your stuff, just say thank you. That's encouraging. Why did they
say you were doing well? And what you did, you let them
walk away and it's not all on me. But a humble person, you
know, no, it wasn't a good talk. Or, no, it wasn't very good. You know, I know that I only
hit the cracks three times when I was playing that piano number,
you know, or whatever. You know, or my grandmother gave
me the lessons. Sick. A humble person is God,
if you, I pray, God, if I'm going to bless you, he's got to work
through this. I'm just telling you words. Do you understand what I'm saying?
It's got to be a God thing. It's not a me thing. And we gotta
get there, beloved. That God would somehow use the
way we are, our personality. In Bible school they said I use
my hands too much and I'd never be any good. And it looks like
I'm drying them or something all the time. My gestures don't
mean anything. They really don't. They just
go and I can't help it. And I don't care anymore. I used
to think about it. I put it in my pocket. This isn't working. If they don't like it, I can't
help it. I took the mask off. It's like Phantom of the Opera.
I hope you didn't scream. It's off. Just me. That's all I can be is me. I
want to be a better me, but this can only be me. So a humble person
is God, work through me. Let me be a blessing. Father,
give me a burden for the last. Give me a caring, whatever. I just want to be a tool in your
hand. That's a humble person. It's not I can't do anything
and I'm no good and all that stuff. That's the enemy stuff.
Okay, now, he gives all this grace to us. Then we go down
to verse seven. Now we're getting into warfare,
God's warfare stuff. The next thing he tells us, first
we have to humble ourselves before the Lord. Verse seven says we're
to submit ourselves, therefore, to God. Submit is to get under,
like submarine. Submit to who? God first, and
then God's ordained stuff in your life. We're to submit. What
we have our counselees do at this point, we ask our counselees,
would you, when you go home tonight, it's homework, this is Wednesday,
I want you to identify all areas of your life. What are the areas
of your life right now? Well, I'll give you some. You're
a son, aren't you? Are you a brother? We're going
to ask the Holy Spirit to come in and take control of these.
We already talked about your rock music. What about music?
So the Holy Spirit come in there. What makes you you? And we put
those down. It's like a piece of pie. I mean,
we're a whole person, but they're different parts of me. And then
after we cast the spirits out, We heard about sweeping a house
clean? Ain't so good. We need to put something back
there. So we pray the enemy out of someone's life and want them
then to open the areas of the life to the Holy Spirit. What's
someone filled with the Spirit? It's someone who is allowing
the areas of life to be under the control of the Spirit. That's
all it is. It's not a mystical thing. It's letting the Spirit
be in control, but specifically opening up the areas of my life.
This is what Worsby said. Any area, you write this one
down, this is good. Any area of your life that you don't want
the Holy Spirit to control, Satan will. You just put a bullseye
in your chest. You know, there's an area, no,
I can't give that to God. Well, you're in trouble, because
the enemy's going right after that area. You don't want God
to control it? Okay, I'm after it. What are the two hardest
areas for young people to give to God. When I got teenagers,
usually, and I don't care what homeschool group they're in,
or how squeaky their families are. Courtship or dating, for one,
they can see the girl now, you know, ugly, horribly unattractive,
but she's God's choice for me. If I give it to God, I mess up
my life with her. And the second is music. All I can listen to
is what? Chamber music, as far as I'm
concerned. Put it in the chamber and shut the door. I can't stand
chamber music. But see, that's their concept. If I give it to
God, what's he going to do? Mess my life up. Because he has
what? Bad concept of God. 2 Corinthians
10, 3, 4, and 5. One of those things there is
what? Distorted view of God. It's one of the enemy wants,
gets to have. I can't trust God. Why? Well, look what he's done
or hasn't done and all this other stuff. So, 10, 3, 4, and 5. That's usually, that's
the Monday thing. We start on, do they understand the parameters
of warfare? So, someone had to cover it this week, I would think,
in some of the warfare courses here. Because that's such an
important, I mean, that's it. That's warfare in a nutshell.
It's those three verses. Because often that spins every different
way. Now let's go on. Now after I'm willing to open
the areas of my life to God's control, from that place what
can I do? What's the next verse? Resist. The devil on what? He'll flee
from me. But if I'm resisting God, where
will the enemy go? Nowhere. You see that? If I'm resisting God in my life,
the enemy doesn't have to go anywhere. I need to, what, be
submitted to the Lord. And I'll tell you, the first
time around, I thought I really had arrived, I don't chew gum,
I don't spit on the sidewalk, I'm not kissing girls, and that's
it. Brand new Christian. I'm spiritual. Well, then God takes you around
again, right? I'm so glad I didn't get this
guy running around platforms thing of the list. So I got saved
too quick and got away from all of the Christians. So I have
a list of what Christians do and don't. I got to tell you
about this one. The guys were always going down to Juarez,
which is very reasonable girls for rent down there. And I'm
a Christian now, not quite three months, and I don't think Christians
do that. So I keep staying at the base
all by myself. I'd have a lot more fun if I
wasn't saved. I'm a new Christian and everybody's out there and
I'm just all by myself. And I'll tell you, basic training
in El Paso, Texas is not a really fun place to be by yourself out
there in the desert. Well, one day they said, well,
listen, okay, we feel bad about it. Would you go to a movie?
I said, sure. I always went to movies. So we went to a movie together
and the movie was Niagara. And we're, sounds good, it's
probably about a waterfall or something. So we're in the movie,
but the star, which I didn't pay much attention, was a gal
that I was involved in X-raying her, Marilyn Monroe. I was unsaved
then, and now I'm a Christian. And this movie starred Marilyn
Monroe, and she's in bed, and the covers are slipping, and
all of a sudden I remember I heard about the rapture, that Jesus
was coming back for Christians. And I prayed he wouldn't come
back because I knew he would never look in that church for me. I
mean, in that church. Same thing, it was a movie house. But I mean, no one had to say
anything about movies good or bad or whatever. I'm sitting
there, I'm just dying. What if the Lord comes back and
I'll be left? See, that was a good title for a book, Left Behind.
I should have picked up on it all those years ago when I was
in the Army. It's amazing what the Holy Spirit
can do without a list. Do you know that? If you're just
sensitive to the Holy Spirit. So then it wasn't, well, I got this
list from the Baptist, and I want to be a good Baptist, so I don't
do these things. I didn't do these things because the Spirit
of God told me not to. I'm not a legalist. You know, my son's
a runner. And there's a lot of things he
didn't do in junior high, high school, college. Now he's a youth
pastor and he's started running again after he got his marriage
all settled down. And now he can run again. Now
he's running. And he loves running. And there's a lot of things runners
don't do because they want to what? Win. But they're legalists,
you know. Because they won't do those things. No, they want
to win. Do you see this? Will this help
me to be what God wants me to be? That's how I look at it.
I don't care if you chew gum. Or you name ten good Christians
that chew gum. Just ten, ten, ten. Name ten. I like that part of his message. See, I was listening. I was listening
to the guy. Then after I resist the enemy,
we usually don't go down to the spark, but draw close to God.
But see, after we've dealt with the enemy, we want to draw close
to him. Because we switch from here to something else. I go
to what time? Ten minutes left? Terrible. Five minutes? We'll finish the
rest in the hallway. Well, anyway, I go through all
the scriptures that people say, well, I don't believe that. I
don't believe the enemy's behind everything. And what about the
world, flesh, and the devil? And I'm going, what about the
world, flesh, and the devil? The whole world lies in the wicked
one. The flesh is where my sin patterns are. And Satan uses
the world system and everything. I do not believe that you're
ever tempted apart from demonic involvement. The Bible never
tells you to resist temptation. It says resist who? the devil
and there's a difference. I mean if I was to resist temptation
couldn't I find one verse? Go to James 1. I mean I'm sorry
we're running out of time and we really are. I gotta give you
a quick answer here and skip a lot but you could buy my book
please. You know I got grandchildren,
two of them, in Iraq. I really do. A granddaughter
and a grandson in Iraq and a grandson that came home from there. It's
all from one family. They all wave American flags.
This is a real flag waving one of my families. But my granddaughter
being over there bothers me more than two grandsons being over
there. But she's really neat. Very beautiful girl. I hadn't
seen her for years because we didn't have the money to see
them. She's visiting our house. I said, honey, I'm really concerned.
You're so beautiful. She says, Grandpa, don't worry about me.
I'm a virgin. If some guy messes with me, I'll shoot him. She's
an MP. Amen. Right after her grandpa. James 1.14, but every man is
tempted in the same way, but not every man is tempted in the
same issues. But the process is the same for everybody in
here. The issues are different because they're my issues, right?
My issue, yours. Every man is tempted when they're
drawn away their own secret desires and enticed. And when those desires
are conceived, they're gonna give birth to sin and so on.
That's why, what are we supposed to do? take our thoughts captive
before they give birth to actions, right? The battle's up here.
Okay, what's the answer? We're gonna skip a whole bunch
of stuff, but you can get it in the book, but what's the answers
for all of this? Oh, you gotta go to Hebrews 4,
and this is not part of the answer. Hebrews 4, 15 and 16, I love
this. If you will put power, Instead
of grace, you will find probably the verse that's going to jump
out all the more. Look at this one. For we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feelings of our firmateeps,
which is all poised, tempted like we are. How was Jesus tempted?
By the devil, period. Yet, without sin. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of power, that we may obtain mercy and find
power to help in our time of need. It's a throne of what? Empowering. It's a throne of
grace. I go there. Why am I defeated? Because when
I need to go there, I don't want to. Do you know there's pleasure
in sin? And I enjoy the pleasure more
than going to God and asking him, empower me to make the right
choice here. Empower me to say no instead of yes. And I've said
yes for years, but I've got to start saying what? No. And you
say, God, I need your help here. I'm going to that throne that
will give me the power to make the choices that went on to God.
Okay, what is the answer to pride? And the answer is this, how do
we get rid of pride? Because we got rid of a lot of
stuff this week. They dump whiskey down the toilet. And I had a
kid get rid of his marijuana and all this stuff that was there.
So how do I get rid of pride? And the answer is this. In Luke
9, and that's this. I say, who woke up in your bed
today? They said me. I said, you can't get rid of
pride. Because pride is building life around the guy who woke
up, isn't it? Pride is building life around who? Me! Jesus knew
that. He said, if any man will come
after me, his terms, let him what? Say no to self, and take
up his cross, one Sunday a month or something, every day, and
follow him. What did Jesus say in the garden?
Father, not my will, but thy will. How do we deal with pride?
Every day we need to die to self. Jesus knew that. If I don't die
to self, then I'm not going to live for Christ. I've got to
say no to me. Lord, you take control today.
Fill me with your spirit today. Lord, lead me today. That's what
I need. It's a daily thing. And I'll give you one more. Galatians 2.20, we won't look
at that one, but that's a good one. That's Paul saying how he
lived for self before and afterwards he lived a crucified life. But
the verse I like the best of all, and if you look in a, what's
that Greek thing where it gives you how it's translated? No, lexicon. You look in a Greek lexicon and
this verse 31 is only translated by another translation as it
is in the lexicon, as it was given in the Greek, and that
happens to be a translation I don't want you to say. I don't care for that one too
much. 1 Corinthians 15 31 and I'm gonna
give you this like it is an lexicon. I believe there was two reasons
God used the Apostle Paul. You know we have over a thousand
biographies in our house of Christians and we always look for why did
God use Hudson Taylor? Why did God use this person?
Our kids were reading, why did God use him? What was the key?
And often it stood out, you know, why they were so usable. Why
did God use Paul? Number one, he said, this one
thing I do. What is the one thing the greatest Christian ever lived
did? He let go of the past. He put it behind him. That's
what counseling's gotta be about, isn't it? You know, dump your
trash in the office and the cleaning lady will take it out, you know?
Let it go of it, just so you can reach forth to what? What's
ahead. I ask him, how far can you drive
focusing in the rearview mirror? Not very far. Look ahead. The second one is this. Paul
said, I die daily. You can be sure of this, brethren,
as much as I glory over you in Christ Jesus. What was the key
to Paul walking in victory? Letting go of the past and dying
to self on a daily basis so God could work through him. That
is the answer to all addictions, all emotional stuff, all everything. If you don't deal with this,
all the other counseling is not gonna work, trust me. Remember
I said, if you don't like the product, go back and look what
you're doing. And what have I left out? What do I need to leave
out? What do I need to put in? And we're still looking at what
we should be doing and so on. And Paul's helping me to do that.
Because sometimes you get your nose so close to the window,
you know, and someone from the outside sees things. As long
as he doesn't see any fault with me, I don't care what he finds
fault with the organization, you know, just not me. I'm not
that fragile anymore, but I was at one time. you know, until
I really learned how to dye the cell, because a dead man doesn't
get offended. Have you ever gone by and seen
somebody in a cheap coffin? It's not even satin, it's cotton.
And look, he's got his – they could at least wash his T-shirt.
I didn't know he had so many ugly tattoos. That's why I don't
take my coat off. I don't want you to see my tattoos.
I got a doozy on my chest, though. It's the Lord's Supper, and you
can watch them chew. I'm a very religious person. But I'll tell you, there's nothing
more thrilling than bumping into a kid you helped at 14 and seeing
him at 20, 21, I've been doing this for 25 years, and saying,
I'm still not doing that stuff. Why? Because I did something
magic? No, because he's dying to self. He knows how to say
no to this stuff. That's why he's walking in victory.
The Lord wants all of us to walk in victory. You know, we're not
stepchildren. We're all His kids. And He has a greater desire that
we would humble ourselves and lay before Him the issues and
all that kind of stuff. And if you have someone in your
life you can't get rid of, and I like this one, and it's impossible
for you to love them, ask God to love them through you. God,
I'll just be a tool. Just love them through me. Show
me ways. showing your love. This guy that wrote this book,
he was doing marriage counseling. He's sick of it, up to here.
He said, I did so much marriage counseling, there's books by
the zillions out there. How to love your wife, how to
kiss your wife, you know, how to buy her flowers, all this
stuff. He said, I've got more divorces in my church now with
all those books than we ever had before. The guy who does marriage
counseling says it's very simple. He says, what do I do? He says,
love your wife. Go. That's it. Love your wife. Go.
You don't need books. It's just working. We've got
more loving going on in our church. We have a long time by handing
them out all these books. It's amazing that Adam and Eve
and some of these people made it in scripture, they didn't
have all the books. I don't know how they made it without mine,
but you know, some of these other ones, yeah. Let's pray. Father, oh, there's so many kids
today involved in incest. pornography on the web and all
this stuff, Lord, and they're just trashing their lives. I
think of the parents that call, weeping. Our office, what do
we do? What do we do? Our kid is just,
you know, he's over the edge and doing all kinds of weird
stuff and all. But Lord, we're thankful that you've got the
answer. We didn't even go through what
we do with those that are sexually addicted, but we know, Father,
if they don't do this, anything else we do is not going to work.
So I pray that you would just take, this is so strong in my
heart for here, that we would just see that what the bottom
line issue really is in all defeated Christians' lives, regardless
how it's played out, regardless what it is, it's because there's
an area of their life that they're running. And the enemy's going
after that and will take it down. So, Father, we pray that the
Spirit of God, if there's some area of our life that we're not
willing to release to you, he'd show us. And we'd be willing
to let go of it and say, Father, you take it. Maybe it's our reputation. Who knows? Whatever it is. Our
finances, our concept of what success is and all that other
stuff. Father, we just want to be more like Jesus. Show us those things that may
be standing in the road. and that you may be glorified
in our lives and through our ministries. In Christ's name
we pray, amen. Remember the book.
Sexual Addiction
Series Freedom
As technology has increased in the world, so has the ability to do evil. WHat happens if you know someone or you personally are addicted to sexual sins. Dr. Logan reveals the process of helping someone be free of sexual sins.
| Sermon ID | 711181356360 |
| Duration | 1:13:12 |
| Date | |
| Category | Conference |
| Bible Text | James 4; Romans 6 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.