The Spirit of Jealousy

In one of David's psalms, he says, Oh, that I had the wings of a dove, that I could fly away and be at rest. And I often find myself having similar feelings, just some deep longing within me that would just like to leave this earth with all its troubles and sorrows, just like a deep longing to be somewhere where all troubles are behind us, a place where there's no envy, no strife, a place where it's a good and pleasant place to be, where people dwell together in unity in the presence of God, and the presence of God is real, and it's so near that we have nothing to strive about. He's there. It's His place. And He knows, and He sees, and He hears everything, and He can take care of everything. And we can rest in just worshiping and bringing glory to God. But this world is brutal. It's governed by the prince of evil, by the father of lies, and by He who was a murderer from the beginning, and He's bent on our destruction. And so I think God has this partial remedy for us now. He knows this. He knows it's a brutal place. He knows it's an evil place that's bent on our destruction. He experienced it firsthand when He came here in the flesh. He knows what it's like. And so God has a partial remedy, and it's supposed to be the Church. It's supposed to be the community of believers. It's supposed to be brothers who identify this common enemy. And they dwell in the presence of God, and they fight on His side of the battle. And it's more than just a friendship. It's deeper than just pleasant conversations over a meal. It goes way deeper than that. It's brotherhood. It's one-anothering. It's preferring one another greater than ourselves. In the Book of Acts, there's this term that comes... I think it's there roughly a dozen times, where it says they were of one accord. And that word that gets used there, of one accord, in Greek, it's one compound word. And it has the meaning of being together in a fierce way. Or it kind of even has this meaning of breathing heavily together. Breathing heavily together. The people were of the same spirit. They were transformed by the same blood. It's way deeper than our fellow employee at our workplace. It's a brother. But let's face it. Brotherhood is sometimes also really hard. It's sometimes really painful. It's sometimes really hurtful. Because relationships that go deeper than the surface are hard. They're difficult. But there's no good thing that isn't hard. As G.K. Chesterton said, the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It's been found difficult and left untried. And so I want to try to encourage us today that though it's hard, it's possible. And though there's things that are bent to destroy us, we have solutions. The Scriptures have solutions. Jesus has solutions. John D. Martin, I've heard him say a couple times how little groups start up. And to start with, they love each other so much that they could eat each other. And in a few years, lo and behold, that's what they're doing. You know, what happens? What happens? I think our brother James, when he wrote his epistle, has some answers for us, some things for us to consider, some things to say about this. And the main context I want to look at today is in James chapter 3. And I'll start here at verse 13 and read to the end. Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes from above, but it is earthly and natural and demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. There's a lot in here, and I think we could just spend the rest of the day bowing our heads and meditating upon this passage. But I guess because I'm a preacher, I'd like to expound on it a little more. He says, Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. Wisdom is meek and gentle. It ties in with some of the things that were shared here in the opening and after the opening. Wisdom is meek and gentle. Wisdom knows that it's important to have good aim, but it's equally important to know when to pull the trigger. He goes on here in verse 14 to say, But if we have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. For this wisdom is not that which comes from above, but is earthly and natural and demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. That sounds really bad. And we better have some kind of a sound understanding or idea of what that is and root it out if it's a part of us. He says if it's in our heart, if this spirit of jealousy or selfish ambition has found a home in our hearts, it needs to be rooted out. I'll be talking more about this spirit of jealousy and selfish ambition, but these spirits are looking for places to live and if we open our hearts to these things and they find a home there, it doesn't matter if it's just a little space. It doesn't matter if we give them the attic or a spare room. It says here if it exists, if it exists, it causes disorder in every evil work. It says it's earthly and sensual and demonic. And if this jealousy and selfish ambition exists in our heart, we can never see the truth for what it is. It says there in verse 14 that we end up lying against the truth. James makes it sound as if every disorder and every evil thing has its root somewhere in jealousy, somewhere in bitter jealousy and in selfish ambitions. And I'm thinking he's probably more right than I used to realize or would have thought. And before we think, aha, yeah, that applies. That applies to that person who doesn't like me. That applies to that person who I have a hard time getting along with or whatever. Like, let's really pause. I think this is a thing that is, and we'll look at some scriptural examples, but this is a thing that each and every one of us is prone to. We've been reading through the book of 1 Samuel for family devotions and some time back there's some things that really stood out to me about the spirit of jealousy that manifested itself in Saul against David. Jealousy is an emotion, and emotions in and of themselves are not evil. An emotion is this welling up inside of us, and it does not necessarily equal sin. But there are certain emotions that are so prone to causes to sin that we must guard against them. It's like anger. Anger is one of those. And when you feel that emotion rising up, the apostle says, beware, sin not. Don't let the sun go down over this one. You've got to deal with it that day. And anger and jealousy are very similar in their natures. In fact, the scripture often talks about how anger burns like a fire, and so it does about jealousy. In Psalm 79.5 it says, Jealousy burns like a fire. They're similar in nature. Proverbs 6.34 says, Jealousy makes a man furious, and he will not spare when he takes revenge. And it's an emotion that God has. Now think about that. In the second of the Ten Commandments, when he's saying, You shall not make yourself any graven images, in there it says, For the Lord your God is a jealous God. In fact, in Exodus 34.14 it says, The Lord whose name is jealous. Whose name is jealous. God has feelings about something. He has feelings about things that are rightfully his, but someone else takes them away. And that's what idolatry does, and that's why it's in that second commandment when it talks about graven images. God, I think it's in the book of James, where it says, He earnestly, or he yearns jealously for the spirit that he put in us. God yearns jealously for the spirit he put in us. When he made man, and he blew that breath of life into him, no one else can do that. No one else ever did, no one else ever will create life. Life is something only God can create. And what he wanted was that life to be in someone who would return glory to him. And when people have turned away, and they start giving that glory and that worship to something else, he's jealous. He jealously yearns for that life. God will share his glory with no one. One of the prophets, I think it's Isaiah, says, My glory I will share with no one. He will share his love, he will share his truth, he will even share his power and his strength with us humans. Believe it or not, he'll share all those things, but he will not share his glory. So this is a characteristic of God, and up until now, like this thing that I described about God, up until now, there's things that we can feel similar about. Similar. Maybe not exactly, but similar. We can rightfully, there's things that rightfully belong to us, and we're allowed to be jealous about it. Maybe the best example is our wife. She is the glory of her husband. And it's right, if she starts showing her affection to someone else, it's right to be jealous about that. It doesn't justify any action that you would take, but it's right to have that. The place where it differs from God is that God is God. And when the day comes when he's going to pour out his wrath and take vengeance on all those who have not given him glory, it's right, it's just, he can do it. We can't. He has instructed us to seek not revenge, for vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Some time ago, Brother Max had given a real good message about that and brought out the differences in life. A jealousy that's right, and an envy or a jealousy that's wrong. So back to this account in 1 Samuel. The most natural response for humans, when this emotion wells up within us, the most natural response for humans is to get rid of the person who causes the feeling. That's where God has a right to do something like that and we don't anymore. So back to this story of Saul and David. It's the only place that I know of in the scripture where it says that someone was plagued by an evil spirit of the Lord. Now that might seem real strange. Just why does it say that an evil spirit of the Lord came and tormented Saul? And we might reason that God permitted an evil spirit to go, but it doesn't really say that. There's other places in scripture where it says God sent a lying spirit to do something, to accomplish some will. He sends strong delusions to do something in his sovereignty. He orders these things the way he wants. But here it says, an evil spirit of the Lord came and tormented him. And I think it's quite obvious that it's the spirit of jealousy. The scriptures doesn't say that, but the fruits show it. When Samuel told Saul, after he came back from fighting the Amalekites and failed miserably in doing what the Lord said, Samuel said to Saul, The Lord has taken the kingdom from you and given it to your neighbor that is better than you. That must have been really stinging. Saul had been chosen by God. He had been anointed for this place. He was supposed to have this place. And now he's being told that this place is being taken from him and it's been given to a neighbor who's better than him. A little neighbor boy at that. It says that the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit of the Lord tormented him. It was jealousy that tormented him. And jealousy is of the Lord. It's his name. But when God's spirit is taken away from someone and the spirit of jealousy enters in without God's spirit being there, it works evil. Or as James said, it causes disorder and every evil thing. So let's pay a little bit of attention how this spirit worked in Saul. So in 1 Samuel 18, so the setting is that David, the Israelites were in battle with the Philistines and David killed Goliath. And now they come back into town and they had a great victory because David killed Goliath and the Philistines fled. They come back into the city. And it says here, From all the cities of Israel, women came out dancing with tambourines, with joy and with cymbals to greet David. And the women began a song and sang, Saul slew his thousands and David his ten thousands. These words seemed evil in the eyes of Saul. And he said to David, They ascribed to you ten thousands and to me they ascribed only thousands. So from that day forward, Saul eyed David with suspicion. There's a verse here that's not in the Masoretic, or not in the Septuagint, but it's in the Masoretic text where it says, The next day an evil spirit rushed upon him. This evil spirit rushed upon him and Saul hurled his spirit, David, saying, I'll pin him against the wall. And David avoided it twice. It goes on here to say, Saul was apprehensive at the mere presence of David and he removed David from himself and he made David his captain of the thousand and he went out and came before the people. And David was prudent in all his ways and the Lord was with him and Saul saw David to be exceedingly wise and he felt challenged by his presence. But all of Israel and Judah loved David for he went out and came in before the people. One of the most common causes for jealousy is when others seem to be more loved than we are. They seem to be more esteemed than we are. When those women came out and sang that song that honored David and belittled Saul, it was too much for Saul. That spirit of jealousy rushed upon him and he gave it place in his heart and he lost his sense of reason. But David had done no wrong. A couple other things that stood out to me about this is after Jonathan realized what his dad was doing, that Saul was trying to kill David without a cause, Jonathan came to Saul and he reasoned with him. And he said, what has David done? He's only done right. He's put his life on the line and killed this Philistine. He has done no evil and you're trying to kill him. And when Saul was in the presence of this reasoning spirit, when Saul was able to think rationally, when he was able to reason and say, he was able to say, you're right. He hasn't done wrong. I will not do anything more to David. But it didn't last. After a little while, that spirit came back into Saul. He had not dealt with it and he opened his heart up to it again. And what happens? He tries to pin him against the wall again. And this thing happens over and over in Saul's life. He hunts down David. He goes out into the wilderness with his men and he believes a lie. He believes he has convinced himself that David is trying to kill him. He has convinced himself that David is guilty of the very thing that he was guilty of. And so he's trying to hunt him down and twice this happened where he was in a position, one time in a cave and one time during the night when he was sleeping, where he was in a position that David could have easily took his life. And the one time he cut off a piece of his garment, the other time he took his jug, and afterwards he said, hey Saul, look, what do you believe? Why do you believe I'm trying to kill you? God delivered me into your hands and I didn't do anything. And both times, David or Saul would reason, you're right, you're more righteous than I am. And yet, time would go on and that spirit would come back into him and he'd go on the pursuit of David again. One time, one time Saul was, Saul found out that that priest who had given David the showbread and given him the sword of Goliath and showed him a little bit of favor, it angered Saul so much that someone would be in cahoots with David, someone would maybe show him some favor that he went there and he killed, I don't remember, but like maybe a hundred and some priests of the Lord, or had him killed. It's an unreasonable spirit. It's irrational. It does not believe in truth. It's the spirit of bitter jealousy and selfish ambition and it lies against the truth and we lose our sense of reasoning. And the natural response, when we feel that emotion, is just exactly what Saul did. Let's get rid of this man. Let's get rid of this David who causes this evil spirit, he thinks, who causes this evil spirit to come upon me. It's earthly, sensual, and demonic response, but it's an age-old problem. And the closer to home it gets, the more the problem becomes common, right? How many of us ever feel jealous about, I don't know, what goes on at the White House? Nobody. We don't. We don't care. How many of us are ever jealous when we find out somebody in some way, far country, somebody we don't even know gets honor, gets glory, gets some promotion or something? It doesn't bother us at the least. But the closer it comes to home, the more it bothers us. And when it happens to our neighbor, it kind of bothers us. When it happens to our cousin, it's a little bothersome. When it happens to our brother, it really kind of hurts us. Because we have this idea, and we kind of rightfully have this idea that we're equal with brothers, but our fleshly tendency is to think that we're just a little bit better than them, and yet we're not even, the scripture tells us that we shouldn't even consider ourselves equal with our brothers, but we should humble ourselves and prefer them greater as ourselves. It's an age-old problem. When Cain saw that Abel's sacrifice was accepted and his wasn't, he was filled with jealousy. Was it wrong that he wanted his offering to be accepted? No. Was it wrong that he wished God would accept him? Absolutely not. It was right. It was right for him to want that. But the problem is that he thought the solution was, let's get rid of Abel. Sarah and Hagar, Abraham's wife Sarah, when she got jealous over Hagar because she bore a son, was she wrong that she saw some of her husband's affections go toward this son and toward Hagar? No, I don't think it was wrong that she felt that way, but her solution to the problem was, let's get rid of Hagar. Esau was jealous of Jacob because he received the blessing from his father. It wasn't wrong that he wanted that blessing. It wasn't wrong. The problem was that he thought the solution was to get rid of Jacob. The brothers of Joseph were jealous. They were jealous at Joseph because they saw something in Joseph and his father, some kind of closeness, some kind of relationship that they didn't have. It isn't wrong that they wanted that. The problem is that they thought the solution was to get rid of Joseph and to trick their father. Did it solve any problems? No, the problem haunted them for the rest of their lives. When Moses was out in the wilderness with the children of Israel, there was that time when he called together 70 elders, and these 70 elders started prophesying. And then, some strange way, there were two other men in the camp that weren't of these 70 elders, and they also started prophesying. And there was kind of this cry, like, wait a minute, why are these two guys prophesying? Even to the point that Joshua told Moses, tell them not to. And Moses was like, I wish that all men would prophesy. This is another really common thing, is people have some kind of little jealousy, a spirit of jealousy that rises up because of another brother's gift, another man's gift. The prodigal son's brother was jealous because his brother got all this honor from his father. The Jews were filled with jealousy that Jesus was getting all this attention, and what did they think the solution was? Get rid of him. Get rid of him. In all of these scenarios, there would be others, but in all of these scenarios, what we see is there's kind of a brotherhood rivalry. These were all close people. It was Cain and Abel were twin brothers. Jacob and Esau were twin brothers. Joseph and the others were brothers. There was strife and there was disorder in the church of Corinth. And when Paul was addressing this problem, some were saying they're of Paul, some were saying they're of Apollos, and when Paul addresses this thing in chapter 3, verse 3, he says, Since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly? Are you not walking like mere men? Can we see that what James says is probably really accurate, where he says, Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder in every evil thing. And James continues the thought into chapter 4. Remember, these chapter breaks were put in later. He continues this thought in chapter 4, where he says, What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is it not the source of your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have, so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. Proverbs 27.4 says, Wrath is cruel and anger is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy? One of the things I'd just like us to remember, there is an unseen realm around us. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and rulers of darkness and spiritual wickedness. Our enemy is never another human being. There are spirits that go around and they seek for a place to live. And it's up to us, though, whether we let them in. It's up to us whether we feed them. It's up to us whether we entertain them and give them lodging. In Romans 13 verses 11 to 14, he says, Do this, knowing the time that is already, knowing the time that it is already, the hour for you to be awakened from sleep. For now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provisions for the flesh in regards to its lusts. As always, the answer is found in Jesus. Remember that Jesus is the Emmanuel. He is the God with us. He is the firstborn of all creation. By Him all things were created, invisible and visible. He rightly deserves all the glory and honor. But when He came here to earth, when He became a human being and He showed us how to live as human beings, what did He do? He humbled Himself. He made Himself of no reputation. He became a servant and was obedient to the death on the cross. He was stripped of all His glory. He was spit on. He was whipped. He was naked. And when that naked and blood-crusted body was hanging high there on the cross, it was shameful. All the glory was gone. And He could have avoided it all. He could have called 10,000 angels and rescued this whole situation. But He refused to become jealous. He refused selfish ambition. And instead He said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. When Jesus did that, He is the epitome of the proverb that says a soft answer turns away wrath. In 1 Thessalonians 1.10, when it says we wait for Jesus who rescued us from the wrath to come, this was the... Think about... And this is something I used to wonder about when I was a little boy. It's like, why didn't Jesus do that? He could have done all that. He could have come. He could have pulled those nails, come down off the cross, called these angels by. He could have proved something. He could have showed how much power and strength He has. And I used to wonder why He didn't do that. But it was the only and perfect soft answer that turned away wrath, delivered us from the wrath to come. It is the way for us humans to be. It was done through meekness of wisdom that is from above. Back to this passage in James. He ends it by saying, but the wisdom from above is first pure. It's first pure. There's a principle in God that unless we first reckon with His righteousness, unless we first reckon with the truth in His righteousness, we cannot experience His true peace. If we don't get this first one right, if we skip this first one and we want to be peace and full of mercy and all these things, we'll get it all wrong. We'll be friends with all the wrong people. We'll be in companionship with all the wrong people. He says, the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable and gentle and reasonable and full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering and without hypocrisy. Jesus was a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. And it says of Melchizedek that he was first a king of righteousness, then a king of peace. It's first pure, then peaceable. It's gentle. It's reasonable. It's able to reason. It's able to reason soundly. But Diodorus said here in the opening that when he was reading that thing that the man wrote, silence your opponents with reason and not with noise. It's really good. And then he says, and the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Seed begets something, right? And seed begets after its own kind. So seed that begets righteousness, seed that's fruit is righteousness, comes from righteousness. Seed comes after its kind and seed brings forth after its own kind. And the only seed that we can sow is seed that we have. If we are not first righteous, we cannot sow seeds of righteousness. And this seed of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace, which is exactly what we see in what Jesus did when he made all things right, not by demonstrating how powerful it is, his power, but not demonstrating his power in 10,000 angels and his ability to bring all the enemies under his feet. But it was done in yielding himself as a servant, in allowing himself to have all his glory and all his reputation stripped away from him. And Jesus says, therefore he has a name that is exalted, or God says, therefore he has a name that is exalted above all names. James says in his first chapter that every good and perfect gift is from above. On the earth, nothing good comes without conflict. But while we're waiting, while we're here waiting for those wings of a dove to fly away, let's prepare ourselves. Let's prepare ourselves. As one man said, this period that we're in right now is the dressing room for eternity. And he's looking for a bride that's made herself ready, whose clothes is washed. I'm just going to close with some words in Romans 12, where Paul says, let love, verse 9 of chapter 12, let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Give preference to one another in honor. Not lagging behind in diligence. Fervent in spirit. Serving the Lord. Rejoicing in hope. Persevering in tribulation. Devoted to prayer. Contributing to the needs of the saints. Practicing hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another and do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. I'll just close with that and I'll open it up for comments, corrections. Yeah, I appreciated that. I appreciated the opening, Dito. That was really a blessing. And Duane, I really appreciated your message. Showed convicting. A lot of things to think about. I used to read that account with King David and Saul and I would think, why doesn't he just get them? And I think David said even, he said something like, I don't know the exact quote, but it was like, how can I lift up my hand against the Lord's anointed? Like something just kept him from it. And I can kind of see that now. I think I'm starting to understand it a little bit more. Like David, it says he was a man after God's own heart and he wanted to see Saul better. He wanted to see Saul repent. He didn't want to slay him. He wanted him to get, like he loved Saul and so he wasn't willing to slay him. He was being long-suffering and patient with him and just hoping he would come to his senses. Yeah, it's such a blessing. We can be going through situations with God's anointed in the church and we should have that same heart. Just, oh Lord, just help him, please. He's tormented. There's this, I don't know if it's a quote or what, but I've been seeing it a lot recently and it says, the world, something like the world gives a lesson and then afterwards there's a test. But God gives a test to teach us a lesson. I've really been appreciating that. I think I had a whole lot more thoughts, but that's all I wanted to share. God bless you. Oh, one more. Today's the day, technically Easter, and there's probably a lot of sermons that are given about God rising from the dead. And I just thought it really interesting how Jesus rising from the dead. But I thought it was really interesting how Dido's opening and then Duane's message were both about opportunities of us, for us to die to ourselves and rise again. Just seems a lot more fitting. Yeah, I'll just be quick. I just had the idea, Duane, when you said, and then Tao just reminded me, you said you always thought why didn't He show His power? And I thought, oh, it shows more power and it shows a better power that He could have and didn't. And then I think, I had been thinking that already and then Tao said, oh, brought it back to David. That's what David did. He showed him, I could have, but I didn't. And the big lesson is, whoa, that's, I mean, it would have been really cool if He had, any of the flesh thinks, oh, wow, if He had slew Saul, everybody would have said, whoa, God's with this man. He slew the great Saul, snuck up, you know, there'd be a great story. He snuck up on Him and just got Him in His sleep. But how much better of a story that He could have and didn't. Yeah, just as an answer to the, you know, why didn't He display His power? Oh, man, He sure did. That in refraining. Yeah, I just wanted to at least clarify, like I don't, I look real quickly, I couldn't pull up all my translations, but the ones I looked at just now also say from an evil spirit from the Lord. And I think I was just, maybe I read that somewhere, but maybe I was just a little sloppy in my, I didn't think there was a significant difference, but the point would be that I wasn't trying to imply that like there's some kind of evil spirit that God would have in Himself that He would send out. But that jealousy is something that God has. And this spirit that entered Him was the spirit of jealousy. And that when the spirit of God is removed from someone and the spirit of jealousy is there, that it does evil, works evil. Anyway, I hope. Yeah, I sure don't want somebody to like stumble or be inclined to think that there's some, maybe some part of God's spirit that's evil. Yeah, I guess maybe a lot of people might not be aware, too, and I think maybe if Duane, if you knew this, might have been, it'd be interesting to hear you preach the same sermon if you knew this, but both in Hebrew and Greek, the word for jealous, it's where we get the word, in Greek anyway, zelos is where we get the word zeal. And it's the same exact word as jealous. And translators, based on their own opinion, and I think they do a good job, they go, well, I'm going to translate this as jealous. Well, I'm going to translate this as zeal or zealous or whatever. Same word, both in Greek and Hebrew. So just keep that in mind when you're reading and just go, well, you're jealous, but there's zeal there as well. So I think that that's kind of good to know. I have so many thoughts. I guess there's many things I could share. I guess part of the not letting evil spirits in, so focus on that first. When I got converted, I was full of every conceivable evil spirit, I guess. I don't know if I was, I wouldn't say I was demon possessed, but at least I gave a lot of time or foothold. I had no restraints, obviously, in my life, but when I met the Lord, those things went away almost instantly, and to be full of those things, we have to, to let those things back in, we have to have a void of the Lord's spirit, and I'm not saying that I'm not guilty of those things, and it comes down to the more we walk with God, the more diligence it takes to be filled with Him, and we have to mind that very diligently, for God is a jealous God. He's not a God of the Burger King mentality, or it's our way right away. We have to have reverence, and we can't just, if we really want to walk with God, we can't just casually approach it, where we just spend a few minutes a day, and think that we're just going to add God to our lives. Our life is that of devotion and worship, so as a result of us worshiping and spending time with God, His presence and His spirit is in us, and then that will reflect, you know, our lives will reflect His, and not so much all these forces that are coming upon us, and I think, you know, I had some hard lessons to learn, and as the scripture says, let us not be overcome by drinking and eating, and it's like, what is he saying? That we, and my take on it, is that we just, we just kind of let life go by, and then we just kind of, we think that because we know truth, and we understand truth, and we stand for truth, that that can equate to the time that we spend seeking God, and being filled with Him. It can't, and, you know, I've had to learn this lesson the hard way over and over again, and yet, I need to be reminded constantly, like, that the most important time you spend throughout your day is with the Lord, and that will give you, you know, the spirit and the strength that you need to repel these things, and also to be a positive, I say positive, but a vessel of light against these things, and it's so easy to get swept under the rug with emotions like the devil. He comes back with the same, the same contents, but the package is always different. It's always got a different wrapper. It's always got a different approach, but the contents is always the same, and it takes wisdom to know, because very often, truth can be a weapon yielded wrongly. It may be true, but the spirit behind it is wrong, and it's not full of grace as it needs to be, and, again, like what Duane said, the wisdom to know when to pull the trigger. It's very interesting that so many of God's people on through the ages and through the scriptures have gone through great wrongdoings, like Joseph. When he came to know the Lord, he said, when he named his children, the Lord has caused me to forget, and his brothers, who didn't have the same heart, couldn't understand that even when his father died, they were still thinking he would seek vengeance, but his heart had changed, and many cases in the scriptures, like even when David, when Saul's descendants died, and he found the crippled young man, he was nervous. He was thinking, what's he going to do to me? But David just wanted to honor him, and in his seat, even though all the evil that Saul had done, he still wanted to honor him. And I just think that, I think Duane had made a comment about something, like if you don't have righteousness, you can't give it. Righteousness is the same thing with the Lord, and the Spirit, if you don't have it, you can't give it, and you can't offer grace to the situation, or to your life, and root out bitterness and jealousy, and these things that just, like a cancer, they just keep coming, and always in different ways, and different packages, as the prince of this world is trying to overburden us with these things. And I just want to say amen, and share that. Amen. Brother Duane, as Brother Robert said, muchos cosas, many things are deep. We could spend all day talking about God and His, what's the way, unsearchable ways, what He does. So, if you had wings like a dove, about Hawaii, Kelly's from Hawaii, or Philippines, Tahiti, let's go to Tahiti, how about Bermuda, Leroy, we went there, you know what they're doing over there, in Bermuda, in Hawaii, in Tahiti? Oh, we have wings like a dove to get out of that place. They're not happy over there. As long as we have breath in this life, they want to, they want to, they want to get out. You know, a lot of people think it's paradise on earth, but wherever you go, you say, oh, I wish the grass was always greener, I would like to go somewhere else. And, it doesn't, Hebrew says that, in Hebrew 6, that we have fled, we got an anchor for the soul, we fled for refuge. We're all refugees. You know, you can see refugees over in Venezuela, Syria, they're in the boats, they're trying to get out, and they're dying refugees. So, our refuge, as Brother Duane pointed out, is the church, each other. We're refuge free. Community, we're the refuge. This is, this is the heaven on earth. We're not going to find it in Tahiti, in Hawaii, and Bermuda. And I preach what Robert said about Satan, and, you know, the weapons, put the shield on, and the buckle, what about the sword? We take offense, go against them, go against Satan, the ruler of this world. We need each other to help us. Malachi 3, 16, just a, does anyone know what that says? It's not talked about much. Malachi 3, 16, about, and all the brothers, the brethren went together, and the Lord heard it, and he put it in a book, those that love him. You know, it's a beautiful verse. I'll just read it real quick. Malachi 3, 16, and 17. It just goes a lot with Dido's lesson too. Malachi 3, and so here we are. We're talking about spiritual things, and the Lord heard it, and he, I'll just read it. I'll misquote it. Malachi 3, it says, then they that feared the Lord, let's see, everyone here, we assume, they spoke often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before them, before him, for them that feared the Lord, and that thought, upon his name, and they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, and that day, when I make up my jewels, and I will speak to them, as a man speaks, his own son, and serve them, get emotional over it, but, yeah, we're getting our points with God? Well, God is writing this in the book, and it is a blessing to meet with all you brothers, and, there's one last point, it's, for a world of song, I won't do it, and this is a point that Dwayne brought out good, and Robert did too, and I'll put my thing in it more, but, take a good look at yourself, and then I can take a look at others differently, I look at my own life, all the sins I've committed, or whatever, take a good look at yourself, and then I can look at things differently, yeah, put a shame, comes from the song, put your hands in the hands of the man, but it's, the lyrics are good, I'm ashamed of those things, but when you brother, you're a refuge, and I love you all, and it's great to be here, the Lord be magnified. Just, just to comment, one of the things that was mentioned, was, the fact that we, we war not against flesh and blood, but against, spirits, principalities, so on, that's a, that's a scripture that gets taken out of context a lot, but I believe, it, is a, scripture that gets used as an excuse not to go confront someone, just pray for them, because after all, we're warring against the spirit that is in them. I would like to exegete that a little bit with 1st Corinthians 5, 5, you know, that is, well, to read it literally, to deliver such and one unto Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved, in the day of the Lord Jesus. So here we're dealing with the flesh, the being, so that the spirit might be saved. Also, we know about how well that would go with our children, if we, simply, tried to deal with the spirit that is in them, and never, never laid a hand to the flesh. So I would just, you know, encourage us that we look at the whole picture on that. If there's something, you know, there's plenty of scripture that says, if your brother offends you, go talk to him, do it this way. There's a place for prayer, and there is definitely a need to recognize that there are spirits behind it, controlling things, but, simply to stop short of actual confrontation can be harmful as well. So that was the only thought or concern I had. I appreciate the message a lot. It, it certainly speaks to my heart.