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We're your people, Lord, called by your name. We're grateful that you care for us, you love us. Lord, and we adore you.

We love you, Lord. We are forever grateful that you chose us. You chose us, Lord.

You chose us. We're chosen people, Lord. And we are forever grateful for that, Jesus.

You are good and you're rich in mercy. And we need you, Lord, like we need the air in our bodies. We're asking, God, that you give us what we need in this house, Lord.

More than anything else, Lord, we just want your presence. We just want your presence, Lord. We just want your presence.

We can live without anything else, Lord, but we cannot live without your presence. Help us, Lord. Help us.

In Jesus' name. Amen. Thank the Lord for what he is doing what he's done in this service and of course what he hope what we hope that he's going to continue to do in our lives.

Um This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday. It's also holiday weekend. So, when you come in on Sunday, if you're not if you're out of town having great time with family, have a great time um on this holiday weekend.

If you come here on Sunday and it's a short crew, don't let it alarm your faith. Expect the Lord to do something if there's 10 people in the house. Amen?

Matters who who's here, it's a special Sunday. Uh we you get spoiled. I mean, crowds are relative.

You get spoiled on crowd size. Uh there's a lot of people in our churches around uh our country right now that would like to have this many people in their church on Sundays. Uh Uh, and they have powerful moves of God because when they walk in, this is a crowd and they're excited about it.

So, don't let your eyes uh, lie to you about what the Lord can do amongst his people. Amen? Uh, so like as we we're going to pray in just a few moments, please uh, if you can just uh, pray that the Lord would would help us on Sunday.

I'd love to see somebody filled with the Holy Ghost. We're going to pray for that. We're going to believe it.

And uh, we're going to pray for it tonight, but also if you've got time throughout the remainder of the week, please set aside time to pray for that service. Uh, if for nothing else, for our hearts so we can come with faith and expectancy. It's the Lord's ultimately.

We don't have to have the pressure of doing anything. It's on the Lord, but it's our responsibility to come with expectation, to ask. We have not because we ask not.

And and of course to come and create an atmosphere and and to wait on what the Lord can do. Amen? Thank you so much for coming.

Um, we want to pray for Sister Janet. Uh, uh, she is uh, just having some health issues. Um, do do you mind if I speak to that, Sister Gloria?

Yep. Yeah. Yes, ma'am.

Understand. Yep. Yep, so we we're just going to pray.

Yep. We're just going to pray. And uh, pray for of course Sister Janet, all of I mean, our sisters are all here, so pray for Sister Gloria.

Sister Gloria also, um, their their family also has some uh, health prayer requests that we're praying for, both she and Brother Tommy. And um, somebody else in this room that had mentioned a prayer request that I'm I'm failing, so uh, it's the home crowd tonight, So, if you want to speak out whatever your prayer request is. Yes, sir.

Absolutely. Yep, continue to pray for brother Rodney. Who else needs prayer?

Yes. Amen, Nicole. Nicole project of sister Melissa.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Pray for pray for that person you met their family.

Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. Sister Kathy's got some co-workers who we're going to pray for together.

Amen, thankful that God hears his prayers or hears our prayers and let's take that privilege to the Lord right now and ask him to to work. God, thank you for all that you're doing in our church, Lord. You're you're so powerful.

We understand that. We believe it, Lord. Help us not to take it for granted and and to not ask Lord you to intervene and work in our situation.

We're inviting you to work, Lord, in every need that's been represented amongst this church body, Lord. We're agreeing together with a unity and love for one another. We're agreeing together, Lord, that we're asking you to move and minister on these needs that we've brought to you, Lord.

Those are in need of healing, Lord. Pray for that healing. Lord, lift up sister Janet right now, Lord.

Family, Lord, minister to their family. Pray, Jesus, that your will be done, your work be done amongst this church body. Lord, we're praying that there be a mighty move of God on Sunday, on Pentecost Sunday.

Lord, we're expecting expecting you to work in our midst, and we're asking you, Lord, to to pull the hungry hearts. Draw them to this church, Lord, and use this body, Lord. Use us as a body, Lord, to be part of that, whether it's an invitation, whether it's a sensitive invitation, Lord, whether it's a word we can speak, whatever it is, Lord, a deed that we can do, whatever it is, Lord, just use us.

Use us. Use us, Lord. We're your hands.

We're your feet. We're your hands. You're your feet, Lord.

We just We just want to be a tool for you to use, Lord, for your kingdom, and it let it all be done for your glory. We love you so much, and we are grateful for your presence to be in this service together. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Amen. Why don't we just greet one another and tell some folks that you're happy to see them on this Wednesday night.

>> Mhm. >> Amen. Well, I think folks are kind of working their way back to their seats.

Amen. I know reeling them in. Yes, ma'am.

Reeling them in. So, whatever became of sin? That's the the question that uh this guy called uh he's an American psychiatrist.

He's called Dr. Karl Menninger. Uh he asked that question in 1973 in his book titled by that same name, the same exact title was whatever became of sin.

That's what he titled the book. And he made an observation or in his observation from his interactions with people that uh as a psychiatrist that people are still dealing with all of the consequences of sin. They're dealing with the the problems that come, the guilt, the shame, uh the destruction with uh uh in their families, in their relationships.

But he says that we no longer call it sin and and his kind of thesis or idea is that um there really two alternative frameworks that are used to deal with sin and uh neither of which uh address it in particular, but they what he would argue is skirt around the issue. The first thing he he said and again this is observations that in '73, but he he calls it the medicalization of misbehavior. The medicalization of misbehavior.

Uh wrongful actions are frequently treated as a medical or psychological symptoms to be cured through either therapy or medicine rather than moral decisions requiring any sort of personal responsibility or even corporate responsibility within society. So, um again, the the medicalization of misbehavior kind of moves the the blame away from the individual and also also, not just moves it away from the individual, but moves it away to the from the collective of society. The second kind of thing for for people that aren't necessarily on board with the medicalization uh of it, but they also um still have to solve this problem.

They'll just put people in prison. So, the criminalization of it. Okay, we have this sin problem.

And society is now going to delegate the management of all moral failures to the legal system. So, it's really not a a nature problem, it's a legal problem. And legal infractions or societal crimes are really now the framework for how you're going to deal with what we believe as Christians is a sin problem.

So, what are the results of this on society? We're now about I don't know, what is that? 50 years into the project.

Probably further than that, but since he wrote this book 50 years later, um folks have taken his work and they now argue that we rename our ignoring of sin or renaming things that should be sin puts us in a place where there's zero accountability for anyone. Both zero accountability for the individual choices that people make. So, people on a personal level are no longer accountable.

But, then society has been corrupted because society isn't no is no longer teaching proper morality. And our prisons are just filling up. So, if society needs to take or collectively we need to take a step back and say, "Hey, are we really doing a good job with things?

Um are we becoming better as a society?" Well, this allows you to kind of skirt that responsibility. The second observation from this kind of framework is that there is moral relativism has come. Uh, if you're going to move away morality as an anchor point, now everybody's idea of right and wrong has changed.

So, sin was kind of that anchor point. Calling something sin was a very authoritative word. Um, it it was clear, this is right and this is wrong.

Uh, so when you remove sin and you you shove it over towards behavioral issues, and those behavioral issues are just a manifestation of the way you were built or what was done to you, whether or not you believe in nature or nurture, you've you've now really removed even the responsibility from that individual, but more importantly, you've now made it to where the devil initially said in the beginning, which is uh, you get to be the one that decides who is right and who is wrong. So, it's it's all come full circle back to Genesis. Is where we've come back to uh, with this framework.

And many critics uh, will also say that there has become silence in our pulpits. Uh, so silence in our pulpits about sin. So, sin has even been removed from our pulpits.

Preaching sin and judgment has declined uh, because we've removed it from society. Don't ever do the church can never be naive. It's like you might say, why care about culture?

Who cares about what's happening in culture? Only focus on what's happening in your church. Well, that's a naive idea.

Cuz what's happening in culture comes into the church. Almost always. So, uh, you know, regardless of whether or not it it it it matters what people are doing outside of those walls or not to us, you know, we might think, well, who cares what everybody else is doing?

We should be aware of what's happening because those ideas start to find their places inside of our churches and they have certainly found their place in our pulpits. So so what should the church do with sin? What should we do?

Should we soften our language? Should we eliminate the language all together? Either call someone that is sinful just ill and give them a pill or just say, well, they just can't be reformed or they're not built right.

Therefore, they just need to go away to a prison and we can forget about them. Or should we consider a biblical response? The answer of course for the church is always always to consider a biblical response.

The consequence of sin in the Old Testament was very very clear. And a frankly staggering. When you read accounts of God's judgments upon those that reject his mercy and remember that God always offers mercy.

Always, even in the Old Testament. Mercy is always available. He judges sin harshly but there's always a way of escape.

Always. So the harshness of the whole Testament uh you you you you you you are ignoring uh the way of escape that was always provided. In Noah's day when unrighteousness was completely apparent in the world, God spoke to Noah in an act of mercy.

Oh God, how would a brutal ugly nasty God destroy the world through a flood? How could he do that? How could he be so violent?

He offered a way of escape. Mercy was extended. And he told Noah, of course, to prepare an ark.

He then, after this preparation of the ark and an offering from anyone, a prophet, the crazy prophet who was building the boat, who was speaking out loud and saying, "Rain's coming. Storms are coming. And those that get on the boat are going to be the ones that are saved." That was mercy.

So, our message is a message of mercy. It is a message of hope. But that message of hope only works juxtaposed against the judgment to come.

There's judgment coming. He unleashed, of course, the Lord unleashed his wrath upon the world, the likes of which has never been seen. Why did he do it?

Because he was bringing the judgment that was told that was coming on the world. He destroyed the entire world except eight souls. That's a little harsh, isn't it?

Why would he do such a thing? Because God is very serious about sin. Very serious about sin.

Who could forget about Achan? Under Joshua's leadership, Israel had won a great battle against Jericho. You know that story.

Joshua fought the battle of Jericho. They march around and march around and march around. The walls come tumbling down.

But God had very, very specific instructions. Specific instructions that the spoils of the war go to God. The spoils of the war are to go to God.

But Achan saw that that gold and that silver and that beautiful Babylonian garment and and that look and that gaze upon those things was a revelation of what was in his heart. He loved those things more more so than he wanted to obey God. Obedience came secondary to his love for those immaterial things.

It's gold, who cares? That's our heart. That's that sinful heart that has desires and he just couldn't help himself.

So he took them and he hid them in his tent and Israel went to battle against AI and because of this one man's sin, this this one individual sin all of Israel was defeated in a battle. Because of this individual sin there's blurry lines in the Old Testament between corporate sin and individual sin. When America, we only think about what effect sin has on us.

The Bible's way more nuanced than that because it recognizes that the sin in the individual will eventually bleed into society. The Bible knows that and we know that deep down. Uh we could we could ask two or three more questions but most of our thought process is well, how does this affect me?

How does this affect me? In this case, Israel goes to battle against AI and because of this one individual sin, Israel was defeated. God was not with them.

36 Israelites died because God left them alone in the battlefield. Joshua falls flat on his face. What happened, Lord?

How could you let this happen? We're going to be the laughingstock of the entire world. And the Lord spoke out of heaven to this confused leader who had a pure heart and probably was surrounded by people with a pure heart.

The Lord revealed to him there's there's sin in your camp. The people have disobeyed my command. And he told Joshua, and this should be a this should be concerning for us in this room about how we care about not just what our individual sin does to us, but what it does to this entire body.

If we have odd against our brother or sister, if we're angry against her, if we have hatred in our heart, what is it doing to the rest of the body? Could it hinder revival? Could it hinder growth of the church?

In this case, God says you're you're not going to win another battle until all of the culprits are destroyed. So, Joshua called everyone together and says, "Who did it?" Achan raised his hand and said, "I did." So, they took him out, all of his family, and they gathered all of the things that he had stolen. They were they were those things were even too tarnished to offer to God.

They gathered all of the things that they had stolen, and they stoned him. And they left his dead body under a pile of rocks. Why?

Because God is serious about sin. On and on you can go with story after story. Fire falling from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah.

Uzzah just touched the sacred ark against God's wishes and was immediately killed. All he did was just try to steady the ark. Battles were lost and people died.

Why? Because God has always taken sin seriously, and he's judged it hard, harshly. As we previously noted, sin doesn't get the same kind of press these days.

One of the major reasons is Christ's destruction of sin. It is now his righteousness that covers us, so we're free from those awful penalties of sin. But being free from the penalties of our sins doesn't change the consequences to the people that are hurt by it.

Can't just murder somebody and just walk into the church and say, "Oh, Lord, forgive me." and it make everything all right again. Somebody's dead. Somebody's dead.

Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but only an answer of a clear conscience towards God. That's what you get. The filth of the flesh is still there.

The consequences of our sin is still there. The relationships that are destroyed as a result of our sin are still there. And this is not, please, this is not a message of condemnation.

You know that. I hope you know that about me. But it it it is a warning for for us when we're starting to slowly tolerate sin in our lives of the end result.

Not just to us, but to our families, to the revival that we could have, to the things that God wants to do in and through us. We have to have to. And it the So so So we we we've balanced this understanding that we are free from sin, you know?

So, let's just not sit and dwell on sin all the time. Sin has been conquered. Uh so that that's I I understand the framework or the understanding there.

There's another thing that just is a practical thing. It's not It's not a fun time to preach about sin. Uh like like I'll just give an example.

It's not fun to preach about divorce. When you know there could be people in the congregation who are divorced or previously divorced. That's not fun.

Number one because it might not even be their fault. There's nothing they can do about it. You can marry somebody and do everything right and be divorced.

That's That's a fact. So So So you don't want the baggage that comes with that. Uh you don't want everybody in the room staring at somebody and you don't want somebody more importantly this is more likely to happen.

You know what that individual to sit there and feel the condemnation for that. But that's why the gospel has to continually be preached over and over again because our past is behind us. And the fact that our past is behind us should create in in our environment the ability to tell the truth out loud without it hurting or harming us for our failures in the past.

Amen. So there's this this thing. I don't want to talk about awkward topics because I don't want people to feel judged.

Well, we know we know. That's no worries. Because everybody in this place is covered by the blood of Jesus Christ if of course if you are a Christian you're you're you're uh repented of your sins baptized filled with the Holy Ghost.

You're You're forgiven. So preaching against it is not about bringing up your past. Preaching against it is a warning to others who could experience the same problems.

Embrace that. But walking into most churches today and for the reasons I just stated you'll hardly hear the word We just see things like Christians are perfect aren't perfect they're just forgiven. That's true.

We use this as a rebuttal for blatant disobedience. We can use this as a rebuttal for blatant disobedience and complete disregard for the consequences of to other people uh for the actual sins themselves. Jesus doesn't care about your sin.

He's forgiven you. Yes, he does. He cares about your sin.

He doesn't think it's good if you beat your wife. Can we all agree on that? Okay, he cares about your sin then.

He cares. Of course, he'll forgive you. He cares.

That's sanctification. That's us continually striving to overcome our own flesh, especially the most damaging of the sins that can destroy our relationships in our lives. If you do this kind of preaching, if you talk about these things, you can be termed judgmental.

While back, a couple of my friends who were Christians I catch news that you know, they're they're getting a divorce. And again, I want to be very clear. Everyone who has a failed marriage is doesn't mean it's your fault.

You can do everything right, still not work out. And even if it was your fault, you can still find forgiveness in the Lord, and you can find hope for your future. All that's true at the same time.

Not getting past that. But this specific individual was just in the process of getting a divorce. So, you're going to actually talk about the decisions that this person is making.

And I was so confused about it. I called him. I was like, "What Why are you getting divorced?

Like, what's going on?" Did she Did she cheat on you? I wondered. Did she abuse you?

She abuse your children? Nope, none of that. I I'm just tired of dealing with her.

I've been doing this for years. I just wanted to wait until our kids were grown. And they're stable, and now I can both go through with it.

I was shocked. Completely shocked. This is a Christian.

This is a Christian. Saying, "I can care less about forgiveness. I can care less about restoration.

I can care less about my kids and the damage it's going to do to them. I can care less about the fact that I haven't thought really deeply through this about after this and I'm alone, I'm going to get real, real lonely, real fast. And at some point in time, I'm going to wish that I would have focused more of my attention on my marriage." Not thinking of any of that.

Because we've created an environment where Christians feel completely comfortable um with very I mean, not not even debatable sinful behaviors. These aren't even debatable. So, how do we get here?

Who knows? I think it's some combination of all the previous things that we discussed. You know, people think, "Well, you know, the Old Testament was such just too harsh.

We got to get rid of that type of thinking. The New Testament it changed everything. And we just got to teach about how nice Jesus is.

And Jesus is really, really nice. And all he wants is for you to feel good about yourself." Turn with me to Acts 5. Turn with me to Acts 5.

But a certain man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a possession and kept back part of the price. His wife also being privy to it. His wife knew about it, too.

And brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet. Now, at this point in time in the book of Acts, the church is now starting to get foundationally to where they're starting to get their community. A lot of people lost their jobs.

They lost their their uh community or their family. Uh and frankly, they lost their livelihood. So, now they're selling their goods and and late Acts 4, you hear that they have all things common.

In other words, they're starting to share resources with one another. This wasn't force. Ananias and Sapphira didn't have to sell everything that they had.

There was no coercion. It wasn't like, "Hey, you're not a Christian if you don't sell everything." That's not what the problem was. The problem was they said they sold everything and they held a part of it back.

Not for for anybody that tells you that you're required to sell everything and give it to all your It's just not a fact. They It wasn't a requirement in the New Testament church. They had such a love for one another in their communities that people were selling all their stuff, sharing it together.

It was a real community, a really beautiful uh representation what's called koinonia. But, that's not what what God got them for. He didn't get them because they didn't sell everything and give it away to each other.

He got them because they lied about it. Brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet, but kept back a part of it. He's presenting one thing that he's doing while really doing another.

But, Peter said, "Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price of the land? While it remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not thine own pow- in thine own power?" In other words, Peter's telling him right here, "You didn't have to do this.

You didn't have to come give it to me. Or you didn't have to give it to the church. This wasn't required.

Nobody's coercing you. Why are you lying about it? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God." Because when you sin against man, you sin against God.

Ah, I just hate my brother in Christ. You hate God. I hope you know that.

If you can't love your brother that you can see, how can you say that you love a God that you can't see? Held it back. And Ananias, this is so Old Testament what I'm going to read you.

So Old Testament. This is in Acts. You know, the Jesus is just the cool hippie guy that loves everybody and never says anything negative?

This is New Testament here. And Ananias hearing these words fell down and gave up the ghost, and great fear came on all them that heard these things. Great fear came on all them that heard these things.

And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of 3 hours after when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, "The same offer is extended of mercy.

Tell me whether you sold the land for so much." And she said, "Yay, for so much." Then Peter said unto her, "How is it that you have agreed together to tempt the spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door and shall carry thee out." Then she fell straight down straightway at his feet and yielded up the ghost. And the young men came in and found her dead, and carrying her forth buried her by her husband.

And great fear came upon all the church and upon as many as heard these things. Those are interesting words. Great fear came upon where?

Not unbelievers. All of the church. The church feared.

The church feared. She just went down just when things were going great. Healings were happening.

The Holy Ghost was being poured out. People were loving one another, selling all of their stuff and giving it away. Just in the middle of all that this terrifying event happens.

A man and a woman lie to the Holy Ghost and they both drop dead in plain sight. Why? Because in spite of the sacrifice that was made, Jesus still takes sin seriously.

He always has and he always will. Lost in our time is a healthy fear of God. Our focus can become too much only, I should say, on the cross of Christ and the salvation that it offers to those who are born again.

But embedded in that image of the cross is God's judgment. The cross itself tells you how much that God hates sin. The fact that he would pour his judgment out upon himself for our sins tells you what God thinks about sin.

The wrath of God was poured out upon Christ. The wrath of God. And if God's people do not hate sin, it's a slap in the face to Christ on the cross who endured all of that because of our sins.

When we take it lightly, when we take our sins lightly, we now take his death lightly. We now care little about his death. God takes it serious and we should continue to fear sin.

God wanted that healthy fear. I don't think we should live in fear constantly wondering oh if I you know what I'm going to do this sin and go to hell. I I I just had a friend of mine in in my old church and every time I talked to her she would just be like constantly the words coming out of her mouth is I ain't I ain't I ain't going to make it.

I ain't going to make it. And I'm like you're going to be just fine. The Lord loves you.

You're great human being like it's good. You know? She was fine.

But but the there can be an over correction to where we just have a complete disregard for our actions, what we do to others and we just hide that underneath the auspices of well, the Lord forgives. And if you you'll never get out of that tension between those two things. If you read first John one second it's telling you if you sin you're no longer his.

Two seconds later it's telling you that when and if you sin you have an advocate with the Father. And you're reading it and you're just like what what is going on? I mean I mean is there any hope for me or oh yeah, there's of course there's a hope.

I mean I'll never be lost. And you're just reading it going back and forth. There's there's a healthy view of both fearing the Lord and also standing in the love that the Lord has offered us.

A healthy balance between those. So Christ shows up to the church in Revelation that allowed sin to come in their midst. Church had become unpure.

He shows up to them. And the last the image the last image of the church of Christ was his nail-scarred hands and his frail body hanging there dying on the cross. That's the image the church had.

When he showed up to this church that no longer took sin seriously, he had fire in his eyes and a sword coming out of his mouth. And their heart shuddered in fear. Cuz he knew they knew he means business.

The believer as well as the church body cannot just tolerate sin. We got to destroy the sin in our lives. We must kill it.

Ananias and Sapphira allowed something to creep into their lives, whether or not it was I care deeply about how others perceive me. I care deeply about being known as this great person, but I don't want to pay the price for it. Maybe that was it.

Maybe it was greed in their heart. They said, "I think I'm supposed to do this or I feel like God is directing me to do this, but I I would prefer I would prefer not to have to do that because I care more about my own desires." There's such an There's Ananias and Sapphira has such an aching feel to the story. They're the same.

It's the same idea. I I care more about these these things. I can't take my eyes off it even though I've got I've got everything that I need in him.

This has become more important to me. It's there. And that's in our own hearts.

And I'm 100% certain that it starts with tolerance. And it moves from a tolerance of sin into full on acceptance. This is who I am.

And from acceptance to full-fledged indulgence, I want this. I desire it. It's tolerance that moves to acceptance and acceptance that moves to indulgence.

We aren't told how they happen. We aren't told any of the backstory. We don't know anything about it.

All we know is that their indulgence of the sin has become a cautionary tale for us to the us today. Shall we do the same? Paul says this in Romans, "What shall we say then?

Shall we continue in sin? That grace may abound? God forbid." "How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" How is that possible?

Shall we continue in sin after Paul just went through and said, "Every one of you are way more sinful than you think you are." "And as holy as you think that you are, you could never keep the law." "You you are more sinful than you could possibly even fathom." "And your heart is more sinful than you could ever deal with." He goes through all that and then he says basically like, "You ain't got a shot at defeating it." Then he says after that, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" "For if you live after the flesh, you shall die." "But if you through the spirit do mortify the deeds of your body, you shall live." "For as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Hear people all the time talk about being spirit-led. Have you ever really wondered what that means? What does it mean to be spirit-led?

The Apostle Paul says what it means right here. If you're If you're led by the Spirit, you mortify the deeds of your body. You destroy this flesh.

You destroy the flesh. That's how. That's what being led by the Spirit really is, destroying the sinful works of the flesh.

The lust, the envy, the anger, the deceit, the hatred, the pride. Hating all of those things and crucifying ourself on altars. And crucifying ourself on altars and crucifying ourself on altars.

Laying ourself in front of the Lord. Killing the flesh. Shall we do the same?

See, sin sears our conscience until nothing is wrong. Sadly, sin has seared many of the conscience in the church. First Timothy says this, "Now the Spirit speaks expressly that in the latter times in the latter days some shall depart from the faith." Why?

Why would people depart from the faith? They gave heed to seducing spirits. They were drifted away.

They were pulled away. First they tolerated it just by listening to it. And the toleration turned into acceptance and eventually the acceptance turned into indulgence.

Giving heed to the seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a with a hot iron. If you bulldoze over something over and over again, eventually you do it enough to where it's no longer bothering you.

It's a dangerous place to be in. It's how people leave the church. I'm just going to step over the line, step over the line.

Step over the line and ignore it, ignore it, ignore it, and pretend like God doesn't care. And before you know it, you're just doing sinful things and you don't even care and you don't even know they're wrong. Cuz your conscience is seared.

There's a great uh uh spot in the the uh Pilgrim's Progress where Bun- Bunyan's uh or I'm sorry, Christian's walking and uh it's an allegory about this this Christian that's on a journey, this new believer. And he's walking in the desert and he's he thinks these are his thoughts. And and there's a demon whispering in his ear.

And he can't differentiate between what are his thoughts and what are the demon's words. See, w- we're we're we're Pentecostals. We say God spoke to us.

That means that every thought that's in your head is not yours. But it's not always God's, either. Some of those thoughts are from Satan.

Everything that comes out of your mouth is not yours. And by the way, that's also that I'm thankful for that. I know the things I have said to my wife when I'm angry.

I'm thankful that those aren't really me. And she's thankful they aren't really me. I'm thankful for things she said at me la- said to me when she was angry.

That's not really what she thinks. Where are those coming from? Coming from a different place.

Every thought you have is not your thought. Some of those are demonic and some of them, of course, are from the Lord. How do you know which are which?

The word of God. Repentance. Praying and getting our heart right.

You go long, long times without ever examining yourself, without ever seeking the Lord, without ever looking in the mirror of God's word. You go long, long periods of time without that and that conscience can become seared. Uh that seared conscience is not a hopelessness.

They're they're not hopeless if you've seared it. You just now have thoughts in your mind that you think are yours, but they're not. They're new strongholds that you have to first recognize are not really the fruit of the Spirit.

They're the works of the flesh and when you see the works of the flesh, your response is not to ignore them, to step over them and walk into them. When you see the works of the flesh, you just repent. That's what the word does for us.

That's what preaching is doing. This is This is all hopeful right now, by the way. This is not This is not designed to like you walk out of here and be like, "Well, you just beat us up tonight." This is all hopeful.

We get to have a clean conscience. We get to be free in the Lord. We get to walk after the Lord, the path that he walked.

That's all a privilege to us. But that path is all in danger if we do not take sin seriously. Sin will lead us off of that path.

And the way to address that is to look in the mirror of God's word, get in God's presence, stay in God's presence, uproot idols that start to come in your heart. When you see the works of the flesh, when you see anger and wrath and bitterness and unforgiveness, you don't just walk away. Like looking in the mirror and saying, "Oh, I I I I mud all over my face.

That's fine." I'll walk out the door. No. You go get the cleansing of repentance and you wash your face off.

And you get to have a nice clean face not because of what you done but because of what Christ has done. And then you get full of the spirit until your strongholds in your mind are uprooted. And through time and time again slowly the works of the flesh will begin to fade out in the fruit of the spirit will be there.

Love and joy and peace and long-suffering gentleness goodness and meekness and temperance and faith against such there is no law. And what a privilege. Amen.

I beat you all up enough tonight. But I hope you feel the hope of that. There's so much such a privilege to be able to repent.

The greatest gift in my life is repentance. It's such a gift. What's the Holy Ghost's greatest gift?

I mean it don't hold You know, don't hold me to that word but the greatest of the Holy Ghost is the greatest gift I've ever got but repentance is such a privilege. I don't want to be what I am on my worst day. But if you never repent and you keep stepping over the line over and over again before that becomes who you are.

And if you keep moving that line over and over again, you'll be a miserable Christian. You'll be like Christianity doesn't work. It's like yeah you got to work at yourself.

You're not saving yourself. But you have to allow the means through which God changes and transforms us which is community body fellowship connection community worship together repentance reading God's word. That's the means through which God uh God's grace changes and transforms us.

Amen. So the church in Acts was a church that took sin dead serious. So we should do the same.

Amen. Let's pray. Ask the Lord to help us.

God, thank you for your word. Thank you for giving me the grace to preach this. Lord, I hope there was no condemnation in it.

Um but the hope of being transformed and changed, the hope of being an overcomer. Uh I pray you'll do with uh my flesh, Lord, what I cannot do uh with my words. Lord, I pray that I didn't mar anything with what I said, but I pray that the richness of the gospel would shine through.

There'd be no condemnation in this place, Lord, but there's the hope of overcoming sin. Let us be a church, Lord, that recognizes sin in our own lives. And when we do, Lord, we repent and move on.

We let it go. We don't look behind us. We don't bring up our sins.

We don't own them, but we don't ignore them, Lord. We repent as a body. Let there be no condemnation amongst us, Lord.

Let there be no ought amongst us. Let there be no divisions amongst us. Uh let there be nothing, Lord, no sin in our camps that can hinder revival, Lord.

Purify us, God. Purify us and change us. Purify us and change us, Lord, not so pride can come in and there can be new forms of sin, Lord, but give us a pure heart, the fruit of the spirit, the love and the joy and the peace.

Let us be full of all of that, and let everything be done for your glory. Let it all be done for your glory and bring revival to our church. Lord, let there be new souls that are saved and brought into your kingdom.

Lord, we desire that, and we hunger for it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Thank you all so much. God bless you. >> It's in the name.

There is a shelter where joy and peace abound. It's in the name. It's in the name.

Everybody say the name of the Lord is a strong tower, a strong