This sermon reflects on the speaker's journey of understanding God's character, particularly His patience and kindness, and the realization of personal shortcomings in comparison to biblical figures. It emphasizes the importance of humility, teachability, and openness to correction in one's Christian walk. The speaker acknowledges the impact of encountering individuals who embody gentleness, love, and radical faith, challenging previous misconceptions about these qualities.

I've known a lot about God in my seven years following Him. And the two years before that, when I was praying to Jesus and God to reveal Himself to me, the things that I've learned most about God that have impressed me the most is His patience and kindness. The things that in the beginning of my walk with God that I got hung up on were the things about Him that were most like my own personality. It's almost like I created God in my own image and likeness. Being Jewish, and that's not an excuse, but it's being Jewish and being kind of a hyperactive kid and an outgoing person and a very vocal, speaking, opinionated, brash, outgoing person, I found myself many times looking at the parts of Scripture that showed men of God to be the same way and said, there you have it, I'm just like them. The problem is that I found a lot about myself that wasn't like them at all and a lot about them that wasn't like me. And I used to just, well, you know, I'll grow up, at least I've got boldness and zealousness and all kinds of other things, but the boldness was not the boldness of the Lord. The zealousness was the zeal of youth, emotional youth, and it wasn't godly. And although God used it, just like He used Balaam's donkey, that's one of my favorite expressions, God can use Balaam's donkey, He can use you and me. He redeems just about everything. He takes the fat and the skinny and the black and the white and the ugly and the pretty and the squeaky voice and the deep baritone, and He uses it, and the hee-haw of the donkey, and uses it. And that's an ongoing theme through the Bible. God used young prophets and old prophets and old ladies and widows and little girls and everybody. He never used the same type of person, or else you'd start thinking that type of person is the kind of person God wants to use, and then there'd be first-class Christians and the second class, or the first-class Jews and the second class. Pharisees tried to do that. The priesthoods of modern Christianity, different sects have had priesthoods, they try to do that first class. They all wear a certain thing and they act a certain way and do all kinds of traditional things, and they try to separate this heavy-duty Christians and the laity, they call the people that aren't part of the priesthood. Well, this article that we're going to go over, this will be printed most likely in the next newsletter, and it'll be refined probably a little bit between now and then. This is one of a series of articles that we're going to be teaching through the school and offering through the newsletter as part of a teaching tape series. The format of the way it's being taught is to read through the article and stop and enlarge it and fill in some of the holes. You might think, well, why is he reading to me? I can read myself. Well, it's because I want to deal with each point, each scripture, and then stop and talk about it, and we'll have a chance for questions at the end. The main reason I wrote this article was because I knew that there are a lot of people out there looking at me and saying, just like I looked at Jeremiah or Ezekiel and said, wow, they were heavy, they were intense, they sometimes were harsh, so I can be harsh too. And there are a lot of people out there looking at me and saying, well, he's written some pretty black and white things and said some things in pretty blunt ways, so I can be blunt and black and white too. The main reason I wanted to write this article was not to say, hey, look, what we've done in the past is wrong, so don't read anything we wrote before, but was to say there's a lot more to this, and I've learned a lot more about it in the past year, and I want to give a balancing message to say that yes, there are times when God would have you yell, but he would have you yell from a gentle, loving spirit, and that's what this whole article is about. The reason I call it For Prophets Only, it's kind of a trick title, on the cover of the newsletter we're going to have some flaming cartoon character with a sword in one hand and a lightning bolt in the other, and smoke coming out of his mouth, and it's going to say, if you think you're a prophet, see page 22, or whatever page it'll be, and then you'll turn there and it'll say For Prophets Only. Now that'll make all the prophets want to read it, and all the people that aren't will want to read it out of rebellion. One of those reverse psychology things. That doesn't mean you're all in rebellion and you don't think you're a prophet. It just means simply that this is for anybody who wants to be a godly prophet or a prophetic person, or somebody that wants to speak forth the word of God with unction and power and effect, because that's what a prophet is. It's somebody who speaks forth the word of God with anointing, power, and effect. As George Whitefield used to pray, God, let the word of God go forth like a red-hot pitchfork into a tub of butter. You get that vision? Something right out of the kiln, right out of the oven. It's red-hot and you throw it into a tub of butter. Instant melted butter. House of pancakes time. Okay, let's pray. Lord God, it is not with human wisdom that we want to come to your word tonight. It is not with homilies and cute little stories and funny things. We want to come with reverence and awe before your throne. We want to find out more about your heart, your spirit, your ways, and your desires for us as Christians. It's not with cleverness of speech that we want the word to go forth, but with the power of the Holy Ghost. And God, I know there's a lot tonight that's going to be from personal experience, and these are dangerous. This can be dangerous because when we personalize the word too much, God, we can sometimes read our own views into your word, and I don't want to do that tonight. I want to use your work in my life as an example of discipline and correction and softening. And God, that is the most beautiful thing about you in my book is that you take hard things and make them soft. You take old things and make them new. You take worthless things and make them precious. You take hateful things and make them loving. You take sinful things and clean them off, and though our sins be as scarlet, they become as white as snow. And God, it's our heart tonight to know you better because of how you've worked in a little life like mine, God. And I want to just say now, God, that it's you who is the center of this study, not Keith Green or anybody else. And so, Jesus, as you said, whenever two or more are gathered, you'd be here in the midst of us. Please come, sit with us, let us sit at your feet and teach us the principles of the kingdom of God. I am but a child in your kingdom, God, and you are the king of the kingdom. And so it's you who we want to teach tonight. It's you who we want to touch us. So we ask this in Jesus' name, according to your word and according to your pleasure. Amen. Amen. Turn in your Bibles to Luke 9, 54. And we'll go a little bit before this. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem from Galilee, starting in verse 51. And it came about when the days were approaching for his ascension, taking up literally, his taking up into heaven, that he resolutely set his face to go to Jerusalem. I think in the King James it says, he set his face like a flint, you know, straight ahead, not to the left, not to the right. He resolutely set his face to go to Jerusalem. He said, it's time to go to the grave and then it's time to rise to the Father, the time for his ascension. And he sent messengers on ahead of him and they went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for him. And they did not receive him because he was journeying with his face toward Jerusalem. This needs just a little bit of explanation. The Samaritans had a breaking off with the Jews. The Jews said that the place to worship God was in Israel, was in Jerusalem, excuse me, at the temple. The Samaritans had broken off with the Judeans back right after Solomon's time. Ten tribes went away after one guy, I think it was Jeroboam, one of them was Jeroboam, one was Rehoboam. They rhymed so they could both rhyme at the same time. And the other guy was the son of Solomon and he took over and there's a big long story about that. But the ten tribes broke away and Benjamin and Judah stayed down there around Jerusalem. Well, the Samaritans were very bitter about it. It's just like we've talked about that. They had the first church of worshipping in Jerusalem and they had a breaking off and it was the first church of worshipping in Samaria. And they had a breaking off and they wouldn't have anything to do with each other. Well, the Samaritans, as you will find in John, I think it's in the fourth or fifth chapter, he talks to the woman at the well and a lot of people get saved. And it says here that they wouldn't receive him. Why? Because he was going to Jerusalem. In other words, he said to the people, give us a place to stay and some food to eat because we're on our way to Jerusalem. You know, they must have said, well, last time he came and preached here, but he's going to hold his meetings now in Jerusalem and we're anti-Jerusalem, so he can't even stay here. Okay? They did not receive him because he was journeying with his face toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them? That seems like a funny statement, but they weren't laughing. Neither was Jesus. But he turned and rebuked them and said, in your side notes, if you have a numeric standard, and said, You do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went on to another village. Okay. Now, it's pretty important that you understand something here. They seemed to believe that they could do this. They didn't say, Lord, will you command fire to come down from heaven? They said, Lord, would you like us, do you want us to do this? Now, they were in his presence, and remember before, he had given them power, given them special anointing to go forth and heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, and cleanse lepers. Those were the four things he gave them to do. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, and cleanse lepers. And, he says, Lord, you want us, you know, like, they were in his presence, they figured, well, we could do that. He could have us command fire to come down from heaven. That must have been a popular, you know, Jewish story. Imagine that, your hero, Elijah, you know, the guys come up, captains of 50, remember that? They came up and says, they said, Elijah, are you there? He says, Who wants me? Ahab wants you. Oh yeah? If I'm a man of God, if I'm a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your men of 50. You know, it's barbecued Samaritans. So, it happens three times, and finally, the last guy gets down on his knees and says, please, don't barbecue me and the other Samaritans that are with me, you know, please. And so, God then speaks to Elijah and says, don't be afraid, go with them, don't be afraid. You know, you can just, you know, what are you afraid of? You know who he was afraid of? A woman named Jezebel. He was afraid of Jezebel. And, it's pretty, it's pretty incredible that the guys with the swords, the chariots, didn't scare him one bit, but this lady scared him. He didn't know how to deal with her. That's another whole Bible study. We won't go into that tonight. Women have, well, I will say one thing. Women have a deep, deep capacity for love and a deep, deep capacity for evil because they, they are emotionally based. They, many times they make their decisions which aren't always rational from emotional feelings and reactions. Therefore, when they love, they love deeply and when they hate, they hate deeply. And they're scary. What's more scary? A papa lion or a mama lion guarding her cubs in nature. Papa lion, you know, he won't, he won't fight with the, with the vengeance that a mama lion will even though he's bigger and stronger. Did you ever, who was it? There was one, oh yeah, Bill Maxwell, a friend of mine. He was, he had a brother that was five years older than him. He said, and his brother used to come in and hit him in the arm and, and smack him across the face and he said it was really hard. He grew up with this guy. But his brother knew when he got really mad, when Bill got really mad that he had to run for it. Because Bill said, I just become crazy. I just pick up the sink and throw it at him. I'd do anything, you know. He says, he says, I was small but when I got mad I was much bigger than he was. Because he lost his mind, you know. He lost his, suddenly he didn't see how much bigger his brother was than him. He saw how much madder he was than his brother. And he lost all reason. Well, that's the way it is with these women like Jezebel. They're more dangerous than 50 soldiers coming at the door with machine guns. At least Elijah was more scared of them. But anyway, back to this. They didn't, they weren't laughing, they weren't joking, they were serious and they believed that Jesus could give them the power to do it or maybe even that they already have the power to do it. And he rebukes them and says, you don't know what kind of spirit you're of. Now this is a great message because these guys had been walking with, this is his last walk. This is Jesus' last walk. It's the last year of his three year walk with his disciples. These guys had been through Jesus' ICT training school for three years walking and talking and living and giving and suffering and crying and hiding and traveling around and walking on water and telling storms to shut up and all kinds of things for three years. And apparently they thought they could get away with this. Not only get away with it but maybe because they'd heard Jesus really let the Pharisees have it. They'd say, how can you escape the sentence of hell? But Jesus never lifted up his sword or never started punching people out or anything. He did make a whip once but it doesn't say he whipped them. He says he made a whip and drove them out. Well maybe he did whip them. Maybe he just started swinging it around. I don't know. But who was he whipping? Pharisees, religious hypocrites. That's the ones that really got his goat. Let's go ahead and start reading through this and then we'll stop and talk about it. James and John got a sharp rebuke from the Lord because they were of a different spirit than the one Jesus was of. Now that's important for you to know. You don't know what spirit. Jesus didn't say you don't know what kind of a concept you're thinking about. Or he didn't say you don't know what deed you're suggesting. He says you don't know what spirit you're of. The spirit of the flesh maybe. The spirit of... Now remember what Jesus said. God said vengeance is mine. I will repay. And Jesus said when your enemy wrongs you turn the other cheek. Somebody rips off your coat go fight him and give him your shirt. Somebody holds a gun to your head and says walk with me a mile and go two miles. By this you'll keep burning coals upon their head. Jesus says you don't know what spirit. The Holy Spirit isn't leading you to do that. Okay. He came to love and forgive but they were all ready to destroy those who opposed them. They forgot Jesus' injunction to love their enemies. They were ready to kill theirs. Oh what a lesson there is here for those of us who are prone to spiritualize our own bitterness and anger. How many of you have ever thought when somebody wronged you God will get them? You know I've done that. I mean I have many times and I've been wronged and I've been wronged these guys shouldn't have turned Jesus. They were wrong for turning Jesus out. Everybody agrees Jesus would have agreed. And in another place when Capernaum wouldn't have him they said woe unto you Capernaum for Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah but somebody greater than Jonah is here. How will you escape the sentence of hell? He says it's going to be worse for you in the judgment than for Jonah. He says it will be worse for you than the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. They got roasted royally. Capernaum but here Jesus didn't call down fire he just opened his mouth which is worse. I'd rather have physical fire fall on me than God speak to me like that. I'd rather be burned over 90% of my body and have a chance to heal up or die and go to heaven than have God turn to me and say it's going to be worse for you in Sodom. Take your pick. Take your pick. Spiritualize our own bitterness and anger. There was another guy who did that. Jonah was another guy. He wanted he didn't mind the prophecy part he wanted to see the roasting part. He wanted to see people shake and bake in Nineveh. He wanted to see the fire. Man, let's see the fireworks. So God makes a plant grow up by him and Jonah goes I like this plant it's great it's a nice shade overnight. He doesn't think what plant grows up overnight. He doesn't think maybe it's the Lord. Jonah is kind of a thick skull. I'll escape God I'll buy a ticket to the Mediterranean. Plant grows up overnight and the next day God appointed a worm. Worm reporting for duty. Imagine when God appointed the worm. Alright worms come up now stand up in line. You! Go and eat the plant. So he goes and eats the plant. The plant dies and Jonah is all bummed out. He says he wished he could die. Then he says oh God let me die. I mean this guy when God chose prophets I don't know with this one. So Jonah is all bummed out because the plant isn't there and his air conditioner doesn't work. And then he's waiting around he says 40 days and you know Jonah's preaching was pretty heavy. It wasn't 40 days and Nineveh will be destroyed unless you repent. He didn't say unless you repent. He didn't even offer a way out. That was Old Testament preaching. He didn't even offer a way out. 40 days Nineveh will be destroyed. And the king says everybody's got to wear sackcloth. Even the donkeys the doggies the kitties even your canary. Put sackcloth and ashes on everything. Nobody touches food. Perhaps perhaps God will see and turn from what he's planned to do to us. And there's the right reaction. Perhaps he'll turn. Jonah's waiting 40 days 41 days oh God I just want to die. And God says to him there's I don't know what the number is 100,000 people or something plus many cattle. I mean God's saying why should I roast the cattle too? I mean listen remember that plant? You're bummed out. You really said that plant died aren't you? You bet I am. And well I care about them. They're repenting. I'm not going to do what you said. And this is when Jonah says to him that's why I didn't want to go and preach to them because I knew you'd relent. I knew you'd turn around and forgive them. That's what kind of a God you are. I mean Jonah I don't know if Jonah went to heaven. I don't know. I mean I hope God threw that lesson. It doesn't say it. It just stops. It's like somebody tore a page out of the Bible. It's really frustrating when I read Jonah and I get to there all right now what happened? You know. But there's enough about Jonah for Jesus to use him as one of the examples. God Jesus says in the sign of Jonah shall be given for just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights so shall the Son of Man be in the earth three days and then rise again. Okay. Oh what a lesson there is here for those of us who are prone to spiritualize their own bitterness and anger. James and John justified their desires by saying they wanted to do just as Elijah did. I want to be just like I want to be like John the Baptist you know. I want to just tell people you serpents you brood of vipers you know. That's my kind of preaching you know. He was a prophet of God who called down fire from heaven on his enemies. They too wanted to be fiery prophets. This article is sort of a confession. I'll read this and then I'll talk. You see I've been accused in the past of being a prophet. I must admit it has kind of a nice ring to it the word prophet but I think it causes a lot more trouble than it's worth. I've struggled with this problem for around six years and it's quite a long time considering that I've only been a Christian for about seven. Um Uh well maybe I ought to read the story of how I became a prophet okay. Let's just go on and then we'll stop and I'll talk. It all started in a small Bible school that my wife Melody and I went to during our first year as believers. One of the teachers had recently been to a seminar where the speaker had gone through all the aspects of each of the gifts and callings on men and women of God. He had talked about teachers, administrators and so on. The teacher in our little class that day was very excited about sharing the aspects and characteristics of a prophet to the class. He started reading from his notes from the seminar he'd been to and he read things like prophets are very moody they are often very hard to get along with they see things in black and white that's supposed to be black and white somebody make a note of that there black and white and might seem to lack compassion. They are often considered rude and brash but inside they mean very well and they not only want to share the truth but they don't seem to mind if they step on people's toes when they do it. While our teacher was reading from these notes I'm sure he didn't notice the smile spreading across my face from ear to ear. Why everything he was reading just fit me to a tee. I just couldn't believe my ears at last I had found my calling. Moody and brash for Jesus. To top all this off when our teacher was through reading he turned to the class, pointed his finger at the and said my friends we have a prophet in our midst. He sure did. Well that was it I was hooked. That's all I needed to hear. It took the Lord about another five years to completely deflate my head from the delusions that that innocent and well meaning Bible teacher helped promote my life. A lot of what he shared was true but it certainly needed a good deal of warning balance to go with it. That is what I hope to share in this article. Okay. Now let me, let me, I really got to tell you by, let me tell you what led up to this class. I had been in the church oh about six to eight months. I had been a Christian maybe six to eight months. And Melody and I went to about six Bible studies a week. We went to a Bible study on Monday night, on Tuesday night, on Wednesday night, Thursday, Friday, and a concert on Saturday, and church on Sunday. So we usually missed one night. And then that night we had people over for dinner and witnessed to them. We were so zealous. We were so blindly on fire. And we were on fire. When we got saved, God saved us. And I don't have any doubt about that. And there were other things going on in the church that were wrong. There were, there were people in the church that were sleeping together, that said they were Christians. Famous. I'm not talking about gospel singers that if I told you their name you'd know who they were. They were engaged to be married and, and they were sleeping together. And I knew they were sleeping together. And Melody and I one night, we called them up, you know. We, her and I, we flipped the coin and she lost. And she called them up and trembling on the phone. And they caught them in bed together and says, you know, Lord I think I'm going to do this, you know. And, you know, it's not pleasing to him. And they go, well, yeah, you know, we know that but, you know. So they went to the pastor. No, they didn't go to the pastor. I went to the pastor. And I, and I said, you know, this is what we did, you know. We called them up and rebuked them, you know. And, and I'll never forget his reaction. His reaction was, well, you probably shouldn't have done that, you know. You probably should have done something else, you know, like it was kind of hard. And so I was getting this reputation, you know. And then we went over, we started leading people to the Lord and we went to this Bible study up in Laurel Canyon. And, and one of the Bible studies, we found out that some of the guys that were new Christians were still smoking dope. And they were smoking dope and worshipping the Lord. And they were, you know, they were, they would smoke marijuana and then they'd go to Bible studies and, wow, they really feel the presence, you know. And they're all stoned out of their gourds. So, you know, we just, we just, I'd take them aside and say, you guys can't be dopers and Christians at the same time. It's ridiculous, you know. And so they started like shying away from me. Then when I came in the room, they went out the other side. And then one time we led this girl to the Lord. I mean, she really got saved. And we went over to the house next door where this Bible study was. And they were all Christians. I mean, they really, all these little, you know, young guys had given their hearts to God, but nobody had instructed them that they couldn't do certain things and be Christians. You know, there wasn't anybody wise enough around in this circle of people to lay the rules down. The rules that, you know, there's no fornication and you gotta get away from pharmacy and all that. So, this girl's sitting, it's summertime, and this girl, we lead her to the Lord. She's about five hours old in the Lord. She's sitting in a beach chair next to the pool. And the sliding glass door opens up in the house, and out comes this guy stark naked, going, Praise the Lord! And jumps into the pool. Skinny-dipping for Jesus, yeah, in our born-again suits. And I just, I went over to him and I said, You get out of that pool right now. I mean, like his father or something, you know? And he just, he went inside and told the guy in the house, you know, this Keith Green guy, man, he's really a bummer, man. He's really quenching the spirit here, you know? Now, I hadn't sung in the church or nothing. I mean, nobody knew I was a musician or a singer. I'd lay low, I laid low on that for about six months. I didn't want to be known as a singer. I just wanted to be a good Christian. And I'd lay my music down, and what happened was, you know, I didn't have any respect for being a musician, and all I got was this reputation of being this really hard-nosed, you can't skinny-dip, you can't smoke dope, you can't sleep together before you get married, and I kept going to the pastor, these guys are smoking dope, and these guys are doing this, and, you know, they're skinny-dipping, and, you know, this has got to stop, you know? And I, this is ridiculous, and the pastor, you know, he'd been a Christian about 15 years, and he was a little more gentle about it. He'd go, well, you know, they're young, and they need to, I don't think what he did was right. You know, I don't think, I think he was too soft with sin at the time, and he probably would agree at this point, but I didn't have any discernment or balance, I didn't know, I was ready to strangle him for Jesus, you know? I was ready to start chewing on grasshoppers and run around condemning him. So, I hadn't been told I was a prophet yet, I was just jumping up and down all over sinners. And I was, you know, I was doing things like at the end of church, I'd say, we're having an all-night prayer meeting in our house tonight, midnight fellowship, come on over, and, you know, 10 people would come over, and we'd just sing and pray all night until the sun came up. We'd watch the sun came up, thank you Jesus for the sun, go to bed. I mean, we didn't have anything. So, we, at our church, they had this little Bible school, and we decided we'd go to Bible school. Well, you know, the problem with Bible school is it started at 8 in the morning, and the first class was Greek. You ever learn Greek at 8 in the morning? Now, about 6 weeks later, the Lord told us to get out of Bible school. Quote, unquote, told us to go to Bible school. We didn't stay in there too long, but during the 6 months, the damage that I've told you about was done. It was the great damage of being, and he read from this thing, and he came down to, you know, well, Keith, he went to this seminar, and this guy went over what a teacher was, and what an administrator was, and what a mercy shower was, and what a giver was, and they said, well, Jesus had all these qualities, but you have a certain personality that lines up with this that God has given you, and this is what a prophet looks like, the prophet personality, and it's a gift, it's a personality gift that God gives each person, and now, I don't necessarily believe any of that teaching at this point, it's kind of like, you know, I looked at it sort of like Christian astrology, you know, I'm a prophet on the cusp of exhorter or something with, you know, server rising and all this stuff. I just want to be a Christian, and we're going to get to that. I really just want to be like Jesus, and I don't care what my personality is, in spite of my personality, I want to be like Jesus. So, people, I got this really heavy, you know, run down, torn feather sinners reputation, and so they told me I was a prophet, and I was a baby Christian, okay, what does that mean? So I started studying the prophets, and I'm going to be like a prophet, you know. And that means that I don't have to be gentle, boy, people always accuse me of being harsh, and I just say, well, you know, I'm a prophet, so that's it. That's all there is to it, you know. So, the main need for this article, next section. Because we at Last Days Ministries have a nationally known ministry, many people show up at our door from all over the country and want to see firsthand what's going on. By the way, those who are listening to this tape, please don't ever just show up. Always write or call and give us about two years notice, no, give us as much notice as possible because we're crowded and busy and all kinds of other things. Okay, from time to time, though, somebody shows up with a quote, word from the Lord, unquote. I'm not trying to be sarcastic. We've had some pretty interesting characters show up at the door. We had one guy show up and when we invited him to eat a meal with us, he said that God had told him not to eat. We asked him how long. He said that he didn't know, but that he wasn't supposed to eat. He told a sad story about how everybody had rejected him, his parents, his church, and every other church he had gone to had rejected him. When we asked him what God had told him to share, he opened up the Bible and started reading from Revelation. After a while, one of our elders counseled him to go back home and get his relationships right with his parents and his pastor. This he refused to do and he went on his way refusing to eat and refusing to listen because God had told him. Another time, we had a guy with a long robe show up at the door who said that God had told him to come and tell all the ministries around here that the Garden of Eden was in the state of Georgia. He shared with such urgency, with such sincerity, but no matter what we said to him, we could not sway him from his quote, divine commission, unquote, because, quote, God had told him. He had no one to counsel him, no one to listen to, no one to confirm that yes, God had truly spoken to him. He was on his own and he was right, the only one right. These are some extreme examples of something that I think is a very common theme problem in the church today. Young people, usually young men, who believe that God has raised them up to tell people what is wrong with their ministry or their lives or both. These people are usually hurt, independent, talkative, stubborn, unteachable, and unyielding. I know because I have been one of them. Okay, I remember when we went and did the series of meetings at Oral Roberts University back in 79 that one of the guys showing us around the campus there said that a guy shows up just about every day with a word from the Lord for Oral Roberts. I can understand that that people show up and they think, well they watch him on TV and they go, well he's not right on in this area, he's not right on in that area, so I'm going to go tell him a word from the Lord. Maybe some of the people do have a word from the Lord. We always, when somebody shows up and says I got a word from the Lord, we always take them out front, sit down with them and say, okay, what you got? God could send somebody with a word from the Lord, but usually the hurt and the bitterness and the rebellion is written all over their face, they usually, one guy, the guy that wouldn't eat, he said he'd walked from Pennsylvania. Now, and I looked him in the eye and I said, you walked from Pennsylvania? He goes, well mostly, I hitchhiked a little bit too, but I walked, you know. I said, okay, well you walk down the freeway and then hitchhike. And I said, well, so anyway, we've had all these kind of disturbed people show up and we've also had a lot of nice people show up. I'm not saying that everybody that comes here is weird. But this last sentence here, they are usually hurt, independent, talkative. They talk a lot. They're real, can't stop talking. Stubborn, unteachable, unyielding. And I kind of, I call this the Lone Ranger Syndrome. Nobody understands me. The church I go to is part of either, they usually, they're part of either the Whore of Babylon or the church they go to is the Church of Laodicea. It's one of the two. That's what the guy read from, from Revelation. He's reading from Laodicea. And they see everybody as an enemy of God, but they're going to God's spokesman. And they see that all the things, they only see the things that are wrong. It's really, you know, and I've never gone to the extreme that some of these guys have gone. But I have gotten into that trap of seeing so much what the truth is and so much what an ideal church would be like, that all of a sudden nothing can live up to it. And even if there's some good things in a church, a fellowship, a denomination, a group of people, well, they're so far from the mark that I just found myself writing everything off. And that's what the truth is. And I knew there were things wrong with me, but I also knew that, well, at least I've got the ideal up there and I'm striving for it. And it's really a trap. It's really a trap. And I know there are pastors out there, and I've heard from them. And the Joe Fawcett Calvary Commission said, I got this guy, he's been here for two months, and he's just telling everybody what's wrong with him, and he's, God told me he's a prophet. You know, it's the same rap. And I know there are pastors out there who've got this one or two guys in their fellowship, who God has given the ability to see right from wrong. That's about, if they've got any gift at all, these people can really tell when something's wrong. You can use them as an alarm, you know. When they go off, well, something must be wrong, you know. Then they need to be turned off, like an alarm. Okay, go back to your pew. And they need, these people need to be watched more than anybody else because they're the ones that can cause the most problems in their And they also need a lot of teaching about, well, they even need one of two things. They need a lot of teaching about the love and the grace of God, which usually they'll hate because they'll think it's out of balance. And the other thing that will really help them a lot is pray for them and leave them alone and let God bash them all over the place. Let them run into walls and run into problems and give them enough rope and they'll hang their prophet syndrome right, you know, out the window. And I have seen so many of these guys, they get this fellowship. They get thrown out of this church, they get thrown out. And by the time they show up and talk to me and they look at me or they look at Leonard Ravenhill or other people that have a biting message with a cutting edge on it, and we're their heroes, you know. Well, I want to be like Leonard Ravenhill, you know. I want to be like Charles Finney. I want to be like John the Baptist or something. And I would just keep telling them, no, you want to be like Jesus. And that's what Charles Finney wanted to be like. And that's what Leonard Ravenhill wants to be like. And that's what I want to be like. I want to be like Jesus. And sure, Charles Finney might have had an incredible gift of speaking and calling down sin. And God used that gift. And I'm sure that John the Baptist had a personality cut out for his calling from God. But he spent 30 years in obscurity in the back side of the desert first. Think about that. He spent 30 years in the back side of the desert for what? For a six-month ministry. How would you like to go through 30 years training for a six-month ministry? Baiting, eating grasshoppers, not getting married, not going to parties because no one would want you there, being strange, weird, and outcast. Six months and the rest of his life he spent in jail until they separated the head from the body. And when I said I know because I've been one of them, I have all these qualities. My childhood, I've got still a lot of hurt and things I'm working out from my childhood and things that I'm getting right with my own parents who are not yet Christians. But I really have a good relationship starting with them after 28 years. Independent, thinking that so many are wrong and at least I'm in the camp and I'm not Talkative. Well, you know, everybody knows about me talking a lot. Stubborn. Boy, if I think something's wrong, I won't yield a point and therefore because I'm stubborn, and I also have this view of right and wrong, and I also have been unteachable and unyielding and not open to correction, much part of my Christian walk, it has made for when I make a mistake. I mean, when I was right, I was right. But when I was wrong, I was right. You know, and that's a problem, you know, when you're wrong and you think you're right and nobody can tell you you're wrong and you're going to stick to it and you know, boy, you're going to go down in flames. You're going to be in trouble. Part of my Christian walk. Okay. What the Lord has recently shown me, the above subtitle might even sound pretentious, but God does speak to his people, not just special ones, like in the Old Testament, but to all of his people. He speaks to them in many ways through the Holy Spirit who lives in them, through men and women of God and their church and around them, but mainly through the word of God, the Bible. Whenever the Holy Spirit gives us peace or lack of peace about a certain thing we are doing or want to do, or whenever our pastor or Christian friend gives us advice or counsel about a particular problem, it will always line up with the word of God or isn't from him. For, quote, all scripture is inspired by God and is profitably for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. As I was studying his precious word over the past year, it suddenly dawned on me that my whole view of myself and my calling was all backwards. So many people had told me that I was a prophet over the years, that I believed they must be right. I saw myself as a spokesman to my generation in the church. Not the spokesman, but one of a number chosen by God to be used to correct and exhort believers to obey God and win this world for Jesus. It's not that I no longer believe that I'm called to do that, it's just that now I see that every believer is called to do that, to call all Christians everywhere to obey God and win the world for Christ. Not just this special club, you know. I saw myself as being a, I really never in any of this time saw myself as a better, like a higher Christian than others. Just a different, you know, I'm called to do this job and they're called to do this job. None of that, it's true that parts of the body do different things, but they're all called to minister for one purpose. Every part of my body is there to help the head do what it wants to do. Every part of the body of Christ is there to help Jesus the head do what he wants to do. And it's all, if my arm was in a sling, for instance, and this arm would take up a lot more of the work and more of the things that need to be done. If a part of the body is hurt or wounded, have you ever sprained an ankle? Boy, you then put all your weight on the other foot and you hop along on crutches or something. The other parts of the body take over and make up for those things. And if you have an itch on this arm, you can't scratch this arm with this hand. It doesn't work. You have to use this arm and this arm comes over and helps. And when you wash behind your neck and behind your ears, you know, you can't wash this, you've got to do the things that are most appropriate. And that's what the whole body is for. But the whole body has something in common. It's all part of one body. It all feeds off the same blood and the same oxygen and pumps through the same heart. And it's all there to help the head, the brain, Jesus, the head of the church, do what he's calling us to do. And it's every person, every Christian's job to call all Christians everywhere to obey God. That means to be prophetic, to be exhortive, to be corrective, to be loving and encouraging to one another and to win the world for Christ. You know, I have a saying, and I didn't make this up either, that a lot of people think that the pastor is supposed to win people to Jesus. But it's not true that shepherds, shepherds don't make sheep. Sheep make sheep. Have you ever heard of a shepherd that made a sheep? Sheep do it naturally. They just start coming. Put sheep together and get more sheep. Shepherds can't make sheep, but they can make an atmosphere with well fed sheep and well sheltered sheep and well cleaned sheep and healed sheep and so on. They can make an atmosphere that's more conducive for multiplication and reproduction. And that's their job is after the babies come to help them along and if they get in trouble to get in there and work with them. Without a shepherd, sheep will probably decrease in number instead of increase because they're so dumb first of all and they get into trouble so easy. Okay. The main thing that God has shown me through it all is this. I'm not called to be a prophet. I'm called to be a Christian, a servant of the living God. That is the highest calling that anyone can realize. And the most beautiful thing has happened in my heart. My whole goal in life has completely changed. The only thing that I want to achieve to is to have the Lord tell me when I stand before him, well done now good and faithful servant. Not well done now good and faithful prophet or pastor or writer or singer or anything else. To be a Christian, to live up to that wonderful world, that is my only goal. After all, Paul starts out that meaty book of Romans with these words. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle. Not an apostle of Jesus Christ called to be a servant. No, Paul had his priorities straight. He knew what came first. Now that little, you know, you never read, you never look at the beginning of a book. You know, you skip over the Apollo. But that says it all. What is a Christian? He's a servant. Tracy and I were talking about that earlier. A Christian is a servant. He serves first God, then he serves everyone around him, and finally he serves the interests of himself as a Christian. That's the last thing he serves. And, you know, somebody once said joy, J-O-Y, stands for Jesus, others, and you in that order. And that's the only way you can really have any true joy is to serve Jesus first, others second, and you last. And so, Paul didn't look at himself as an apostle. He looked at that as his calling. He was, the actual meaning of the word apostle means one who is sent out or one who builds things, one who starts works. You know, he's a birther, one who gives birth to new works and goes on. They're not like a pope, they're not like a church leader in as much as many people look at the apostles as church leaders. They are really church founders, and then they go on and found something else. Remember he says, Paul plants, Apollo waters. I do the planting. The next guy, the evangelist, might come in and grow the church. The teacher might come in and make the church deeper, you know. Okay, the prophet syndrome. I'm sure you know someone in your fellowship who has all the earmarks of being a potential prophet. They don't beat around the bush, but they say exactly what's on their mind. They aren't very popular, but they don't care because they believe that they're being persecuted for righteousness sake, quote unquote. They're always finding fault with almost everything and rarely have a kind word to say. They say to be kind would be phony for them. They know that the fruits of the Holy Spirit include such things as kindness, gentleness, self-control, and long-suffering, but they say that most people misinterpret those scriptures, quote, and besides, there's a lot more in the Bible about zeal and judgment and the wrath of God, etc. Now, it seemed for a period of two or three years of my Christian walk that no matter where I turned in the Bible, all I saw was the wrath of God. And I loved the Old Testament. I liked it a lot better than the New Testament. It seemed like even in the words of Jesus. Now, let me backtrack a little bit and balance this out and say that there is a whole lot more in the Bible about the severity of God and the strictness of the gospel than is being taught today. It is true that the church is majoring on one side of the gospel and one side of God. That is a fact. That information that we have given you before in newsletters or in teachings is not false information. But there is the part that the church is teaching and majoring on about the love, kindness, and patience of God that I, through over-balance and through wanting to promote one side and feeling myself called to do that, would neglect the other to a fault. That's what the whole Egypt album is about. That's what the whole Egypt album is about. That was a statement of I've been overlooking grace and God put me through the punching bag for about a year when I did that. He said, I'll show you grace. You're going to really need grace when I get through it. And he did. In one hand, he had the ointment to soothe. In the other hand, he had the scalpel to cut. It was hell for about a year there. I was just going through trial and trial and trial one after the other. Until finally, I begged for the grace of God. Finally, God says, I'm going to make you need grace so much that you're going to so appreciate it that you might get over-balanced the other way. It could be possible. I don't know. But we'll get to that in a minute. And the thing that usually happens to these misguided souls with all the rough edges is that somebody tells them, hey, I know what you are. You're a prophet. Then they say to themselves, wow, that's why people are so down on me all the time. Why, that's just the way they treated Elijah and Jeremiah and even Jesus. Hey, I'm just like Jesus. Then they start getting words from the Lord and all the rest that comes along with being a prophet. The saddest thing about all this is whenever someone is brash, obnoxious, or loud, we label him a prophet. That's the saddest thing to me is that whenever somebody is a jerk, you know, well, that guy is a prophet. But you know, deep down inside, most of these really do want to please God, but now they are so insulated from criticism and protected from rebuke because they think they are a rejected prophet that no one can help or reach them. And unless God intervenes in their lives, they cannot truly be used in any long-term way because of their unteachable, uncorrectable spirit. Now, the best thing that God ever did for me was move me to Lindale, Texas. Surround me with a bunch of gray-headed Christians that were full of love and balance, including old Leonard Ravenhill down the street who is as fiery as any of the prophets in the Old Testament, but as loving as any of, as loving as any Christian I'd ever want to meet or be like, and God showed me that you could be fiery and radical and be loving and gentle. Many people have said that Leonard is a lion in the pulpit and a lamb in the pew, you know, outside the pulpit. And he is, whom I've very rarely ever, ever seen him to somebody's face be harsh. And I've very rarely seen him in the pulpit be gentle, you know. And that's one of those dichotomies, but he lives, he lives what he preaches, and it's very inspiring to have a friend like that and have an example, an older brother in the Lord like that. And so the Lord brought me into that place and there's other guys in the area that are just full of gentleness and love and still have a radical faith and love and zeal and gospel that they preach and believe and live. And this was something new to me because when I was living in the city of L.A., a lot of people had love and a lot of people were gentle, but very few of them had a radical gospel and very few of them had a radical faith and desire to just change the world and shake it. So I just wrote off all their gentleness and love as being part of a misguided, misbalanced theology. So when the Lord brought me to this area, he started showing me by example, which is the best way to learn, by the way, that men and women of God could be fiercely hateful towards sin and just as fiercely loving towards sinners. And with the same intensity of the bitterness and hatred towards sin, they would have love and gentleness and passionate patience with sinners. I mean, it's just an incredible thing. And I started seeing that and it just started breaking me down. I just all of a sudden would go to these people and say, well, gee, you believe like I believe, but you act a lot differently. You know, wow, I really need to act like you and that doesn't mean I've got to change my beliefs, it means I've got to change how I put my beliefs into action. That was wonderful and it's taken, I've lived here now two and a half years and I've arrived. No. Now, now I'm here. No, I've had a long, long, long way to go. I'm in, I think I'm in junior high with the Lord now. You know, I used to think I was in college and then I found out I was in second grade. Maybe not, I'm in the sixth grade now. Maybe next year I'll find out I was only in the third, it doesn't matter. The older I get in the Lord, and I've heard this a lot and it's become a cliche, but the older I get in the Lord, the less I realize I know and the more I realize I've got to learn. And that's a fact. And I've heard that from people, even 40 year old Christians serving God, you know, all the pat answers start melting down and just disintegrating before your eyes. There are no such things as pat answers. There are no such things as little sayings that always ring true. Jesus always rings true. The word of God always does, but even Scripture, when taken with evil motives in the hands of a cult, for instance, becomes a weapon of wickedness. And, you know, the I want to say here and now that I'm grateful to God in this, that this didn't happen to me and it's not going to, where it says, you know, they cannot be used in any long-term way. I, we as a ministry, all about a year and a half ago, reached a fork in the road where we could have become one of those little out there tangent dealing with you know, unimportant theological things and, and, you know, shooting from behind the bushes at the church and everything. And, and, and the Lord showed us that, showed me specifically that, that I was called about a year ago, but I was called to do evangelism. That was an incredible revelation because I, you know, it was, it was like freedom from prison for me. You know, I was, I had to go and give the word of the Lord to the church, you know, and, and then God says, no, you don't have to do that. My, my calling on your life is to go to the unsaved people and tell them that, you know, Jesus is Lord. Give them the gospel. You've taught them, you're taunted by what's wrong with the gospel. Tell them what's right. Tell them the gospel, you know, tell them the right gospel. And it was, you know, it was like freedom from prison and I had to go back. Now I hadn't been an evangelist now for six years. I hadn't been somebody who'd been leading people to the Lord. I was so busy trying to shake up the church and raise up Christians that were going to be radical for Jesus, which, you know, I'm not being facetious. I mean, we, there was a lot of good done, but still, uh, was not realizing my calling in the Lord. And he, and, uh, uh, I had to go back and study the gospel. I mean, I went back to simple books. You know, what is the gospel? You know, I mean, it's easy to say, what isn't the gospel? Just, you know, look at everything around you. It's going on. What isn't the gospel? But what is the gospel? I had to get so simple and, and, and I just did 14 crusades and I think on the 14th crusade, I, I, I got my message down to a simple gospel, you know, bam, put it in a bullet and shoot it. And it exploded all over the place and it worked, um, through the Holy Ghost. And I'm, uh, still learning how to be an evangelist because I was misguided all those years that that's, no, that's not my calling. And again, I'm called to be, I'm, I'm a Christian. That's my, what I want to be. That's what I am, a Christian, a servant of God, called to be an evangelist or a singer or whatever, you know. Um, okay. Um, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, And I wanted to write the article right away, and the Lord would not let me do it. Mainly because He wanted me to have a period of time to adjust, and live it, and walk in it, and put out some articles and newsletters. We get letters from people going, Gee, your newsletter is not as heavy as it used to be. And I have got no apologies for that. I don't want to become like every Christian publication that has ever been. I don't want to just have a kind of a potpourri, a smorgasbord of this Bible study, and this teaching, and this issue. I really do want to keep it as a little bullet that cuts through to the heart, and has an edge on it, and changes lives. Because if truth doesn't change lives, then it's not worth reading. If what we read, what we say, what we teach, what we live, doesn't affect those around us to live more like Jesus, to become more like God, then we are wasting our breath, and we are wasting God's time. So everything we do, we want to be radical. And the word radical has a terrible negative connotation in these days. It means some communist burning down buildings or something. But the word radical in the Bible means unswayable. It means you cannot be torn from your conviction. When you're a radical Christian, you cannot be torn from your conviction that Jesus is Lord, and that he must be obeyed, and he must be followed with every ounce that's in us. This next part, what is a prophet, is just a picture of what a real prophet would be. And it's also a balancing part of the article that says, I'm not ridiculing the office of prophet. There is an office of prophet in the Bible. Now with all this talk about misguided young zealots going around blasting people with truth minus love, I don't want to make the impression that God has not called certain people to fulfill the ministry of a prophet. There are many references in the book of Acts concerning people anointed by God to preach with prophetic urgency. And we're going to include the scriptures where those occurrences occur. These men were called prophets by the writer of Acts, and Paul in his teaching about the body of Christ talks about the different offices and callings in the body to help build up, strengthen, and establish the church. But what would one of these God-ordained prophets be like? First of all, he would be a Christian. He would be like Jesus. Yes, he would hate sin like Jesus, but more importantly, he would love sinners like Jesus. He would be loving, kind, and gentle, always seeking to get the truth across in the most direct way, and yet never offending anyone if he could help it. This is kind of a different picture than what you've probably thought a prophet would be, but I know that Daniel and Joseph and Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Elijah were men of great tears and great prayer, were broken men that lived alone in seclusion, were considered strange because they were so close with God. Moses came down from the mountain with his face glowing like a GE light bulb, and people thought he was nuts. People thought he was out there, and he was. He was way out there with God. He'd gotten close to God, and some of the glow of the Spirit had rubbed off on him. But Moses loved the people. He loved the people, and they knew it, or they wouldn't have followed him. He could have threatened to kill them and send plagues and everything. I mean, that was scary. But they knew he loved them, and God sure knew he loved them. Remember the times when Moses said, kill me, block my name out of the book of life? It's in there. You read it. But don't destroy that. Paul says in Romans... Oh, you don't turn there. Let me see if I can find it real quick. I think it's in Romans 10. Good, I found it. No, I didn't. I can't find it. It's somewhere in Romans. He says, I wish myself accursed if all of Israel could be saved. He says, I would rather I go to hell if all of my brethren and countrymen in Israel could know Jesus. Now, Moses says to God... Now, Moses isn't just one of these kind of guys that's praying like we pray. He's not praying, well, maybe some of it got to heaven, and the rest of it kind of stuck on the ceiling. Moses talked to God face to face. He says to God, not as a joke, not as a ploy, not as a manipulation, block my name out of the book of life. Now, what if you had God's ear, and you knew He was in the room, and you were talking to Him, and He was talking to you face to face? You would have to be willing for that to be an occurrence, or you wouldn't say it to God, because that's not somebody to mess with. You're not playing a game. Block my name out of the book of life. He loved the people so much that He was willing to burn forever. It's not so much that He loved God that much, He also loved the people that much. And He was heavy. I mean, He came down and broke the tablets, and made the children of Israel eat the ground up powder from the... You know, I mean, caused all kinds of problems. But the love that these people have is missing in our view of prophets. Let's go into the next one. The prophet above all would be a man of God. He would seek to display all the qualities of love found in 1 Corinthians 13. You want to find out what prophetic love is like? Read 1 Corinthians 13. It used to be my unfavorite chapter in the Bible. It was, not because I didn't like it, it's because everybody else always used to quote it to me. He would not be easily provoked, or moody, or unduly harsh, but patient, merciful, and slow to anger. He would not seek to be a prophet, nor glory in that position. But just like Jeremiah, or Moses, or Gideon, he would ask God to make sure he was choosing the right man before he would speak out against sin and hypocrisy. All these people said, but God, you know, are you sure? Gideon made God do all kinds of little things, remember? Make the rug wet and the ground dry. Okay, now make the ground wet and the rug dry. And Jeremiah says, but Lord, I'm too young. And Moses says, but Lord, I can't speak. But Lord, but Lord, but Lord. And finally, God, sometimes, he got mad. Moses kept going, but Lord. And God said, but nothing. All right, Aaron will speak for you. You ever had the hiccups when you're teaching a Bible study? Lastly, he would be a broken man, well acquainted with grief and tears. He would have a broken heart over the sin in the world and the worldliness in the church, before Jesus made a scourge of cords to whip the money changers with when he turned over the merchandise tables in the temple. He first wept and prayed over the strange city of Jerusalem before he entered her gates. The prophet, like his master Jesus, would weep before he whipped, pray before he spoke out, and walk in dread of being in the wrong spirit. For unlike James and John, he would know what spirit he was of. Okay? All right, any questions? Can I have that on pause, please? Is that paused? Is the pause button on? Okay. Is it on now? Okay. I didn't want it faded. On the sentence that says people are prone to spiritualize their bitterness and sin, how do you draw the line between getting angry at sin, which it says that Lot, in Peter, in the book of Peter, he talks about Lot, and it says his righteous soul was vexed. The word vexed means his righteous soul was angered and upset by what he saw around him. Okay? It doesn't say that in the book of Genesis, but Peter, I don't know where he got it from. Maybe there was some Bible study by Paul or something, and God told him or something. But it says Lot's righteous soul was vexed. Moses came down with the law in his hand, and he watched them break in the law and got angry. Now, some people say he got in the flesh. Some people say he was righteously angry. There's a thing called righteous indignation. I do believe that if we are filled with the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is inside of us, the things that grieve the Holy Spirit will grieve us. The things that please the Holy Spirit will please us. The things that anger the Holy Spirit will anger us. Now, there is such a thing as holy anger. Remember it says, Be angry and do not sin, sin not. That is when you're angry at the devil, or you're angry at, you hear about somebody being raped, or somebody being ripped off, or somebody dying, because nobody would take their check in a town. There was this one guy during the winter, that big bad winter we had two or three years ago, and his car was stuck in the snow drifts. And he walked about two or three miles to a town, and he started knocking on the doors. He didn't have a credit card, he didn't have cash, all he had was a personal check. No hotel would take him in, nobody would take him in, and they finally found him the next morning, and they had to cut his feet off, because they were frostbitten. Nobody would take his check. That made me angry, and I don't think I was in the flesh either. I think that when you hear about injustice, and greed, and wickedness like that, that it will make you angry, and you have two reactions to that. You can get in the flesh. Here's the difference. The difference between fleshly anger and godly anger, is that fleshly anger is you are wronged. You are hurt. You are the center of your anger. You are the reason you're angry. Godly anger is God is wronged, God is hurt, God is the center of your indignation. Okay. Somebody just asked, that in the concerts that I did in the past, when I said something, when I preached hard, did I really love those people? I loved them as much as I felt was my obligation, that's not a good word. I loved them as much as my view of my calling, and my view of God at that time, provoked me to love them, or instilled, or inspired me to love them. Now I love them a whole bunch more now, because my view of my calling, and God, and my theology, meaning the study of God, commands a lot more love, for when I go up and represent God. My other calling, my whole view of a prophet, and my calling was lopsided. It wasn't that I was walking around as a maniac, it was that I was walking around lopsided. My view of theology, my view of God, my calling, made me, well, yeah, sure I love them, but I really need to tell them this. And yeah, I love them enough to say I'm speaking the truth in love. I mean, yes, I love them, but not half as much as I do now. Somebody just asked that, I mentioned before that when I was young in the Lord, I went to my pastor a lot, and was upset about the sin in the church, and I reported that my pastor was too soft on sin, and I was too hard on sin. And he asked, what is the balance, what is the correct response when you see sin? Here is the correct response. One, God shows you sin, or God allows you, by the way, you have a little meter, a little buzzer, a little alarm that God gave you, it's called a conscience. When you sin, your buzzer goes off. When somebody else sins, that conscience, you should identify with them, because you're part of the body of Christ, and your conscience should give you the correct view of black and white, and right and wrong, and your buzzer will go off. Two, now, God shows you sin in somebody's life, first, to pray about it. Now, you've got to pray about it, if you just go, and go running for them, you're not going to be in the right spirit, the right attitude, you're going to be walking in yourself, and not in the Holy Ghost in this particular problem. First thing you must do is pray for that person. Now, if it's the kind of sin, where they're chewing their gum too loud, or, you know, they're talking too much when they should be working, they eat too much, or it's one of these ongoing things, that you're worried about them, you know, they've got a problem with bitterness, or something that's ongoing, those kind of sins, well then you pray about it, and wait, and ask God to change it supernaturally, you know, that would be a good thing to do, first, maybe for a day or two, if you still see the problem, then God calls you to go to Him, it says in Matthew 18, there's your prescription for what to do, when you see sin in somebody's life. When your brother sins, go to him in private, if your brother listens to you, you have won your brother, if your brother does not listen to you, you take somebody else, that somebody else, should be, somebody that's not his enemy, it should be somebody, that this person does not regard, as a threat to him, you know what I'm talking about, shouldn't be a vicious triangle, a vicious triangle is when there's three friends, and, there's either these two friends, ganging up on this, there's this two friends, ganging up on them, and that's whatever happens, when there's three people, in a friendship, the two usually end up ganging up, we have a three-person leadership, in our ministry, and it very rarely happens, I mean it very rarely happens, when two is two against one, or two against one, and it's really a blessing from God, it's always been a fear of mine, that that would happen, that one of the elders and I, would be against the other, the two elders would be against me, and it just very, very rarely happened, but, so you should not go, these two people against one, when somebody, the person feels threatened by, go with, the godliest person you know, if it's the pastor, or an elder fine, if it's, and it shouldn't be, the person's mother, or the, you know, it shouldn't be the person, you know somebody's going to, embarrass the person, but you should go with the person, another person that you respect, and hopefully somebody, they respect too, and go to them, then if they don't listen to you, your job according to the Bible, is to expose the sin, in front of the church, that's the heavy one, expose the sin, in front of the church, for two reasons, one, that the, the embarrassment, of being exposed openly, will force the person to repent, and two, as an example to the whole body, of what you should not do, when Ananias and Sapphira were, were cut to the quick, and dropped dead by the Holy Ghost, it's because God always deals with sin, new sin, first sin, in a very, strong way, make a strong example, it was the first time, they had somebody giving only half, of what they promised to give, and God dealt with it swiftly, and severely, and that's it, as an example to the church, now the other kind of sin, where there's somebody fornicating, or there's somebody, doing real harm to themselves, to somebody else, or to the body, then you need to pray, not to pray, whether you should go, you should pray, how you should go, get in the right spirit, get armed with your scriptures, and go as quickly, as you have the right spirit, and go, but there are sometimes, when God will lead you, to just shut up, and pray for somebody, in an ongoing, non-dangerous, where it's not really, you know, doing great damage to them, or somebody else, sin always does damage, but there are some sins, that God can deal with himself, and the person, if they love God, they either need to hold a mirror, in front of them, or so, and when I said, that my pastor, was a little soft on sin, that also helped me, to get on the other side, and get harder, and get almost bitter, that you know, well, they're not dealing with sin, I will, you know, okay, the question was asked, what do you do, when you go to somebody, and they, you tell them, something's wrong, or sinful, and they go, well, that's your conviction, you know, I doesn't say it in the Bible, or you know, God never told me, that's wrong, and I thought, of like, cigarette smoking, as an example, then you need, what's called wisdom, it says, if any man lacks wisdom, ask from above, who gives it, from God above, who gives it, to all men, liberally, without reproach, there are times, remember when the, the woman came to Solomon, and said, my baby died yesterday, and this woman said, how did it go again, oh yeah, this woman, no, her baby died, and I was asleep, and she took my baby, and now she says, that the baby's hers, and Solomon thought, you know, how am I going to deal with this, I mean, well, it's just your opinion, I mean, it really was one of those, well, it's her opinion, that it's mine, and it's my opinion, that it's mine too, you know, well, boy, Solomon really needed, some wisdom, and he says, bring a sword, he says, I'll tell you what, Solomon's thinking, well, I'll bring a sword, and I'll threaten to cut the baby in half, of course, he never would have done it, because he didn't want to kill the baby, but he's thinking, I'll threaten to cut the baby in half, and the one who's really the mother, would rather see the baby live, in another home, than to see her baby die, so she's right, the other one doesn't care, because it's not her baby, she's all bitter and hurt, because her baby died, she'll go, all right, if I can't have it, nobody can have it, but the other one says, if I can't have it, I'd rather have somebody have it, so I can, it'll grow up and be a person, I brought it into the world, well, he had wisdom, and when he says, all right, bring a sword, let's cut it in half, and you give the feet to her, and the head to her, the real mother says, oh, no, no, no, no, let her have it, the false mother says, no, with like cigarette smoking, you need to have wisdom, and the things that God has shown me, to say to people, was, all your money, your money is supposed to be the Lord's, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and your time is the Lord's, you're wasting your money, you're hurting your body, and you're wasting God's time, you're being, you're, and not all the, not all the things, you're polluting the atmosphere, you know, you're, I mean, that's not, that's, but you go back to the Bible, and say, God, give me wisdom, how do I deal with that, or somebody says, there's nothing in the Bible, that says, thou shalt not wear halter tops, or thou shalt wear a bra, you know, or something like that, then you need to, you need to appeal to a person's conscience, to, to have discretion, and to want to be modest, and not to want to be lascivious, which means, to try to attract, or be, to be, attractive, in a, in a physical way, so that you can attract the attention, then you need wisdom to say, like, like Finney taught, he says, if you're trying to attract attention to yourself, instead of Jesus, then you're sinning, and if you point to their conscience, and say, look, think about this, you're trying to draw attention to you, and we're supposed to be, like the Holy Spirit, drawing attention to Jesus, let your good, let, let, let your good works, what does it say, um, shine in such a way, that they may see, your good works, let your light shine in such a way, that they may see your good works, and glorify, who, your Father in Heaven, you know, there's two ways to do something, you know, there's two ways to do something, you can, you can pray, like this, and they see you praying, and they glorify God, or they can see you praying, you know, God, see, pride comes before a fall, but you have to ask God, for wisdom, on the things, that are the black, and white, you know, that aren't black, and white, boy, there's going to come, a time in the church, when the U.S. is going to legalize marijuana, and boy, are we going to have trouble, in the church, because they're going to say, it doesn't sound, you can have marijuana, it says, don't be drunk with wine, well, wine, I'm not drinking wine, and have a lot of trouble, okay, okay, we're going to close in prayer, holy God, it's only you, that can change the hearts, of men, we can't change anything, God, we can't do a thing, that lasts for eternity, but you, all, everything you do, lasts for eternity, everything you touch, that is changed, is changed forever, and God, I ask, with all my heart, that your word, would burn in our hearts, that the fire, of zeal, and boldness, and hatred of sin, would ever be so strong, but that the other side, of the sword, the love, the grace, the kindness, the gentleness, would be worked in us, so that, when we turn the sword over, to cut, everyone will know, that it's being cut, that they're being cut, with love, we want to be like Jesus, we want to hear the words, well done, thou good and faithful servant, that is our only goal, our only desire, we ask, like Jesus, that you would, not only, lead us through sufferings, but you'll lead us, through the cross, to the resurrection, God, of every one of these problems, that we have, and I know that there's some, in this audience tonight, God, that their problem, isn't being too bold, it's being too meek, being too timid, that their problem, isn't being obnoxious, it's just not saying anything, God, and they need to hear, the other side of the message, they need to hear, about going forth, and opening their mouths, and shouting, from the housetops, but God, I ask that your word, which is proper, in every season, would go forth, from this study, from this tape, from the video, from this study, from the track, from the newsletter, and would minister, to those, who need this word, and God, I thank you, for living in my heart, I thank you, for forgiving me, and I thank you, that you're there, patiently waiting, for us to come, to our senses, we love you, God, we know, that you're the only one, that can change us, and we rest in that now, in Jesus name, amen.