Mike Bickle emphasizes the need for a purity covenant within the church, drawing from Revelation chapter 3, where he highlights the Church of Philadelphia's faithfulness and the dangers of tolerating immorality as seen in the churches of Thyatira and Pergamos. He calls for a commitment to uphold God's standards, warning that as God's glory increases, so does the accountability for sin within the community. Bickle outlines seven practical commitments to maintain purity, including refusing to participate in conversations that promote immorality and holding each other accountable through confession and support. He stresses the importance of a culture of repentance and the grace of immunity to overcome past failures, urging the congregation to stand united against the rising tide of immorality in society.

Revelation chapter 3. You all have a set of notes, a one-page set of notes, but I'm going to go to on a larger outline that I have on the internet. I got it on the PowerPoint. Turn to Revelation chapter 3, if you would. I want to share in the direction that I shared with the staff. We had the, once a month, the whole IHOP staff comes together on Monday at 4 o'clock once a month, and I was stirred up by the Lord in a real specific way. Last week, I was in San Francisco, and it was in Sunday morning in San Francisco, where the word of the Lord came to me in a really special, clear way that, about our spiritual family here, and what the Lord spoke to me, it was two things. Revelation chapter 3, He said, I'm going to make you, in essence, I'm adding a few phrases just to fill it out because the Lord gives, you know, a phrase or two, and then you kind of flesh it out with a paragraph, that He was inviting us as a spiritual family to be like the church at Philadelphia, Revelation chapter 3. This is one of the two churches of the seven churches in the book of Revelation, the seven churches of Asia. Most of you are aware that the Lord gave seven prophetic, a prophetic word to seven different churches in Asia, which is modern-day Turkey back 2,000 years ago, and two of those churches, He gave them no correction. He gave them no correction at all. One of them is that the Church of Philadelphia, and the Lord said, I want to make you like the Church of Philadelphia. I'm extending grace to you to be like the Church of Philadelphia. And in this, He said, verse 8, I have set before you an open door that no man can shut, for you've kept my word. Hold fast to what you have, and see to it that nobody takes your crown, for he that overcomes I'll make them a pillar, talk about in the age to come, in the temple of God. Now, the Lord was saying, I want this to be true of you. This is not true of us yet. I'm going to give you grace to keep my word completely, in the human sense of completely. Of course, that's always relative to our human weakness, but in a wholehearted way, but the phrase the Lord gave me, I'm going to put an open door before this body, an open door of glory. And the glory, the glory of God will touch us, the open door from heaven, but it will also be an open door to the nations. But when the Lord opens that door from heaven, and the door to the nations, He is going to require a higher standard, for when His presence invades, that which was, that you could get away with when His presence was not manifest, it doesn't exist anymore. When His presence moves in, the standard of accountability goes far higher. Like in the book of Acts, when the glory of God was breaking forth, liars died at the communion tables. Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, they died. Now, there's been many liars in the church since there, they don't die because the presence is not being manifest. So the Lord said, I'm going to open a door. No man can shut this door, a heavenly door and an earthly door, but when I open that door, it is your safety that you keep my word. Because if I come in your midst, and you do not keep my word, I will be obligated to stand against darkness. And if the darkness is in you, then I will judge the darkness that's in you. And so the Lord says, I'll put before you an open door. Okay, let's go to the Roman number one on the PowerPoint, Revelation chapter 2. Now the Lord went the other direction, and he challenged me with two churches of the seven, Thyatira and Pergamos. These two churches were very good churches with one major failure, a significant one. But when you study what Jesus said about these two churches, it was quite impressive churches. They're the kind of churches that you want to be a part of. But both of them, Thyatira, and Pergamos, they tolerated immorality. Let's read Revelation chapter 2, verse 19 to 23. He said, I know your works, this is the Lord speaking. Now look at this church. How would you like the Lord to say this about us? I know your works, in other words, your ministry. You have love. Like, whoa, I don't need to hear anything more for the Lord to say from heaven, I hope you have love. Say no more, Lord, we're in. Not quite. You have faith. Okay, that seems like something the Lord's really interested in. You have patience, which means endurance, and persecution. It means perseverance. He says in verse 20, but I have a few things against you. Like, ah, how could you be against a church like this? The Lord says, there's something that you allow that grieves my heart. It's not okay with me. It's not okay with me. A few things I have against you. You allow, or other translations say you tolerate. You tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. You let her teach, and you let her seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality. And he says in verse 22, I'm gonna cast her on a sickbed, and those who are involved with her in her immorality, I, the Lord, will cast them into tribulation. This is not talking about the Great Tribulation. He's talking about how it caused trouble, because the Lord wants to wake them up before they face Him in eternity. The trouble the Lord sends is in His zeal to wake up those He loves. He says, but if they repent, I'll lift it. Because if they repent, I don't have to wake them up. I will kill her children. That's her disciples. We're not talking about her physical children. She's in the context of a teaching ministry. Those that are being discipled by her. Now what she's doing, she's teaching a false doctrine of grace. It's very common today in the church in America. It's the doctrine of grace that offers forgiveness without repentance. It's very common today. Very common today. You hear it all the time on televisions. A lot of little churches, mega churches, just come to the Lord and ask forgiveness. That is not a biblical message. Come to the Lord, repent, and ask for forgiveness. There is no such thing as the offer of forgiveness separated from repentance. That makes a glorious message, a heresy, and a false doctrine. And what they were doing in context, I don't want to really go into it, is that they were allowing immorality under the guise of the grace of God. They're saying, hey, you know, God's really more into the Spirit than He is the natural. And if it doesn't defile our spirit, it's not that big a deal because we're living on a higher plane. They had a whole complicated, complex presentation of how they could allow this thing to go. Now what the Lord was telling the church at Thyatira, He wasn't telling the elders that they were involved in immorality. He was telling the elders they allowed it to go unconfronted. These elders were not involved in immorality themselves. They did not like Jezebel's teaching. Now this lady had a reputable teaching ministry that was well known. She was established. She's on the leadership team teaching this grace of God doctrine that was allowing immorality to go. Go forth as normal. Beloved, the church in America is in this condition right now. The Lord says, this is not okay with me. It's not okay with me. The elders are going, I'm not into immorality. He says, yeah, but you tolerate it. You allow it to go unchallenged. Now to challenge it, don't go immediately to a kind of a brazen, you know, face of we're gonna just, we're gonna show them in this angry holiness mode how everybody's bad and we know what's right. I'm not talking about the opposite of tolerating. Jezebel does not mean, it does not mean that we're angry about it, but we need to confront it with tenderness in a biblical way, consistently, comprehensively through our fellowship on a regular basis. And I just say, it's bad, it's bad, it's bad. Everybody knows it's bad, but going after it to where it's not okay to allow it to continue. That's what the Lord's interested in, that there's healing. There's a systematic presentation of this subject and its seriousness and the way out of it regularly. And the Lord was correcting me. He was correcting me. He says, I'm opening a door, but when I open this door in the spirit and in the nations of opportunity, I will be in your midst and I will require that you keep my word in the, in the complete sense. And I'm not talking about perfection. I'm talking about it's our heart to obey the Word of God, to say yes to all that He's putting before us. But He's saying, here's what's happening. Immorality is not being challenged at the level that I want it to be challenged in this body here. The Lord says, you must do this, because I want to open a door. But if I open this door and I come in your midst and it's this way, it will be trouble that you do not understand. Now the reason many can get away with it, apparently nobody gets away with it, many ministries, because the Lord hasn't opened the door of the glory of God upon them. So you don't look at the group down the road or down the across the nation and say, hey, they're big, they're famous, everybody's, you know, doing what they do, following their model of church. The Lord says, don't go there. I haven't opened a door of glory on them yet, but I'm preparing to do this. He says, but you cannot in any way tolerate immorality. Now paragraph B, immorality is all sexual activity outside of the marriage covenant. All sexual activity, whether heterosexual or homosexual. We've got those in our midst that are really stirred up. Lord, stop the homosexual sin and the activity. Well, the heterosexual, it doesn't matter. Anything outside of the bonds of marriage, as described in the Word of God, is immorality. Whether it's physical, whether it's verbal, whether it's technology, it's sexual experiences and sexual activity outside of the marriage. I don't want you talking about it. I don't want you joking about it, talking about it, meaning people being loose with each other. Hey, you know, you're really cute, you know, that kind of plus, plus, plus, plus, and the person laughs. No, I do not want that in the midst of this body. Well, we didn't do nothing. The Lord says, no, that is sexual activity in its beginning phases. Technology, the whole internet thing. I want you as a people to stand before me. Let's go to Revelation chapter 2, verse 13 to 16. Revelation 2, verse 13 to 16. The church of Pergamos. Now, there was two churches of the seven that the Lord confronted. Be on the same issue. He says in Revelation 2, verse 13, I know your works. He says, you dwell in a city where Satan's throne is. He goes, I understand you are in a city with such darkness. I mean, they were in a city steeped in immorality, like San Francisco, or you could name maybe five cities around the earth that have an international reputation for immorality. He says, I know. I know the context you're in. I do understand it. He says, you're in a very intense environment in that city. Look what he says to him, to them. You hold fast to my name. He goes, you love me. I see it. I see it. You hold fast to me. This is good. I mean, you're reading Pergamos. Yes. I mean, they're standing in a wicked city, holding fast to the Word of God. I mean, what else is there to say? He says, same thing he said to Thyatira, verse 14, but I have a few things against you. I have a few things against you. He says, you've got those in your midst that hold to the doctrine of Balaam. Now, Balaam, what Balaam did, Balaam was a prophet, and the king, Balak, so you got Balaam and Balak, two different people. Balak is a king of Moab, which is the nation right next to Israel. And what happens is that Israel, at the end of their 40 years in the wilderness, they're at the very end, they've gone 40 years, they have they're on their way. Their next stop is to cross over the Promised Land and take it. Joshua is being put into leadership in just a minute. Moses is about to be taken home. They're in it. They made it. They have one more nation to withstand. Moab. Now, Balak, the king of Moab, is going, this is terrifying because Israel has just defeated five nations in a row with power. You know, Moses is the commander and Joshua's out there. Power. Nation after nation. They've been 40 years in the wilderness. The time was over. The Lord says, go in the land and every nation in the way, they defeat. Now, Balak goes, this is bad news. He goes, I heard about those guys 40 years ago. You know, my grandfather told me about that group that came out of Egypt. This is bad. So what Balaam does, he gets the prophet, what Balak, the king of Moab, does, he gets the prophet Balaam. He says, Balaam, he says, you know, if I give you some money, he goes, you got power. He was a false prophet, but he had power. He had power that was notable. He goes, if you curse Israel, will it work? I'll pay you. Because I've heard the story that when you curse a nation, things go bad. Balaam goes, okay, I'll take it. Balaam's talked about several times in the Bible as a man of error and a man of greed. And he said, okay, so he went to curse Israel. You know, I curse you. And out of his mouth, right in front of the king Balaam, right, he goes, he was gonna say, Israel, you are destroyed. Israel, you're finished. And he went, Israel, you shall be the head of all the nations. And the king Balaam went, what? I paid you good money. He goes, the spirit came on me. He goes, what? He goes, the spirit of God came on me. He tried it four times. This is a bizarre story. Four times. The guy goes, every time, I mean, every time he tried it, it went against what King Balaam wanted. Balaam is so upset. He goes, forget it. Just forget it. Give me my money back. I'm finished with you. So Balaam says, okay. He goes, I can't curse him because every time I do, the anointing comes on me and just, I say it the right way. He goes, but I, I know how to, I know how to beat the system. He goes, really? He goes, yeah. He says, the enemy, you have the power to defeat Israel. He says, they're coming right through your land. The next stop is the promised land. They're going to defeat you, but here's what you do. You have a big feast. You put all of your beautiful women at the front line and invite the young men in the army to the feast. This has never happened. They've never had a nation do this and seduce them. And if you seduce them, then God, who's blessing them will become adversarial and God will judge them. You don't have to defeat them. God will. Balaam said, I mean, Balak, the king, he goes, are you sure this works? He goes, I mean, does the God of Israel, he's like really that into this? I mean, he goes, yes, he's really into purity. He goes, I know, I know how the hell they do it over there. So Israel comes through an army, you know, battle battalions, army array coming through and they send the women, the most beautiful women of the land, and they spread a feast and they go, hey, let's have dinner. Let's eat together. Let's relax. And the soldiers are all thrown off by this. And then the women are saying, we really like you. They're eating and they're feasting. And it's, they're just like, their guard is off. In that context, their guard was completely down, the soldiers and these women, man, you are so handsome. You're so this, you're so that, you're so whatever. They begin to commit immorality. Then in their immorality, I mean, they're really connecting with these ladies and they begin to marry them. They said, we want you. I mean, this thing, it takes, it's not a one day deal. It goes on for a little while. And they said, but here's the deal. If you really love us, then stand for our gods. And so Israel entered into the, uh, some of the idolatrous feast and the immorality. And then the wrath of God came and smashed them. And then King Balaam said, Hey, it worked. And he went and gave the profit money. He goes, that was brilliant. He goes, that's worth all the money we paid you. And the army of Israel was defeated. What the Lord saying here, he goes, I am stirred up. You have people in your midst that are allowing immorality like Balaam, although Balaam actually offered it. I mean, Balaam made it a strategy, but Balaam had a doctrine. The doctrine of Balaam was, it doesn't matter. It really is not that big a deal. That's what it means in our contemporary context. The Lord says in verse 14, I have a few things against you. There's those in your midst that hold to the doctrine of Balaam, which it's okay to do this sexual immorality thing. He says he taught Israel to commit sexual immorality. Verse 16. Here's what the Lord says. Repent or I'll come to you quickly. I'll fight against my own church with the sword of my mouth. Now this is the Lord saying, because remember this Balaam story happened at numbers 25 when they had the feast and the immorality is numbers 25. It's a famous story. Matter of fact, I have a reference later on in the notes and you can get the notes on the internet if you want them. But, uh, what happened is in that, in that, uh, story, the sword of the Lord came against Israel. The judgment of God, Jesus is saying, I will do again to you, church of Pergamos, beloved born again people. You hold fast my name. You're in a wicked city. I do understand. I'm not unaware of, of the culture you live in, but you can't do this. My sword, which I release against the enemy to free you. If you don't break your agreement with immorality, the sword of my mouth, that's meant to free you. That sword will hurt you. It will injure you so that you repent. Now the Lord sends the sword of his mouth in the scripture. The sort of his mouth means the Lord speaks the word. The sword of Jesus's mouth is the utterance of his mouth that loses consequences that are powerful. That's what the sort of his mouth. He didn't have a sword coming out of his mouth. The word he says, release judgment on Pergamos. That's the sort of his mouth. And then the angels go forth. The consequences strike in a way that is definitive and all can see it. That's the sort of his mouth. Now the Lord wants to release the sort of his mouth in our midst to help free us because that sort of free us first, he'll release the sword in our conscience. The word of God to strike our conscience, that that's a positive redemptive way. The sort of his mouth, he'll release the sword in circumstances to make a way of escape. But if we don't take it, that sword, if that darkness we hold onto it, the sword that's designed to be against darkness will come against the people of God. He said, John, John's up the apostles, the one writing all this down, having the open vision with the Lord. He says, you go tell them you write and tell them I myself will release my sword against them because the sort of his mouth is initially for us. We're in bondage. Lord, help me. I'm in bondage because I will release my sword against the enemy. I will liberate you. So that sort could help us against sin. That sword's our friend. But if we're in disagreement with the Lord, that sword is trouble. So here's what the Lord told me in San Francisco. He says, I'm opening a big door, a door of my glory, a door to the nations. I want to reproduce in the nations what I have put in this family. That's a privilege, a lot of work, a lot of trouble, a lot of persecution, but it's, it's a privilege. I mean, when it's all said and done, that's a very honorable thing, though there's a huge downside to it, of course. But the Lord is saying, I mean, downside of the flesh, I'm talking about the Lord saying, I want to reproduce it. I'm going to open a door, but if I open that door and my glory comes and I give you a platform to multiply what I've given you and you send a virus in the seed that you sow in the nations and you cause people to be emboldened to be like you and immoralities in your midst, I mean, uncontested. There'll always be immorality in our midst. Here's why. The doors are open free and we're inviting a sinful culture to come in. I mean, not a culture, but the people of the nations. That's not a problem, that immorality. We're inviting people, unbelievers will come in, new believers will still be stuck in it and they're getting free. People from around the nations will join us, even older believers, they got issues. The Lord says, we can deal with that as long as it's normative in your community to confront it. I'm talking about in the gentle, straight, but bold way and to heal it as long as it doesn't become normative, that it's okay. I'm not concerned that we will have people one day, we'll have thousands of people coming in regularly. Many of them will have issues of immorality. The Lord says, hey, come, feast freely, welcome them in, but no, it's not normative for them to hold on to it. So I'm not concerned with immorality in our midst, I'm concerned with the spiritual culture that doesn't have zeal against confronting it and healing it in a biblical tender way. So here's what the Lord says to me in San Francisco, like on March 24th, just last Sunday. He says, I'm going to open a door, my glory is going to increase. I'm going to give you an opportunity, it's already going to happen. You will reproduce the DNA that I have put here. The DNA you have, the spiritual DNA will be reproduced if it's bad, if it injures my church because I've given you more glory that's yet to come. It's going to be an open door from heaven, an open door in the earth. He says, I will come with a door or a sword, but I am coming to you. And I love you to tell you ahead of time, I am coming to you. It's either a door of glory or a sword. Well, it will begin as a door of glory, but it will end as a sword. It's a door of glory that will continue to be blessing. There'll be persecution, there'll be trouble, there'll be all kinds of hassles in the flesh with the door of glory. But the sword of the Lord will be our friend, helping us free. The sword of the Lord will not be against us, it will be helping us get liberated. And what the Lord put in my heart, paragraph F, very important, it's very important. I had a number of you comment to me this week because I mentioned this on Monday. The Lord said, from this day forward, I will release the grace of immunity. That's a tricky phrase. Or tricky is not the right word. It's a phrase that has levels of meaning. It's a phrase that takes some thinking. I will release the grace of immunity. From this day forward, in this community, this is a personal word for this season. It's a personal word that applies for now, in this setting. He says, if they will repent, not only of immorality, of tolerating immorality. Some of you are not involved in anything remotely that touches us, but it doesn't trouble you that others are. God's not calling us to be a police state. Not what He's calling us to be. But He's calling us to be, to carry His heart in this. He says, I'm going to give the grace of immunity. Now that includes amnesty. The Lord says, I will cover. I will cover yesterday in this community. And here's why this is important. This is a critical point. He wants us to go forward, read this, with confidence. He wants us to go forth with confidence in our work in temporality. This confidence, the next paragraph, is essential to spiritual vitality. He wants us to enjoy the immunity that comes from the accumulated power of our shame, of the fear of rejection. You know there's this guy or that guy going, you know, I can't go forward. I'm stuck. This word paralyzes me Mike. I would love to rejoice in this word, but I have secrets. This word terrifies me. I want to quit. I can't go forward in boldness. I can't go to the communion table and rejoice. I got to get out of here. This terrifies me. The Lord says, no. There's immunity. I don't want, which includes amnesty, I don't want you coming to my presence afraid of yesterday. I will cover you. I don't want you fearing you're going to be rejected because of yesterday. I don't want you in the shame. I don't want you letting go of the high calling. Many people have been doing stuff in the last weeks, months, or years, whatever, and they said, my high calling's out of reach. The Lord says, no. I want you free from that diseased way of mind. It's an infected mindset. I'm covering you. I will give you as a family a new beginning. He says, tell them the grace of immunity, which means the sins of yesterday in this regard as we stand in solidarity as a family, the Lord is saying, I will cover you. They don't need to go to the platform afraid. I will cover you. I want everybody undistracted because you'll never connect with me if you're caught up under the infection of the fear of yesterday, the shame of it, the hopelessness. The hopelessness of yesterday will keep us from connecting with the Lord today. It really will. The fear of yesterday, the skeletons in the closet will keep us from encountering the Lord. It'll be, Lord Jesus, here I am. It's that I love you and your beauty. I receive you. It's like, Lord, I promise I won't do that. If you'll do this, I will do that. It's all negotiating. The Lord says, no, you need immunity from the disease of yesterday's sins and yesterday's errors. And as a community, he is saying, I want you to go forward undistracted and clean from the infection of yesterday's defilement. I don't want it in you because you won't be able to get free tomorrow if this is weighing on you. Because we're going after this thing hard. And the one thing the Lord does not want is shame and fear of rejection in the way he wants connection with his heart. That's what he wants. And you can't connect with his heart if you're negotiating 10 other things. It says, tell them the grace of immunity. It includes amnesty. Because as a people, we're going forward in an intentional way. Monday, about a thousand of us, we broke bread. And I'm going to ask you to stand with me in a few minutes and do, uh, we're going to do this a number of times a year by the grace of God. Tell the Lord of terms. This is a war that will only become more intense as it unfolds. This war won't lessen this war. This war will become more tense. What I mean, lust in our culture is going to increase, not decrease the people in our midst that are joining us from, from unbelievers, joining us and getting saved. And the people from around the nations will come in with so much infection and defilement in their spirit and in their bodies as well. We have to stand together, but we need the whole army. We need the whole family together, but half the family, here we go. I'm out. I can't do this. The Lord says, no, the solidarity, the unity of confidence together to go forward is critical for your future. Therefore, the grace of immunity, I give it to you. You must be confident in it because it's more than us going forward here. The Lord is going to require us. I talked to Lou about this and spent some time talking about this to proclaim this to the nations, not just the Kansas city to call millions to this thing. And beloved, we have to be at the core. We have to be not just committed, committed. It's really important. We have to be confident. We have to be confident. Our commitment will never stay steady if we don't have confidence with God. If we're out there on the front lines, Lord, Lord, are you going to like, am I going to get like cut at the knees here? Like half into this versus no, no, no, you're not. You're not. I'm giving the grace of immunity. I'm not going to let even yesterday's infection of the ways get in the way of the solidarity and unity to go forward with confidence in your commitment. That's what it's about. We can have commitment, but the commitment won't be steady and strong if we don't have confidence. Confidence is everything, everything. You get a person that comes to the altar, cries over their sin. They walk away feeling like it's just a moment till it's all disaster. Their, their commitment will be gone in 72 hours. They'll get in a funny mood. They can't sustain it, but they get confidence. They'll get bright spirit. They'll get a bright spirit. Then they can face tomorrow with confidence. Then they could experience, they could go on. The Lord wants the weakest and the strongest in our midst to go together in solidarity because it's more than about IHOP. He wants us to proclaim this to the nations. It's enough that we would get clean. That's enough. I mean, we don't have to have a bigger reason, but the Lord is saying you can't be half in and half out. This body must be confident in their commitment and their future because the assault from hell is going to come against you with this area and you have to stand together and cover one another in this. I'm not calling a police state. I'm not calling the one that proves that they're the most this or the most that. We're calling for a tender but comprehensive, thorough, consistent bringing forth of the grace of God in this area. We don't want to shame anybody that will repent. Anyone that repents, we want no shaming of them. So I want you confident. The Lord was adamant about this. So much so, I hear this in San Francisco on Sunday morning. Is that, where's Alan? Is Alan right here? He's right back there. Daniel Lim had a dream. Was it Sunday morning? Somebody heard it. It was the very morning, is how I understand. Last Sunday morning, Daniel Lim, he shared it at the Monday staff meeting, came up and he had a dream and the Lord said, immunity. That's what I'm giving. The exact phrase. We both got it the same morning. He's in Kansas City. I'm in San Francisco. This is an important word. So it's okay to smile and go, okay, okay. You were scaring me that first 20 minutes. If I could really get a new start, for real, this is real, I'm in. It's okay to smile. Don't sigh too much because the people to the right and the left may go, oh, that's a pretty heavy sigh there. Just having some fun. We're at a crossroads. We are at a crossroads. Chronicles, 2 Chronicles 29, Hezekiah called the nation in that generation to make a covenant with the Lord. Now this covenant is small. See, it doesn't, it doesn't stand on the same level as the covenant of Moses. It's not, God is calling us to make a covenant. It's, it's a smaller issue. It's not the new covenant. There's only one covenant. It's the new covenant. That's the big one. But peoples and groups in different timeframes can make unique. I mean, focus particular covenants and the Lord is calling us as a people to make a covenant that we will war against this, but I'm going to take it up a notch. Here's what I'm asking. We're going to pray this again. We're going to do this a bunch of times by the grace of God between now and the Lord returns. We're going to ask for the door of glory and the door of opportunity, but let's focus on the door of glory. Open the door, the heavenly door. The natural door will open on its own. I mean, it will follow or Lord, we bow down tenderly, terrified, confident, or send your sword. We're going to invite the sword of the Lord into our midst or the door of glory to be released. That's what we're doing as a spiritual family. Some of you might say, this isn't for me. I totally understand, but we have to do this in solidarity. I'm talking about the vast majority. There could be some exceptions, but I'm talking about the 90 plus percent. We have to go in this together. And the people that don't want to participate in this, that's their business, but it doesn't mean that if immorality emerges, you will not be confronted in their life. Some people have this really false idea that their life is private. Your life is private somewhat. The minute you made a commitment to Jesus and became a part of his spiritual family, your morality is public business. That doesn't mean we pry into all the issues. If a person lives in persistent immorality, it is the business of that church to deal with that. Some people say, that's my thing. No, no, no, no, not if you're born again, you're in the community of God. There's an element of your life that is no longer strictly private. And it's not the struggle. The struggle could be private, but the yielding and the deciding to camp out in immorality is not a private issue. The Lord was confronting Thyatira and Pergamos. He said, you did not take a stand and it is not okay with me that you did not take the stand. Okay, let's go to the seven aspects of this commitment. I'm asking all of us to make seven personal commitments before the Lord and the grace of God. Now this commitment, at the core of it is the grace of confession. The sacrament of confession, it's been called. If you confess your sins, you get healed. Confession of sin is a critical part of healing. Now I'm not talking about indiscriminate confession of sin. I've heard over the years, you know the guy gets up and preaches and says, just come up to the ministry line and just confess your sin. We're the body of Christ. We can be trusted. I go, where have you been living the last few years? I would not go up to an altar and indiscriminately confess my sins to some guy who's supposed to be trustworthy. Like, who are you? No. Here's why. I really urge you not to do that. Here's why. You might do that in the early days of novelty and romance in the Lord and all, whatever you want. But that guy betrays you. Next 10, 20, 30 years, you'll never confess again. And that has been a huge setback. Don't be naive about this. This is a very, uh, confession is very powerful, but very important that it's done right. Because the power of shame and the power of betrayal is so intense. I have seen many a guy make it intervow. I will never confess again. But they got 20, 30, 40, 50 years left on the journey on the earth. It's like that, that confession actually set them back. I want a careful thought through three deep breaths. Okay. I don't have a trusted friend. We'll get one. How do I get one? Go be friendly to somebody that's out and don't pick the 10 people that have the highest visibility in the ministry. Never say go find a friend. The 10 or 15 people, most visible people all want to be their friend. No, there's a couple, there's about 4,000 of us in this community. Go be friendly and you'll find a friend. Just stick with it. Don't find the most, this, that, and the other person. Find the other guy and just go be a friend. You'll find a friend. The Lord will help you. And a lot of people, what the mystery of friendship without being friendly, they didn't want to show up and somehow they automatically, the grace of friendship drops on them and five people bonded them. It didn't work that way. You have to show yourself friendly. The book of Proverbs says, then you will have favor with other people. So I know this thing is built on the premise of finding a friend, a trusted friend, somebody you can trust. And I would limit it to one or two or three. I mean, you don't want 10 or 20. The thing will go sour on you. In my opinion, it will probably go bad on you. I would keep it very narrow. This thing is built upon the grace of confession and there's healing. Commitment number one, here's what we're going to commit to. We commit to refuse to participate in any conversations that promote or joke about immorality. To promote it, what I mean is, it's the guy and the girl that are just joking about their sexual connection. We don't mean it. We're just joking. That's what I mean by promoting it. We will not have any language that's even the soft, early flirtings. Boy, you're real cute, ABCD. Well, so are you, ABCD. We cannot allow that. If you do that, here's what you will do, or joke about it in any context. 10 friends, we're all getting together. The guy cracks a joke. Everybody laughs, a courtesy laugh. You feel like you need to participate because you don't want to reject the guy. Here's what you're committing. You will go to the person that you participated with and you will look him in the eye, say it tenderly, say it in five seconds, call him on the phone, send an email. You don't have to make a big deal of it, but you have to say it. That was sin that I participated in that. That's commitment number one. You will say that. You may blow it many times, but you'll clean it up every time by simply a five second acknowledgement. That was wrong that we had that conversation. Oh, I was just kidding anyway. I know, I know you're kidding. I'm kidding. Everybody's kidding, but it was wrong. The guy goes, whoa, boy, you're intense. I don't know about all that. I just know I made a covenant with the Lord. That was wrong. Beloved, if you do that, that element will go away on that relationship. It will go away. You don't have to be mean, blazing eyes and come in with fiery prophet. Just, no, just you email him. That was wrong. Forgive me. I go, ouch. Note to self. Don't tease with that guy again. Healing. Sounds like healing to me. Commitment number one. Commitment number two. You will commit to confess to a trust, to the same trusted friend. In other words, you, you don't find 10 trusted friends and no one ever gets the real story because you know, you stumble this time and you go to him and stumble next time that way. So everybody always thinks it's the first time. So this isn't a loophole covenant we're making. This is a real one. You go to the same trusted friend and it's gotta be a friend who embraces this covenant. It can't be your uncle Bill back, you know, in Tennessee somewhere that doesn't know what you're talking about. Hey, I just wanted you to know, uncle Bill, I, I was looking at pornography. Well, pornography is a little good for you. It gets you out there to know what the world world is looking about. You know, the Lord understands. No, no, that's not the guy we're talking about confessing to. We're talking about confessing to someone who has made this covenant. In other words, a person of understanding doesn't matter where they live. As long as they made this covenant, we are endeavoring to bring this covenant across the nations in the next 10 years. I mean, now we're going to do it at the Nash at the call DC. We're expecting some hundreds of thousands of people. We are going to call them to this covenant. We're going to do it at the call of California. We're expecting a stadium full. We're going to call them all. We're going to call the ministries to all establish this in their own local churches and to reaffirm it several times a year as a public body. So here's what they'll do every time, every time they view pornography one time, every time, or if they have any sexual content, I mean, activity, no contact, physical contact is what I'm talking about. Physical contact. This isn't the flirting verbal thing. This is the physical guy. They will confess it to that trusted friend, not to the leaders, but to that same trusted friend. It's like coming in and they go, Oh, you know how yesterday I said it never happened again. Oh, whatever. Again. And the guy goes, yeah, I know. I know. I understand that. It's like, I tell you, there is power in that exchange, that short 10, 20 seconds. You don't need a four hour meeting and lay it all. Just look him in the eye, 10 seconds and have him pray for you. Commitment number three. If I repeatedly stumble in immorality, in other words, you repeatedly do the internet thing, repeatedly touch somebody, not your spouse. You will, you're committing to go to the leadership of the ministry, find the leader, go to the leader, one of our main leaders, and you will tell them you'll confess to someone. The leader is not interested in exposing you, but here's what the leader will do. They'll put boundaries on you. They'll say, okay, you're struggling with homosexual. You can't live with guys who have ever had a history of homosexuality. Yeah, but wait, wait, wait. They pay rent. Wait a second. This doesn't work. Well, it has to work. We'll work with you. We're not going to expose you, but we're putting boundaries on you. You have to go to a leader. So you say, what's repeated? I don't know. It's between you and the Lord. But we're taking this serious. This isn't a loophole thing. We're trying to figure a way out because we're calling the open door of glory on families and individuals and our entire family, or we're calling on the sword of the Lord as a body. And we're going to do this repeatedly, several times a year. I don't know how many times, some years more than other years, but we'll do it publicly, breaking bread. It'll be part of our life, be part of the cycle of our life through a year to do this. Commitment number four, I promise, I commit to hold any confession a friend gives me in strict confidentiality. And if I speak to anyone what that friend told me, I will go to the friend who confessed to me and I will tell them who I told. In other words, somebody tells you some story and you tell your other best friend, well, you know, I know I can trust you, but he did this and you know, hey, let's just cover him. And if you do that, you have to go back to your trusted friend and say, I told him, I told her. The guy will go, what? I thought that, yeah, forgive me. I told, forgive you. What? This is my life. I know, but that guy, we're really good friends. Trust me. It's okay. You have to go to them. Commitment number five, you can just read this more in detail. For the leaders of IHOP, leaders of IHOP, we commit to follow the process of bringing those who continue in immorality to appropriate levels of discipline. And public exposure is the final extreme if they won't repent. Public church discipline does not mean you go tell everybody. That's not the point. There's, you can go to four to five levels. The restraints become more, more, uh, restrictive. Okay, now you can't do this and you can't do that. The levels of discipline increase as the, as necessary. The IHOP leadership cannot ignore this and say, I'm too busy. Or, you know, he is my friend. Beloved, number five will be the hardest one of all, because the friends in the leadership team don't want to do that because they're friends. They've been working together. They work every day together. They're laboring. They're going, well, come on. I know you're a godly man, woman. I'm not going to do this. We have to follow through. We're asking the Lord for the door of glory or the sword of the Lord if we violate this covenant. Number six, number six, we commit to register with a technology of choice. And there's scores of them and there's many more developing. Whether or not we struggle with pornography or not, the registering with this technology, some of you don't know what I'm talking about. There's technology. You sign up. It takes 10, takes 10, 20, 30 seconds. You sign up. You put two names in, your two trusted friends, and they see the name of every site you go to on the internet. It goes to them automatically. You don't know if they open it up or not. It just says the name of it. And if you disconnect the technology, there's a dozen of them out there, your friend gets notified. That means you get in a funny mood late at night and you want to go out of curiosity or out of addiction, go check something out. Your friend will know. They get the notice every two weeks, once a month, something like that, maybe a month before they find out, but they will know. You don't even know if they'll even look at it, but they might. It's like, ah, you better go to your friend. I want to say this. I want to say this. I want to say this in humility. I have never, ever one time looked at a immoral picture on the internet, ever once have I looked at internet pornography, not one time, not for one second, but I am signing up for this technology as a statement that I believe it's so important. So whether you ever have struggled with, I've never, ever struggled with internet pornography, never encountered it once, but I'm signing up. Why? Because I want to tell every young man and young woman that I think this is so important. I'll pay the $2 a month or a lot of them are free. I will bother with it. And Lou Engle and Alan Hood are the two guys that will find every website that I go to. So if I will do it, whether you have any problem with it or not, it's not an issue that you don't need it. It's an issue if a bunch of us don't struggle with it, but many do, we make a statement. We're all in it together. We're all in it together. It might take you a month or two to figure out which one does that. That's okay. We're going to do this for years. And then the last commitment, we're going to make a commitment to be before the Lord on a regular basis. What's that mean? I don't know. It's between you and the Lord, but you make the commitment to sit at his feet, some more, some less, but this has got to be a part of it. It's not just a bunch of no's. We're not going to do this. We're not going to do this. We're going to confess. We're going to confess. We have to have a place. Our spirit is invigorated or none of these will work. Amen. Let's stand. We're on a journey. The language will refine it over the months and years, especially as we interact with interact with other ministries around the nation. I want us to pray together right now. I'm going to pray a commitment. And if you can make these seven commitments, maybe you don't have the friend yet, but you'll get the friend. You don't know the technology, but say it may take me a month or two to find it. I'm going to, I'll get about that. We're going to make it really easy for you to find it and sign up. It'll be effortless. Take you one minute. You don't have to worry about it again. You don't ever struggle with it. That hurt a thing. We all need to do it because we're doing it for the others as well. We have a bunch of literature in the back and even in our bulletin, our foundations, which is our classes, a number of classes. Tracy, do we have them in the bulletin? Okay, good. I didn't look at the bulletin. Okay. They're in the bulletin and we have them somewhere else. Tom, they're all in the bulletin. We got about 10 classes. And if you want to be trained to help us, to help others, or you need help, either one, if you say, Hey, we need an army of people to train so they can help us. We are going to have such a massive increase of young people. And they're coming in a lot of them from broken homes, no parent, no, I mean, single parent families. And they're coming in with all kinds of sexual perspectives and paradigms. And we are going to need an army of shepherds, 20 year old shepherds, not just 50 year old shepherds. We need 20 year olds to get trained. So I want you to pray with me just quietly. If you feel, I'm just want you to close your eyes right now. But if you feel you can make this covenant, I want you to raise your hand right now in the presence of God. Others of you might say, well, let me think about it. This is a covenant. It's a covenant. Just hold your hand up high for a second. All seven points. We need grace. Others of you think, okay, let me think on it. We'll give you grace. We'll come back to this again in a few months. Really strong. I assure you. Father, we come before you. Lord, as a people, we ask you to help us. Give us grace. Give us grace. Give us grace. We want the door of glory, but Lord in trembling, in weakness, be tender to us, be tender, but send the sword of the Lord. If we refuse to obey you at these seven things, give us mercy, Lord, be tender. We ask you to be tender, but we invite as a people in a covenant with one another. And you, we invite the sword of the Lord in the midst of this family. We thank you in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. I'm just going to have you just be in your chairs. Go ahead and be dismissed if you want, but I want to just, just talk to the Lord for a few, just a couple of moments, just personally as a leader. Slip out. I mean, if you're in a hurry, slip out, but just take two to three minutes. Talk to him and say, Lord, this is serious. Beloved, we're in this thing together in a serious way. There may be people in the room today that want to give your heart to Jesus. Maybe you want to commit yourself to Jesus. So return back to him. You want to get water baptized to be received the filling of the Holy spirit. We got a team back in the gymnasium that will talk to you, pray with you. If you want this, you came with a friend, friend, bring them back. We have a ministry team that will pray for you. Lord, we ask you for help. We ask you for help. And every breath Lord help us. This is a serious, glorious thing. God's giving us to do. This is a glorious covenant. We can make together as a family.