In this sermon, the speaker discusses the importance of keeping Christ central in our lives and warns about the destructive power of the enemy. He uses the analogy of a camel entering a tent to illustrate how the enemy can gradually take over our hearts and lives if we allow him even a small place. The speaker emphasizes the seriousness of this issue, stating that if the enemy can destroy Christ in our fellowship, home, or heart, he can destroy the church. He also references biblical stories and quotes from Watchman Knee's book on spiritual authority to highlight the consequences of grabbing God's authority with carnal hands.

I was debating whether to say something about this or not, and after the testimony that was just shared about how basically the pastor's family was almost destroyed and they have received some great damage. But not only that, this man could have been put out of the ministry, and I don't know about other pastors, but I do know a lot about a lot of them. We feel like we're just living on the edge. The edge of being extinct. The edge of being destroyed. The edge of our families being destroyed. That's how I live just any day. Don't marvel that a man makes it or that a man, you know, marvel that he can stay there. It's just a marvel that the grace of God has allowed us to sustain. And back in earlier years, we would break away after six years, seven years of ministering. Then we would break away for eight months, fourteen months, one time. And I felt this need for years, but haven't been able to let go. It's like the guy that grabbed a hold of a bull one time, and the neighbor come by and said, what are you doing? He said, you need to let go of that bull. You're dragging him around. He said, I'm trying to, I'm trying. But we need to understand that the enemy will destroy us if he can. And so I'm going to take a little time and go on into this again. These messages, I believe, are very important. As I've said, they're coming out of my life. They're coming out of over 40 years of preaching, and I've been encouraged to do this. How to destroy the church, or how Satan destroys the church. Christ is to be central. He's to be preeminent. He is to be everything. And so if the enemy can destroy Christ in our fellowship, or in our home, or in our heart, if he can destroy the reality of Christ, he can destroy the church. I've titled this message, Strange Fire. Strange Fire. And I'm going to try to watch myself on it today. But since something was said by the pastor, by Pastor Tim there, church leadership, church leadership is what we're going to talk about. We've gone through, I'd love to go back through what I've just covered the last two weeks for a review, but I'll just say this. That we started off that the basis of the home is marriage, the basis of marriage is a lifelong relationship, and the basis of a lifelong relationship is agreement. We went back to the, we started off in the garden, and we came through and we saw how Satan got in to destroy Adam's home, and broke their agreement with God. Agreement means to sound together. Music, melody, harmony. They had beautiful harmony. And so if that can be broken in a home, if it can be broken in a church, if it can be broken between a man and a wife, a lot of destruction can come about. Now I want to jump right into this. Church leadership holding up the standard. And I'm probably going to use one aspect of that this morning. But let me give you the definition of example. This is leadership. It is example. And so if the enemy can destroy me, if he can destroy my family, he can destroy a church. If he can destroy you, he can use you and your family to destroy a church. And, you know, Jesus was known as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And being associated as I am with many pastors, I guess this has been my hobby, my burden, pastors, and so studying them and watching them for many years, my heart has a continual ache in it, a continual sob. And many times I actually do sob and weep. And even for friends. But here's what the Bible says. 1 Timothy 4.12 But be thou an example of the unbelievers. Titus, showing thyself a pattern, which is the same word, a pattern of good works. 1 Peter 5.3 But be an examples to the flock. They're not to lord over the flock. But leadership is example. And we are just hit by, you know, Jesus prayed for the disciples to be kept from the pornos, the evil, that they would be kept. The bombardment that's coming in in this area, just the moral area alone, is enough to just wipe us out. And it's getting to be a horrendous amount of infiltration. A number of years ago I was invited to go on a hunting trip, elk hunting. We went into northern Colorado and to get there we went through southern Wyoming. And we pastored our first church in Wyoming. I love Wyoming. It's wild and woolly and wilderness and there's not a lot of people out there. And so we are coming down the interstate, coming from Cheyenne, heading west. And I saw something that's still in my mind. It's just as bright as almost the day I saw it, as much as my memory will retain color. But out in the right side of the highway, out in the field several hundred yards out, was a yellow statue. I looked at that and what? It wasn't a statue. Well, if it was, it was a statue of a shepherd with a yellow poncho on, watching his sheep. He was just standing there on the rock looking out over the sheep. And maybe it was a statue, I don't know. Just a fool of the coyotes, I guess. But I thought, what a picture of a shepherd watching his flock. And it was cold and drizzly. What a picture! Standing there, stable, alert, watching his flock, watching over those sheep. Now, church leadership, holding up the standard, is very important. I'm going to head on by starting off this morning. One of the standards which links with the home, and that's the marriage. More damage has probably been done in this one area to destroy churches by leadership than any other one thing I know. And that is by not holding up the marriage oneness. I ask myself this question. How long is a lifelong relationship? Till divorce or till death? Many of the leaders in our country are saying, well, it's till divorce. That's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible says this agreement that we make together is until death. And many have broke their vows, and they'll stand before God. But this one area is destroying the churches. Because, see, America is falling because the churches have fallen. And the churches are falling because the leadership is falling. The churches are losing their standards because the leadership have lost their standards. It used to be it was a rare deal to hear. Even in my lifetime, I remember when some neighbors that were friends of mom and dad, when they decided they would get a divorce. And this was only like, what, I don't know, however, 40 years ago. It was shocking. Now it's just almost everyday news. I had a rude awakening on this one time when I was taking a little break. And I was in the church. I think we were in the church. And the pastor got up one day. And he made an announcement, and my spirit so screamed out within me, I thought, oh no, oh no, he's not doing that. But he got up and he said, his grandfather had kept this standard. And his father had kept this standard. And through the generations, he was a third generation pastor and preacher. They had kept this standard of not allowing divorce. But he was making a public announcement that he was going to allow divorce. And he was going to start marrying divorced people. He was going off the edge, basically. And I thought, this is horrible. And it was horrible. But what followed in his family the next few years was just horrible. Because that which he dropped the standard for came into his family. And it was just a nightmare. It was just a nightmare. Well, this area is pretty important. It's very important. And I might just start to read the Scriptures just so that you know that I haven't made this up. Paul uses an example to the church in Romans chapter 7. He said, For ye know, brethren, for I speak to them that know the law, how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth. For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she is loose from the law of her husband. Now, in the church we have had to learn how to deal with the damages. Those that come that have had divorce and have come to see that it's wrong and that have had a repentant spirit. And different churches have different ways of dealing with things. But I believe that there's forgiveness for that sin also. Even though the consequences continue and the damage and the scars and the hurt is all there. But there's not a sin that the blood of Christ doesn't cover. Many will not let the blood cover that sin. But it's so terrible. But the Bible also says, if I might flip over to another part of Scripture, that many youths, leadership, schools, teachers, seminaries, Bible colleges, they take the Scriptures and I believe that they just make it say what they want it to say. Just like we listened to a speaker a couple of weeks ago, an evangelist speaking, and he talked about one guy, he looked in the front of the book and had 15 different versions. He said all he's doing is getting versions to make it reinforce what he wants to say. That's just horrible when you've got 15 standards and they're all going to contradict each other probably. But anyway, 1 Corinthians 7. 1 Corinthians 7. And coming on down through these verses, oh, about 10. Paul said, And if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, that means brought into the realm of protection and covering. And the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband, else were your children unclean, but now are they holy. And here's where the rub-a-dub-dub hits, where the fat hits the fan, so to say. But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God hath called us to peace. End of chapter. Period. Many say that's it, that's the end of the chapter, they don't read the next verse. For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? How's that going to happen if you go ahead and divorce? Or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife? You may not be under bondage, but you don't have that freedom as long as your mate is still living to go get another wife. Now, is there any other evidence in the Bible on that? Well, right in that same chapter, in verse 39, the wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth. But if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will, only in the Lord. Now, many of us, we know this, but it seems like many do not understand. And Jesus reinforced this. And this standard has been so chopped away and attacked at and compromised in our schools, our seminaries and Bible colleges, to where men of God are coming out polluted. This standard held for hundreds of years, thousands of years. This standard held, and when it was broke, it was a reproach. This is how the enemy destroys the church, destroys the oneness of the man and the wife. You can destroy the family, then you can get in and destroy the church. This is what we're talking about. Now, I guess I'm going to say this again. I may say it every time. Because I have had the privilege to preach in some 17 states and some other countries, a couple of other countries besides ours, I have also had the amazing privilege, I don't know why, because I'm just nobody, to sometimes get around some amazing men and to be in situations and be with pastors. The first church I pastored, the pastors got together once a month in our district. And we shared our heart and we shared our struggles and we prayed. And then once a year, we all got together from our fellowship. And so I spent a lot of time and I've listened to a lot of things and I've got my own stories. But we would share and we would share our heartaches. And somehow or another, I have retained dozens and dozens and dozens of illustrations in my mind, which part of it still works. But these things come to my mind. Yesterday, they were just flooding in as I was going over this one thing after another. Leadership standards should not differ from the Bible, but they do nowadays. And it's just destroying the church to such a degree, it's awful. It's awful. The first church I pastored, I was the only one that went into this town. And I loved it. We were in Wyoming. And it was wild and woolly, cowboys and sheep and ranchers and miners. I mean, I loved it. It was tough. That's what this old Cajun boy needed. And we come in there. And it was a town of about 1,300. There were some other churches there, but no other pastors. Right after I come in, the enemy got somebody else in and got another one in. And one was a woman pastor of a mainline denomination church in town. And I figured in those seven years, I might have preached to everybody in the whole area. Because we did a lot of funerals. There was one family, we buried five in that family in a year and a half time. Very prominent family. But this pastor of this church, Ms. M, we'll call her. You say, a woman pastor? Yes, and I mean, we're going back to 1975. I one day asked her, I said, Mary, how is it that you, a woman, can justify being a pastor of a church when the Scripture says that the pastor, the elder, is to be the husband of one wife? How do you get around that? I never forgot what she said. Because she looked at me and smiled and said, well, Paul had his opinion and I've got mine. It's funny, but it is sad. Paul's got his opinion and I've got mine. That wasn't Paul's opinion. That was God's opinion. And as a standard there in the church, it's just amazing. You know, this spirit, it's just like Nadab and Abihu. I was looking at this back over in Numbers 3. I don't know if I marked that, and I was looking at Korah. But this spirit is just like that in the Old Testament where people just do what they want to do, which is getting to be a problem in our churches, especially in the churches with homeschoolers. I talked with an evangelist friend of mine a number of years ago and he asked me a question and I still haven't got the answer for him. We've went over this before. We talked for an hour on it. They were starting a new church. They'd left the church where they were and they were filling up with homeschoolers. And he said, Don, and this man, I consider him a pretty major evangelist in that part of the country. Anyway, he's really well known. But he said, we've got a problem. He said, how do you get these homeschoolers to work under authority? They just do whatever they want. I said, I don't know. I've got the same problem. It's a spirit of rebellion. We talked about that. But it's just like this. Numbers 3 and verse 4. These are the names of the sons of Aaron, the priests which were anointed, whom he consecrated to minister to the priests. And Nadab and Abihu died before the Lord, when they offered strange fire before the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no children. I'm going to just stop right there. You know the story. This was Aaron's sons that offered strange fire before the Lord. I titled this message, Strange Fire. Here's the deal. Aaron was anointed chief of the priests. His sons, I've got this list, six things. Two, his sons were helpers. They were not to work independently of their father. Now three, they were to work under authority. And four, they offered sacrifices by themselves and they died. It's called strange fire. About three times, I think, in Scripture, strange fire is mentioned. What is strange fire? It's right here. Strange fire is to serve without an order or without authority. It's to do things within the order of God's spiritual kingdom without authority. If that is done, Satan is invited to come into the home, into the church, and destroy. It's given him a place because he only respects proper spiritual authority. And so this is what happens in our churches when we do things without the authority of the Word, without the authority of the Spirit of God. We invite Satan to come in, go back to the Garden of Eden. And what happened? Satan had to talk Eve into letting her have charge. And once he got her convinced and she disobeyed God, he was in charge. And we've been under the dominion of Satan in this world ever since. Now Jesus came and died on the cross to set you free. Young people, listen to me. You will die and go to hell if you do not repent and surrender your life to Christ because you're under the authority of Satan. He bought you back in the Garden. Jesus Christ died on the cross to set you free. It is serious, it is so serious that God sent His Son to save you out from under the authority of the enemy. Now let's keep going here. Strange fire is to serve without an order or without authority. They assumed because they had seen it done so much that they could do it. Not so. It was deadly. This is the same thing. Aaron and Miriam back over in Numbers 12. They saw this going on with Moses. Well, hey, we can do this too. What happened? God moved in and shut it down. Moses let God be his defense. The same thing over in Numbers 16. Numbers 16. Again, Moses, you know, he didn't ask for the job to begin with. You know, God had to keep jump starting him to get him out of the wilderness and go do what he's supposed to do to the point he about got God pretty upset at him. And so he got out here. He said, this is not my thing. God has sent me to do this. So when they attacked God's men, they were attacking God. Have you ever seen this happen? I've got a list in my mind of several men that died. After this many years, I'm getting the observation, I'm getting the facts. Whoa, it's dangerous. And I think I've shared this before and I don't remember where I read this or if I heard it personally from John R. Rice. But I think there's one time there were four or five deacons, it's been so long, that were opposing him to coming in to Detroit. And when the wheels of his plane hit, those men dropped dead, all of them. They were opposing God. Well, number 16, 3. This is amazing. This is core. 16, 3. And they gathered themselves together against Moses. Verse 2. And they rose up before Moses. Verse 3 back again. And against Aaron and said unto them, You take too much upon you, see, and all the congregation are holy, every one of them. And the Lord is among them. Wherefore, then, lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord. And when Moses heard it, he fell upon his face. And you know the story. He came back. You take too much upon you, you sons of Levi. And they went back and forth. Seemeth it but a small thing unto you that the God of Israel has separated you. Look, you've got all this privilege. Why are you doing this? Why are you trying to move out of your realm of authority over into mine? And you know what happened to them? It was such a terrible thing. You see, God judges by fire. God opened up the earth and took them straight to hell. Right straight into the pit. He judges by fire. Let me share something with you that comes from Watchman Nee. He's got a book called Spiritual Authority. He said, How serious will be the judgment upon those who grab God's authority with their carnal hands. May we fear authority as we fear the fire of hell. That's how much we need to fear authority. You young people, you think it's a funny thing to sneak things into your home? You're opening up for demons to come in and attack your parents and destroy your home. I wasn't going to share this necessarily today. We had a lot to share. But when that testimony came, God said, It is deadly, it is dangerous, it is damning, it is destructive. Men of God are being destroyed. We know a pastor not too far from here, back out to the west of us. A major pastor influencing hundreds of churches around the country. And just a few years ago, because his son went into rebellion, he stepped down from his pastorate. When you knock a major leader down, you're going to weaken and attack all of those that are working with him. They don't even have to be under his authority. The effect was rippling. Rebellion comes from hell. And it spreads like a cancer through the body of Christ. We have to deal with it. We cannot be nice anymore and say, Oh, that's okay, I'll just turn my back and pretend it's not there. Or maybe it will go away. Watchman Nee went on to say, To represent God is not an easy thing. It is too great and too marvelous for us to touch. We need to walk strictly in the way of obedience. The path for us is obedience, not authority. It is to be servants, not to be heads. To be slaves, not to be rulers. But Moses and David were the greatest of authorities, yet they were not people who tried to establish their own authority. Those today who desire to be in authority are to follow their footsteps. There should always be fear and trembling in this matter of being authority. You know, if a man has to have a position, he's a dangerous man. Those like Moses that you have to encourage to come home and get in there, those are the ones that will have the meek and the humble spirit. Those that feel totally unworthy, that feel just, Oh, God, I can't do that. That's the one that God's going to come get. But those, I've got to have this. If I don't get it, I'm going to split the church. And they do. Powers and position. I think it was Adrian Rogers, and he might have got this, I don't know, from Watchman Nee, but no man is ready to be in authority until he's learned to be under authority. And once he's learned to be under authority, he understands the awesome responsibility. Many men would get out from under what God has called them to do, but they know that it's more dangerous to get out than to stay in. There's dangers all over, but they know that God has done it, and God has put them there, and they feel unworthy. They may even feel like the pastor we went and talked to, I think, about last week, he had this great problem, and he came to find out he felt so unworthy to be doing what he's doing. And I laughed. That's the normal. That's the standard. Now, let me take you on into a couple more things. This is serious. These things are serious. And even the marriage issue, this is so destructive. I was in a church a number of years ago. There were three of us went into it. We went into this thing, and they were having revival meetings. And we went in there, and we prayed. And I only stayed two weeks, and then I had to go somewhere else. But when we went in there, when we first went in there, I just got a check in my spirit going past. When we went into the office, there was a secretary. It's just like the Lord said, watch out. Watch out. You know, what's that? And from the secretary, hmm, it's just there's something there. I don't know. And all I know is just the Lord said, watch out. And that was a time when I was, after I'd been traveling around the country for a while. And before I started traveling, right when I started traveling somewhere in there, I asked the Lord, how come our churches are being destroyed? How come we've got to have revival every year? What's going on? And the Lord came back in my spirit, and God talks to you. He talks to you in your spirit. He talks to you through the Word, and He'll say things to give you in your spirit. And He just said, okay, you keep your mouth shut and your eyes open and your ears open, and I'll teach you about churches. And I was traveling around here and there at that time and getting into quite a few more churches than normal. And one of the things that He taught me was that every church is somebody's kingdom. And so that's sort of what I got this little check on. It's somebody's kingdom if the Holy Spirit is not in control of a church. It's somebody's kingdom. And you know it's their kingdom if it's going to be threatened, and they start getting nervous about it. And I've done this myself one time. The Lord came back and said, when you disobeyed Me, that became your kingdom. Oh, He melted me like butter. He said, I told you that, but you wouldn't understand until you violated and did it. Oh man, it just broke my heart. But here, what's going on? We go in there, we have meetings, God starts working right from the start. A deacon got really right with God, and I mean God was working. This was a major church in the town. And I'd already been going down into this area for several weeks and working in this area. And before that, and so when the meetings came, it had been probably a couple years of working in the area and towns all around, so it was sort of a gathering. This is the way sometimes revivals work. And so the meetings came, it was powerful. And then I had to leave. After the second week, I said, I've been gone two weeks for my family, and I've got to be up in another state. And so I said, Lord, we need an airplane. So I just mentioned that one day, we need an airplane. And the lawyer there said, you need an airplane, you got one. And so we got flown home, all of us, to see our families on the weekend. The other two guys went back, and they had one more week. And it was really getting hot. It was getting so hot that at the end of that week, the people where these two friends of mine were staying came to them and said, you guys are just going to have to leave. You can't stay here in our house anymore. Huh, okay. And they were like in an apartment, a garage apartment. And so they threw them out. The leadership of the church came to them and said, I guess you guys are just going to have to leave. There's no place to stay in town. They were that close to breaking through the power of Satan in that church, and they were basically thrown out of town. It was somebody's kingdom. I don't know if it was the secretary or not, but it was somebody's kingdom. You know what kicked that off from the very beginning and got things stirred up and hot? It was after the first week the pastor resigned in that church, major church. You know why he resigned? The Spirit of God convicted him and his wife that they were not qualified to be there. They were both married and divorced. And the Spirit of God did it, and it started a fire. Strange fire can burn back in the closets. And that's why you young people, you can bring strange fire into the home and destroy the home and destroy this church, any church. Strange fire. Is it serious? Well, divorce destroys the type of Ephesians. We've been talking about Ephesians. You know what that's saying? Basically, the type of Ephesians is that when we come to Christ, it's forever. It is to be pure. We're to be united. It is to be oneness. And it's foreverness. And it's to be pure. And so when a divorce occurs, it's saying it's not forever. When Christ saves you, He saves you forever. And a marriage is to be a picture of the church and a picture of our union with Christ. That is pure. And it's forever. And it's one. And this is what Ephesians 5 is talking about. And this is why we started off our first couple of weeks, Genesis in the beginning, and 2 and 3, and then back over there. And so it destroys the type. Because when God said, leave and cleave, that was a threefold witness that He gave, this oneness and this foreverness and this purity. But it also destroys the permanence of marriage. Romans 8, 38 and 39 tells us that neither death nor life shall separate us from the love of God. Nothing is to separate a man and a woman until death. Then they're free. And so it blows the type. And it's also Jesus is saying here that He's not going to leave us death. Nothing. Death is the only thing in a marriage. And something else that destroys the pattern of purity. We have been so polluted. I was reading back over in Hebrews. Marriage is honorable, verse 4, in all, and the bed undefiled. But whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. God will judge. It's a serious thing. So you destroy the marriage and you can destroy the home. You destroy the home, you can destroy the church. That's how this works. It's just how it works. It reminds me of the story of the Arab and the camel. Remember that story? The Arab and the camel. How many of you remember the story of the Arab and the camel? Oh, good. Let me tell you about it. One time there's an old Arab out in the desert. And you know what happens in the desert at night. It gets cold, doesn't it? Well, he's in his tent. He's got his nice little warm fire there and enjoying it. And pretty soon he notices a little movement over on this side. And he sees an object come underneath the edge of the tent. He looks over there. He says, what is that? I can't believe it. It was the nose of his camel. And he said, what are you doing? He said, oh, Master, it's so cold out here. I didn't think you'd mind if I just stuck my nose under the edge of the tent. Can I just please leave it there? Well, okay. But don't blow it. A little bit later there's some more rustling. And he looks over there again. And that camel has his head under the tent. He said, what are you doing? Well, Master, it's so cold out there. And since I had my nose under, I didn't think you'd mind if I put my whole head under the edge of the tent. I won't cause any trouble. I won't blow my nose. I won't do nothing. I'll just be still. Okay. No trouble. After a little bit, he hears some rustling. And he looks back over. And the animal has his neck all the way in up to his shoulders. And he said, what are you doing? He said, oh, the rest of me out here is just getting so cold. I didn't think you'd mind. You've got a large tent that if I could just get a little bit more in, it would help keep me warm. It's so cold. Okay. But don't cause any trouble. And so he goes on a little bit. And then he hears this tremendous shuffling. And he looks, and the whole camel has come into his tent. Oh, brother, why did I ever let you in? What are you doing? And the camel, he just sort of stretches out a little bit. And he says, oh, this feels so good. It's so warm. Can I just stay? Okay. You're in anyway. But don't cause any trouble. And so he moves around. He shuffles it after a few minutes. He says, you know, Master, I'm pretty big, and you're sort of small. I think probably if you just leave, there'd be a lot more room in this tent for me. Would you get out? And this is the way the enemy works. He just wants a little bitty place in your heart. And he will work from there, and he'll get a little bit more in, and a little bit more in, until he takes over your complete life. Is it serious? It sure is. It really is. To put men into leadership that are not morally and scripturally qualified is to remove the protection over the church and invite Satan in to destroy and to control it. Just like that first pastor that I mentioned. It's a sad thing of how that happened. Well, when men's lives do not live up with the Scripture, when our lives do not live up, when we do not come up to the standard, you know what we do? We do one or two things. One or two things. When our lives are confronted with the Scripture, just like Ms. Zim, the pastor there in that church. We will fall and repent, just like in Acts chapter 2 and verse 37, when they are confronted with the Word of God, they repented, many were saved, or either they will go into rebellion. How can you tell if rebellion is in a church, or in a home, or in a heart? Here's how you can tell. I've learned this, that what a man cannot control, he then will seek to destroy, or destroy the one opposing him within the church circles. I've seen this, and listened to pastor friends many times, share about a struggle here or there or whatever, and instead of not getting their way, they will just, okay, they'll just back down and go and get with God and pray. They step forward more. I am going to get what I want if I have to destroy you. And I was told that one time. I was told that. And I thought, this is a horrible thing I've been told. So I'm just going to step back and watch the church be destroyed. But what he meant was he was going to help it. Because all of a sudden, he couldn't get his way. Horror, horror. Are you trying to get the way in your life? Let Him have His way with thee. Am I? There lives within me an old boy that would just like to have His way. Or an old girl for you that are girls. It's the old man, the old nature. What do you do with him? Well, I've gone to God hundreds of times. Would you just take him out? He says, no. My grace is sufficient for you. But you need to die daily. Paul said, I die daily. He died daily to him. He died daily to his desires, to his dreams, his pleasures, his plans and everything. He died daily and everything was put into God's hands. And that's the way he lived a victorious Christian life. So Cora's rebellion and ours today, what's the difference? No difference. If we can't get what we want, we're just going to go in there and destroy it. And that's what they were trying to do, destroy the leadership. I believe we're in apostasy when we destroy the church by disobeying God's Word. We're in a day of apostasy. We're in a dangerous, dark day in our country. But it's also a day of opportunity. God works deeply in dark days. And those of us that will follow God's Word, we will make it. We will make it. We'll make it. Well, this last thing. Why do men in churches go against Scripture and thus destroy the churches? Leadership or not? Here's the answer. Men are more apt. And I'm going to go into this next time on our next session. This is actually going to be a statement for putting us into our next thing. But men are more apt to lean on their own understanding than to depend on the continual leading of the Holy Spirit. I wrote this out so I wouldn't forget it. They do not believe that the Holy Spirit can lead them and will lead them and will take care of those issues. And so they want to do it themselves. They thought Moses was basically, you know, he'd taken off more than he could shoot. At one point he had his father-in-law come along and said, You need some help. And he listened to the wise counsel, but he didn't come in there. Moses, I think you need to go on about a 30-day leave. I'm going to come in here and take over for you and get things going, get them straightened out. No, he came in very wisely and laid it out. And Moses listened. But these are others that are coming in rebellion. Men that do not believe that the Holy Spirit can lead them and will lead them are back in the garden. We're right back into the garden listening to the lies of Satan. Hey, you know a lot more than the preacher. You are so talented. You went to school. You ought to just move in there and maybe start talking to a few people back behind the scenes. And next thing you know you've got a church that's destroyed. Well, I'm going to close up on that. Next week the title of the message is going to be The Frog That Could Fly. The Frog That Could Fly. But let's pray. Lord, may we not be guilty. May we not be the ones. May we never be the ones to move out from under proper authority and try to offer strange fire on the altar. Father, our hearts are broke. We see broken families. We see men that have been destroyed, either destroyed themselves or destroyed their ministries by not following the Scripture. God, would You put a spirit of grace upon us to hear one another. Open my ears to hear that we would continually march together, that we would move forward together in harmony, in one accord. And Father, we know we're not perfect. We know we've got many areas of need. We know that we're needy. We know our families are not where we'd like to see them to be necessarily. But we do know that You care about us. And we ask You to have mercy on us as we move forward in one accord. In Jesus' name, Amen.