Michael Koulianos emphasizes the importance of the unity of the Holy Spirit, urging believers to embody lowliness, gentleness, and long-suffering in their relationships with one another. He highlights that true unity is not based on personal perspectives or methods but is rooted in the presence of the Holy Spirit, which fosters genuine love and compassion among believers. Koulianos encourages the congregation to prioritize their union with Jesus, as this will naturally lead to unity with others, and warns against the dangers of division that can arise from a lack of spiritual connection. He concludes by reminding the audience that love, as exemplified by Jesus, is a choice that requires self-sacrifice and commitment to one another.

All right, you ready to jump in? The Holy Spirit. Today I want to talk to you about the unity of the Holy Spirit. I'm going to get back to where we left off last week. That'll take place next week actually, but I felt the Lord just say, stay in the, stay in this whole subject of the Spirit, but I want you to go to the unity of the Spirit. Is it not working? Can't turn them on? Our building is coming. Does anyone have a nightlight by any chance on them that you got from being a monthly partner at a ministry by any chance? If you don't know, then you don't know. If you grew up in Charismatic Pentecost like I did, you got all types of gifts for being partners. Prayer shawls, nightlights, water from the Jordan. No, that won't work. That's throwing me off. Thank you though. Water from the Jordan. Oh yeah. Olive oil from Galilee. Then you believed it. And you went for it. All right. All right. Ephesians 4 verse 1. Thank you Lord. I therefore the prisoner of the Lord, that'll get your attention won't it, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. You might be thinking stadiums. No. With all lowliness and gentleness. With long suffering. Oh this is the tough one here. Bearing with one another in love. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit just as you were called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all. Wow. I said wow. That should wow you. Whenever we hear the word calling we think typically from an external perspective. I'm going to do massive things. And sometimes what's massive to us is not so massive to God. What God is not after is raising up people to do great exploits who look nothing like Him. So according to Ephesians 4 we are called to lowliness and gentleness. How much more beautiful would the world be if this were picked up. With long suffering. As I said last week long suffering means what? To suffer a long time. And this seems to be the one that just man is a challenge. Bearing with one another in love. Everybody loves Jesus but His kids are a different situation. It's easy to love the Lamb of God but His sheep they are something else. One of the things that helps us deal with one another is remembering that we would be just like the person who is driving us crazy if we had 10 minutes of bad thinking. And one of the greatest ways to get over the challenge of bearing with one another is the compassion of Jesus. You don't excuse the issue and so if you're if you're causing pain obviously you need to clean up your mess. However compassion brings me into the why instead of judging them. For me personally the thing I'm most uncomfortable with about what the Lord's doing at Jesus image is the public aspect of it all. I don't like it. Just because of the way I'm wired I don't enjoy that. I am rejuvenated by being alone and my tribe is pretty close and tight and so when I go somewhere I'm humbled. Like I just got back from preaching a Randy Clark's conference in Oklahoma City. I actually saw Mackenzie's parents there. Yeah it was wonderful. And to be in the room with Randy was awesome and anytime I get a chance to do that I do it. Really he'd be one of the few people I would jump on a plane to go you know travel for today. But people were stopping me I mean non-stop going we listen to Jesus image before every Bible study. We listen to Jesus image at church. We have a home church and we worship with you guys. We feel like we are Jesus image Columbus Ohio. I know we're not but we just feel like we are part of the Jesus image family and all this happens everywhere. And then a dear friend who has worked a lot with Heidi he stopped me and he was there at Randy's he said I just need to tell you something. Everywhere I go people are talking to me about what God is doing in Orlando that Jesus image. It is humbling but in the natural I go oh I don't like you knowing that like knowing I just want to walk by. Do you know what I mean? But there's something in the kingdom called a blessing tax. It's not necessarily termed that way in the scripture but Jesus said if you leave all if you leave family homeland children spouse you leave everything if you're willing to leave family if you're willing to do that and by the way that's in the Bible so we have to figure out a way to value and steward family and still say yes to the call and sometimes leaving them that's been the story of my life. And I'm here to tell you you can have a wonderful wife and children and still fulfill the call of God. You actually can't. God gives you nothing in life that he expects you to neglect. You should tattoo that on your forearm instead of that tattoo you have in Hebrew you don't even know what it means. Just want to look spiritual. All right just having fun just having fun you know you know the one I mean you know what I'm talking about. Sometimes I ask like the young people like 24 they got this thing in Farsi. What's that mean? What's that say? They go well I know what it means. No no what is it say? It's on you forever. You should have that thing memorized. I'm just waiting for one of our students to tattoo their prayer language on their forearm. Oh God don't do it. Go to another school. We'll send you to Reading. We're going to send you to Reading if you do that. You do that one I'm calling Reading. I'm sending you out there. So my buddy came up and encouraged me. There is this tax you pay. Jesus said if you leave all you'll be blessed a hundredfold in this life and the life to come. That sounds amazing. Next statement with persecution. It's there. So Peter's like hey Lord we've left everything for you. We have out given you. Imagine Jesus the incarnate second person of the Godhead who left all of heaven and is now wearing a body. And by the way as I said many times we'll forever wear a body. That's how much God loves humanity that he has become man eternally. There is a body now involved in the Godhead which was not the case prior to the incarnation. So we can never say I just don't know that you love me. Oh he loves you. He sits at the right hand of the Father as you representing you. He loves you a lot. So Peter pipes up as Peter normally would you know. Probably John was like just leaning on the Lord's chest going he's doing it again. Here he goes the zealous one. Sometimes you need people who have cut off people's ears around you though. They are useful. They are useful. Lord we've left everything for you. You'd think Jesus would go oh I don't know the feeling. Then Jesus says if anyone leaves everything for me I'm paraphrasing. They'll receive a hundred fold. Of what? Of everything they left. Of everything they traded. Jesus will never allow us to out give him. In this life. So not just in heaven. And the life to come with persecution. That's the tax. The persecution aspect. That's the sales tax. So the next time you feel persecuted which is the life of the believer. Being persecuted is as much a promise as give and it shall be given. So when it happens don't be shocked. Realize it's a promise. So there's this side of the Lord Jesus that said I did not come to bring peace. I came to bring a sword. There's a divisive or I should say a dividing line that goes right down the middle of our lives the moment we yield to the Lord. So you enter a new kingdom. A new way of life. Right? You have new desires. New passions. A new day. New daily routine hopefully. And the people around you who have not received the Lord they just don't know how to deal with that. My dad didn't know how to deal. He's watching right now but he would agree. He didn't know how to deal with my mom and my brother and I in our room for eight hours reading our Bible, praying. Imagine him going what happened to my family? And in our culture honor is so huge. You do not dishonor your parents in our culture and in a Greek home it is not a democracy. And it shouldn't be in America either. My kids don't get a vote on certain things. They do get a look. They do get a little look. So everything changes and people don't deal with that and that's a very practical common way of being persecuted. Just when you get saved right? But this issue of bearing with one another in love requires compassion. If Jesus said we are to love our enemies that is an invitation to freedom. The more people you hate the more bound you will be. The more people you label as your enemy the more bound you will be even if you have prayer meetings against them. They're doing all right at Disney and you're binding and loosing them. It's the people who believe they have a list of enemies and think about them all the time who are the most bound. Love, bearing with one another in love is an invitation to freedom. Wanting the best for your brother and sister is an invitation to freedom. Paul told us to prefer the other above ourselves. That is a wonderful way to live. Listen and pray. If I begin to pray for someone to go further, to accomplish more, to love Jesus more, when it happens I'm not threatened. I rejoice in the answered prayer. Let me give you two ways to change your heart about somebody who's hurt you. And by the way there's a good chance you've hurt them too. I know that could never happen. Oh but it has. Two ways. Number one, pray for them consistently. You pray for them your heart will move. Let me give you three. Number two, give to them and bless them. You mean like a check? Sure. Or a cash out. Or Venmo. Whatever you gotta do. Give them something. Step out of the bondage and do something that goes against the grain of the temptation. That's powerful in the spirit. I'm telling you. It's almost a prophetic act. It's you saying to your own heart and to the enemy, I am feeling this but I will not be ruled by it. I am going against the grain of the temptation. Does this make sense to you? Okay. Number three, ask the Holy Spirit how he feels about them. You do that, I promise you what you will not hear is that guy's a complete idiot. So once you ask the Lord, how do you feel about them? I promise he's going to say I love them. He might tell you to stay away from them. I'm not saying you should covenant with them. But he's not going to trash them to you. Do you realize that Jesus never even spoke evil judgment in front of the disciples regarding Judas? Oh man. Do you know what entitlement does? It makes the anointing invisible to you. You put yourself on people's level in the kingdom and start to judge them. Even if God has given them an office, entitlement says entitlement causes you to not see the woman of God and to see the weakness of the woman. So you ask the Lord, how do you feel about them? And when he shares that with you, that's what you pray into. Now the high call of the Christian life is union with Jesus. Say this, the high call of the Christian life is experiential union with Jesus. Why did I put experiential in there? Because if we stop at position alone and do not press in, press in is the wrong word, do not commune with the Lord so that we experience what he paid for, we waste the position. Have you ever seen somebody put wording to their estate? They put wording to this state that the child's going to receive this, this, this and that, but there's a condition. So some parents will put in if they graduate from high school, if they don't have six wives. If they do this, they get the inheritance, right? To not meet the condition so that they can experience what the position actually provides them is to waste the position and what it costs the parent to provide it. When Christians stop at the mere confession of their position as being forgiven, as their identity, when they're focused on who they are but don't live the lifestyle to experience what's in the account, it wastes the position. Jesus did not make us sons and daughters so that we would merely say it. Sometimes you need to know who your father is, but that's not the apex of the whole thing. The apex of it all is to experience what he paid for, which is the seal and presence of the Spirit in our lives. Does this make sense to you? Yes. Bearing with one another in love. Are you ready now? Love is a choice. Regardless of what the world says, you cannot have love outside of the Lord because love is not subjective in the kingdom. It looks like Jesus. You take Jesus out of the equation. If even in a church, if I took a love survey, it would mean something different to all of you. So for the world, love is a moving target. Does that make sense? And if it's a moving target to everyone, if you don't give me the love I want, when I want, how I want it, you don't love me. Now you're my enemy. But love, God is love the scripture says. And God so loved the world that he gave Jesus as the manifestation of love. If you're wondering what love looks like, it looks just like Jesus. He is love. So the scripture here says, bear with one another in love. What does that look like? Just like it looked like in Jesus. Father forgive them, for they do not know what they're doing. It looks like a life laid down. It looks like, here's a real curse word, self-sacrifice. It looks like saying no to Michael and yes to Jesus and you. You remove, listen, if you remove the altar, you remove the fire. The altar speaks of death to self. You remove the altar, no fire falls. Fire falls on blood. Blood flows from a sacrificial heart. All of us need to have these moments that you can actually schedule to be sure you are giving yourself away. When I get dropped off at the airport now, I'm probably just killing my speaking invitation opportunities. I'm just going to be honest with you. When I get dropped off at the airport now, I literally get out of the car and go, I want to go home. I haven't even got on the flight. Flying isn't the most pleasurable thing anymore. My word. But I literally get off out of my car and go, is it over yet? Because my heart is so here. My heart is here with my wife. My heart is here with my children. My heart is here with you. This has been the greatest, most pleasurable, gratifying ministry assignment I have ever had, pastoring this house and leading this school. It's my favorite place. It's my favorite place to preach. You're my favorite people to preach to. I take it so seriously. I am in the scriptures. I am getting advice. I'm getting counsel. I've surrounded this house with elderly fathers in the faith for the sake of our safety and my own heart. Eight to ten of them who could rebuke the pants off me at any moment, and they do at times. And it hurts, but it works. But I've discovered I actually have to go give myself away. Even if I feel like being home, because it keeps my heart on the altar. Does that make sense? And anytime my heart is on the altar, God sees a sacrifice. And that becomes a magnet for his fire. Write this down. Living wood smokes, dead wood burns. Living wood smokes, dead wood burns. Green wood is smoky, dead wood burns. Anytime life is lost, the self-will, when the will is given over and that wood begins to die and we begin to die to self, fire arrives. The more full of life I am, when I say life, I mean my own will. It's all smoke and mirrors. It provides no light. Can't breathe. The fire isn't the issue. It's the presence of self in the wood. Its own life has not been emptied. It hasn't been severed from its own root system. Do you understand? And so when you listen to the greats, I mean amazing, amazing people who shifted nations and the world that we still talk about, they all had really one message. Surrender to Jesus. Yield to Jesus. Give your life away. I can go down the list. The apostle Paul, Jesus himself. Go down the list through the ages of the church. You will hear this message from men and women. When I surrendered, he came. When I died, I finally began to live. When I gave my life away, his anointing fell on me. This is the way of the Spirit. So we bear with one another in love, and that love looks like Jesus, which looks like yes to Jesus loving you and being willing to go low myself. Verse three, endeavoring to keep, this is it now, the unity of the Spirit. All right, are you ready for this? If we are going to be a united people, we must be a spirit people. It is not vague unity here, or political unity, or social unity that nobody can define. No one even knows what it is. We need to be united around what? Around what I think. But I kind of think like you, but not totally. So what's that make us? You don't agree with me totally? No. You're my enemy, right? So in the church, you remove the Spirit. You want to unite around method maybe. What church should look like? Your church is too big. It's too big. Well, what do I do with that? Sorry. Should I kick people out? I don't feel loved. I thought you were born again. You don't have enough programs for me. There's no shuffleboard league. There will never be a shuffleboard league, unless I plant in the villages one day when I'm 60. I don't know. That'll be a putt-putt. It is far off. Kathleen said it's not that far off. It's 17 years off, Kathleen. All right. That's a long time. So if you don't see it the way I see it, we got to go our own way. Your doctrine. Your doctrine is just off. What do you mean? Well, I don't agree with you on that passage. I know, bro, but this is a huge book. This is a lot of passages. Many verses. 66 books with thousands of verses. Man, we agree on who Jesus is and the creeds of our faith, but we disagree here. So I'm out. Right? The trap is when we begin to label something as holy or unholy because it doesn't fit my perspective. I have discovered that some of the most anointed people who are friends of God are the most bizarre. In some cases. In some cases. And I've also discovered that a lot of what we care about, God cares nothing about. I've also discovered what we don't care about, He really cares about. Like gentleness. Lowliness. Lowliness may not give you a huge social media following, but it may give you a seat near the throne in the age to come. So you have to define big things. I grew up going to, for example, multiple small group meetings, home churches, big churches. I discovered that people are people in every setting. Just in one you get free food. Which is cool. But to be very careful that if something is different in expression that we don't judge it. So unity doesn't depend on the model. As badly as we want to say, I am building an environment, and by the way, no pastor can build an environment, and see God bless it. Jesus has commissioned Himself. Additionally, the Father has commissioned Him as chief cornerstone who is also the one who builds the church. So the reason He's chief cornerstone is because He's the substance and the builder. That means you have to let Him do it, and then He's going to do it with Himself. So if Jesus is going to build, He's the substance, chief cornerstone, and then He connects you to Him as living stones, and that's how you become the house of God. Cornerstone goes first, and then He connects you to Him because we are branches. He is divine. So for Him to come live in a house, listen carefully, He has to build it with Himself, and it has to be His, or He will not fill it. Haven't we all dreamt about, haven't you ever watched a movie on, or not a movie, a show, Jesse watches all these shows where they fix up houses. I don't know the name. No, there's like six of them, so trust me, and the worst part is October's coming, which means Jesse's hallmark thing is going to start, and the hallmark stuff starts. It goes till January, but you only need one of those. They're all the same. I'm like, oh I can tell you what's going to happen here an hour before it happens. Here comes the handsome business guy who moved away from his hometown. Coming back. He's coming back, and now he's changed, right? His heart shifted. He's going to knock down the little town to build an office tower. Right? Right? Right? And of course the girl that he loves is a daughter of the guy who owns the little town, and she busts him in a business meeting, hearing him firsthand how he is going to knock down that little Christmas village, and build his little business. In the midst of it all, he falls in love with her, and ends up buying the Christmas business, and running it, and handing it over to their kids. In the snow. In the snow. In the snow. There you go. That's my fall, winter, and early spring season. So one of those shows Jesse's watching now saying, uh, amen. All right. One of those shows that she watches, you always see someone who has the joy of designing their own house, and how excited they are to live in it once they design it. And even more excited to live in it if they design it and build it. Wouldn't we all love to design and build our own home if we could? Well the Lord can. He knows how. And so only Jesus can be builder, substance, listen, and the life in it. That only happens by the Spirit. So according to Paul here, unity must be the unity of the Spirit. So if the Spirit is not present, and leading and guiding, you will not have Christian unity without Christ Himself, who is present by the Spirit. When you make the Holy Spirit's presence, oh I hope you get this, the Holy Spirit's presence the priority, and not some vague perspective of unity, you will actually have unity. You cannot have unity in a room unless there's somebody bigger than you in the room. Unless there's someone more important than your perspective in the room. So this unity is by the Spirit. The example in the old covenant would be this, the 12 tribes of Israel, three camp on the north, this is in the desert, it's right there in your Bible, go read the book of Exodus, three camp on the north, three camp in the south, three tribes in the west, three tribes on the east, in the shape of a cross. Every time they camped out, they were declaring to the heavenlies, Christ is coming to die, just by being in their tents. Isn't that amazing? Now in the middle of the camp was a cloud, and when the sun went down, there was a fire right in the middle of the camp that hovered over the tabernacle. A picture of Jesus coming to die on that cross, right in the middle of it. Amazing. That's why one of the reasons he left the holy city, he had to go outside the city gate and die in the barren land. This was all prophesied when Israel camped in the shape of a cross with the presence of Jesus himself over the tabernacle. Amazing, this is amazing. The Bible is wonderful. I hope you all love your Bible and read it. I don't know, don't rip it, but just read it until the thing falls apart, then duct tape it. Don't throw your Bible out. But who was in the middle of the camp? Say the Lord. So he's right there in the middle, and now you have these 12 tribes who cannot get along. Even within the tribes, they want to kill each other. Korah's clan, who is from Moses's tribe, wants to kill their own cousin Moses. And then God steps in. Never trash God's servants. This is the reply you'll get. It's the one God gave to Moses and Mary. Are you ready for it? Were you not afraid? Not were you not hesitant. Not were you not a bit anxious or depressed. No, no. Were you not afraid to speak about my servant Moses? Were you not petrified to open your mouth about my friend? You see, in your world, Moses and Mary, you don't stick up for your friends. But I am a faithful friend, a faithful shepherd, who according to my word, vindicates the righteous. Now I'm going to have to vindicate Moses by dealing with you. I wish you would not have done that. Wild. So fire flies out. Well, this is with Korah and his clan. Fire at one point flies out. I should say this is with Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu. They are torched by the glory of God, literally torched. You say, not my loving Jesus. Oh, your loving Jesus did that. You say, no, no, no. That's the Old Testament. Oh, that was Jesus in the flame. Read Paul's writings. That was Jesus in the rock. God does everything as Trinity. You can't call him Alpha and Omega and think his existence begins in a manger. You can't say he's eternal and just think he showed up in Matthew and took off in the first chapter of Acts. That was the Lord Jesus. And Paul said all these writings are profitable. We must look at them and learn from them as the church. You say, oh, give me a New Testament example. I will. Ananias and Sapphira. Speaking of the Holy Spirit, by the way, since we're on this Holy Spirit series, Peter said, you've lied to the Spirit when he addressed them. And he said, you've not lied to men, but to God. What a church service. After the cross, the same Holy Spirit who made them drunk in the Spirit in the upper room now had to deal with some house cleaning. It's there. It would make me much more comfortable if it weren't there. But there's something I like about it. What do I like? I love the holiness aspect of it all. I love to know what he loves and what he hates. I love to walk in the fear of the Lord tenderly in his presence. There's something about it and there's joy to be had in it, believe it or not. The Bible says, because Jesus despised iniquity, that he was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows. And according to Isaiah chapter 11, Jesus himself would walk in the fear of the Lord. And Jesus is the Lord. When the Spirit is central, listen, the last thing you want in that camp is for the cloud to lift. Oh, if that cloud lifts and leaves, what will they do? I feel the Lord now. What will they do? How will they eat? Because bread comes from the cloud. Manna flies out of the cloud every morning. And God brings quail because the cloud is in the camp. And it's very hot in the desert. You ever lived in the desert? I have. Summers are horrible. And if any of you are from there and you come here and tell us it's dry heat, we don't believe you. I lived there for a year. It's brutal. It's like living with a blow dryer in your face on high. There's no relief. You get cooked from every direction. At least we get rain here. It's hot there. But with the cloud, there's shade. And the cloud protects you from the elements. If the cloud lifts, your animals die. If the cloud lifts, you could die. If the cloud lifts, you have no food. You have no protection. But what about at night when it's chilly? That's when the pillar of fire burns and keeps you warm. When the cold of fear comes and anxiety, the cold of loneliness. But you've got this pillar of fire in the camp who keeps you warm all night. And it's tough to see in the dark. I don't know if you've ever been in the desert. No street lights. No Disney signs. It's tough to see in the desert unless there's a pillar of fire in the middle of the camp. You take him away. You have no provision. You have no food. You have no manna. You know what the word manna means? What is this? That's what the word actually means. What is this? It actually just means what? You lose that what. That means you've lost your wonder. When we begin to think, I've got it all figured out. The wonder's gone. Your heart's no longer wounded with that holy fire. The spear of his love. The wonder of his love. The wonder of his glory. The wonder of his power. The wonder of his peace. That's what the manna is. Is this too much? Our students would know this. Why manna? It's white because Jesus is pure. It was round because Jesus is eternal. He has no beginning and no end. Sweet to the taste because there's nothing like fellowshipping with Jesus. You can break it easily because he has a fragile heart as the bridegroom. You take the cloud away. No manna. No revelation of Jesus. No provision. No warmth. No light for vision. No protection from the scorching sun of the world. They realized that. At least Moses did. And Joshua. So when you realize that that cloud is everything, you get it right. That's what it means to have the unity of the spirit. So unity is an under unity. Unity is by the spirit and under the spirit and keeping the presence of the spirit. Therefore I cannot settle for disunity. That would mean I'm trading the presence of the spirit. And if the spirit lifts, as David said, take not your holy spirit from me. If the spirit lifts, everything lifts with him. This is what it looks like to be united by the spirit and unto the spirit. Is this helping you? Turn to first Corinthians six and I'm going to pray for you. Are you liking this? This is good old-fashioned Bible. First Corinthians six verse 15. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Wow. What a passage. Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not. Speaking of sexual purity here. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For the two, he says, shall become one flesh. Look at verse 17 now. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Oh my gosh. He who is joined to the Lord. In other words, he who has come to Jesus by faith. Help me there Joel. He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with the Lord. And this is the key to the unity of the spirit. I will never prioritize, listen carefully, unity with brothers and sisters unless I prioritize my unity with Jesus. When I actually believe that I am in union, in one spirit with the Lord Jesus, I then begin to protect that union. Does that make sense to you? And again, union is meant to be experiential. As Bill would say, does anybody here get married for the marriage certificate? I didn't. I married a person. Wanted to know her, experience her, have a relationship with her. The same should be true with Jesus. Now here's the issue. Part of protecting that union with Jesus is walking in proper union with His people. What I will ultimately discover is if I mishandle that union out there, it will affect this experiential aspect of His presence in my life. There will be a roadblock. So I don't really reconcile so that I can go have a coffee with someone. That's not the point. The point isn't because I just want to kick it with them more. No, no, no, no, it's not even about being lonely. It's really not even about missing people. Not at the core. Not that that's not valid and may not be true. But at the core, I am protecting something most holy. His presence in my life. When that becomes the priority set, division glows in the dark. Have you ever wondered, ask yourself this question. Have you ever wondered why Paul said, mark those who cause division? Think about it. I mean that's intense. Only hang out with them on Tuesdays? No. He said, have nothing to do with them. Why? Why? He understands the way of the enemy. That's why I talked about what I talked about last week. We don't go to other churches and try to get people here. That is, listen, that is to actually subtract from the flock, right? If people are called here, they come. We still walk in honor. That was the whole point of last week's message is how do we keep the cloud at the end of the day? Now not everyone in this room is one spirit with the Lord. Not everyone. You're all going, oh my God, what? Only those who belong to Jesus are one spirit with him. The scripture actually says, Jesus said that to those who belong to the world, he's speaking to the religious Jews of his time, that their father was the devil. Think of that. He said your father is the devil. They were in church every day. They knew the scriptures, but they didn't know Jesus. They knew the scriptures better than any of us.