This sermon emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and avoiding criticalness towards others, God, and His ways. It warns against being consumed by distractions and possessions that hinder spiritual growth, using the analogy of a missionary carrying a growing monkey that eventually becomes a burden. The speaker urges listeners to be critical of themselves, manage their time wisely, and prioritize relationships, highlighting the need for discernment, humility, and gratitude in all aspects of life.

Let's pray. Lord, you show us what you want us to do in the last few minutes here. We've gone through some pretty heavy things, and we've had a few light moments, and I know that there's some issues that we have to deal with, so I pray that folks have been encouraged. It's a hard subject for us. We don't like war. We're people of peace. We don't like it when serious things are done to us by the enemy. But we thank you that we can focus on Christ, and we can learn from these things how great you are, and you don't ever come out on the bottom. If there's a pileup, you're always going to be on the top. You're not going to be put down. You're so wise, you can circumvent any schemes of the enemy. He's just a tool of yours. And there's a verse in your Bible, I think it's in Isaiah, he's going to be clinging to the sides of the pit, and they're going to say, is this the man that's destroyed the world? And so, Father, we thank you for the greatness of your love, and the greatness of your expression to us, and giving us the Holy Spirit, and the salvation that's in Christ. And again, any listening to the DVD or here that's without Christ, I pray that they would not run anymore like a fugitive from God, but they would seek you and just cry out to you to save them. You do the saving. You say, call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, and it's a powerful, mighty thing for you to save us. And if we ask, you will answer, if we're sincere. Thank you now, guide us at this time, in Jesus' name, amen. I did a series years ago, I think Roy Daniels put this out in South Africa, did it in 08, on how Satan destroys the church. And I start off with dealing with the family. Brother Paul had talked to me about family, asked how long we'd been married, in three months it'd be 43 years, and we've learned a couple things. She really had to put up a lot with me at first. I didn't know nothing about marriage. Then we had kids, I didn't know nothing about kids, I didn't major in kids, and I have an amazing wife, amazing wife, put up with me. Married a half-wild Cajun. My dad, when he was saved a long time ago, he was 89, he was one of the first ones in a strong Catholic family to get saved down in southern Louisiana. They spoke French. You still go down there and they play French music and everything on the radio and stuff, but he got saved a long time ago down there. I didn't learn French because my mom didn't want him speaking French because she couldn't understand what they were saying. But the family, I had some things here on the family, and I don't have enough time, or I won't really go into this, just to get started. But there are things that need to be for sure, Brother Paul, and one is that you always have to have agreement. I had this statement in the beginning of this, 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 always have to walk in agreement, always, and that's not easy if we've got somebody like me that might be a little hard-headed. So the submission to God and the submission of the wife unto the Lord, to the husband, and then the husband has the responsibility to love his wife as Christ loved the church, and you've got all these things in here. But I'm not going to go into that tonight. I'm going to put that there so I don't forget it. And I guess we're going to go through some heavy stuff to the end, but I don't have a lot to say on criticalness, a lot of this goes with hypocrisy. And so what I want to do is just, I'm going to cover about three things on it, and won't take a lot of time on that, but I'm going to share some extra stuff in getting started here. This is a little something back in, oh, what year was it, 2009? We had, I was working in a revival conference in Ireland, and then we went over to Wales the year before we'd been in Scotland, and when we went to Wales, we went to the place where Evan Roberts, anybody ever heard of Evan Roberts, where the Welsh revival started? We had meetings in that church, in the little chapel next door, and he was buried out to the back, and it was an amazing thing to be there, and God, the devil was there too, because he was really trying to mess things up. We had a similar thing like he had the night, they had to deal with there, and it was a pretty hard thing, but wherever God's going to be working, you're going to have some interesting things happen, but here's the four points of the revival. He said, is there any sin in your past that you have not confessed to God? On your knees at once, your past must be put away and your self-cleansed. He said, is there anything in your life that is doubtful? Anything that you cannot decide if it's good or evil, away with it. Have you forgiven everybody? If not, don't expect forgiveness for your own sins. You won't get it. And then three, he said, do you want the Holy Spirit, do what the Holy Spirit prompts you to do. Obedience, prompt, implicit, unquestioning obedience by the Spirit. And then four, he said, a public confession of Christ as your Savior. There's a vast difference between profession and confession, and these are the type of things in 1904 and 1905, the Welsh Revival actually helped them in two parts up in that area, I understand, but the one there where we were, where he was, was the one that we are most familiar with. I have something, I've carried it with me every time I've got up here, and I've never said anything about it because I haven't really focused on the church, so to say. But A. W. Tozer has some writings about the church. He was a prophet, and he walked with God, and he has things about the waning authority of Christ in the church. I might have read some stuff earlier. But he said, my grief is simply the result of a condition which I believe to be almost universally prevalent among the churches. And he says he's a part of it, he can't get out of it. He said, I myself am very much involved in this situation, I here deplore. And basically he goes on, I have several pages on this, but he's basically saying that Christ, he said, here's the way. He said, let me state the cause of my burden, it is this, Jesus Christ has today almost no authority at all among the groups that call themselves by his name. This was a long time ago. He said this, by these I mean not the Roman Catholics, nor the liberals, nor the various quasi-Christian cults. I do mean Protestant churches generally, and I include those that protest the loudest that they are spiritual, decent from our Lord, and his apostles, namely the evangelicals. He said, if he was saying the church is bad back then, it's ten times worse than then. Okay. Another thing I've carried around is all these little things I've jotted down about over the last few weeks. Satan wants to wear out the saints. One of the things when he had a revival, and there's still a few booklets up here if you want one, back in 85, there were all kinds of busy things to do. And I found myself busy, and then God said, get busy praying. Get busy praying. And so I did. So he wants to wear us out and get us busy. He's the accuser of the brethren, that will go into the area of criticalness. And we have leaders falling all over the country, major leaders. And actually, I thought, you know, if I would fall, God forbid, or anybody falls, I put it like this. You ought to be amazed if you make it, because there's so much coming against us. You need to pray. There are covens of witches praying for leaders to fall. They have their prayer meetings. As a matter of fact, some believers were having a meeting in one place, and they were having some kind of a conference or something. And across the street were the witches doing their thing over there. And they came over, knocked on the door, went into the conference, and said, would you stop doing whatever you're doing? We can't get through. They were blocking their communication to the devil, taking authority over that area, and complained, oh, we're sorry. And so, the enemy, he's quite a guy, leaders falling. We need to pray for our leaders. You in the church pray for all the men, pray for the leaders. And if the devil can't make you bad, he'll make you busy, the inbound said. And one of the things about Moses in the warfare, when he's up there holding, and he got tired down in the valley with the Malachites, they lost him, so they had to prop him up. You prop up your men, wherever you are, with prayer. It's a vicious battle, vicious battle. Don't give place to the devil, Ephesians, and watch those exposed positions to the enemy. Through God we shall do valiantly, for he it is that shall tread down our enemy. We don't tread them down, God does, Psalm 6012, 1 Corinthians 1557. Don't give up, don't get tired, wherefore, my brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Your work's not in vain, just keep on going. It's just like Saul, the devil's just like Saul chasing David, all over, all over. But David would not touch the Lord's anointing. I mean, he could have nailed him with a spear, he was a warrior. That's the way it is, Ephesians 3, 16, strengthened with might by his spirit, stay strong in the Lord, stay strong. Watch out for spiritual pride, that one is a subtle one that comes in. You know the thing about spiritual pride, and I could go ahead and do a session on that, I've got some experience in that area, is everybody sees it but you. That's the thing about spiritual pride, there's pride, but spiritual pride goes into a deeper level to where you don't see it. So that's what happened to our brother that I talked about last time. So, hopefully brick by brick we've built some walls up this weekend. Another little thing, let's see, just always exalt Christ in whatever you do, watch your thoughts, I had songs, there's different songs, Mighty Fortress is Our God, the first one I had on the list, Faith is a Victory, He is Able, Standing Hull the Fort, Lead on, O King, Marching Beneath the Banner, Sound the Battle Cry, a lot of different songs on victory. Maybe just a couple of other little things, I have spoken out of weakness, I'm not some kind of spiritual warfare guru, I'm just me, a pastor and full of weakness and failure and frailty, so I'd ask the Lord for one closing story for you, and I'll give it to you at the end, but I'll start it off, so you stay, and if I forget, you wave at me, but there's a missionary, he's down in the jungle, and he's down in the jungle, and so one day there's this little baby monkey, and it's all by itself, been abandoned by the mother or whatever, I'd heard this story that was shared years ago by a preacher, he's dead now, but he took it home and he made a pet out of it, and everywhere that he went, the little monkey was riding on his shoulder, unusual looking little monkey, but he had him there, there's all kinds of different little apes, and so everywhere he went, he'd take him with him, he'd feed him, he just became really attached, now you remind me to finish that story, okay, okay, Elements the sorcerer withstood, seeking to turn away the deputy from the Lord, he withstood them, 1st Thessalonians 2.18, wherefore, we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once again, but Satan hindered us, if he could hinder the great apostle Paul, he could hinder us, and so, we've got to watch in this battle now, let's go into this, and I don't plan on taking a long time here, on that, but let's look at this area of Christian cannibalism, Christian cannibalism, biting and debarring one another, the thing of criticism, what's the difference between criticalness and discernment? Discernment has the heart to help out what he discerns, the criticalness has the idea to exalt himself by seeing that, put another brother down, exalt yourself to hurt, even literally, sometimes, and as I said, I think number 8 was hypocrites are great criticizers of the true graces of others, now this weapon of Satan is very deadly, because he turns us to use it on each other, and if we get to shooting back and forth at each other within, he wants to destroy us, so the thing about it is relationships and family, in a church, one time we were some place and there were 27 families, and it was terrible, horrible, 27 homeschooling families, most of them, and it was just horrible, because kids had friends, all of a sudden they couldn't be friends and stuff like that, the enemy got in there, it was a powerful attack of the enemy, very subtle and very deadly, and very dangerous, and so these relationships are precious and destroyed, and you, some of you know these things, destroyed and damaged is really done, and so there's the power of unity, Satan wants to break that threefold accord, he wants to break that on you, so we have to be careful of this area, and so if God shows you something, at least to pray on it, and some of these things are very difficult, so I ask this question, how does this affect me? One, I said, what's the difference between the two, why is this weapon of Satan so deadly, and three, how does this affect me? Criticalness has the power to divide and destroy, this is it, it is, it just, like that, you have a division, you have a crack, whatever, now these three areas, I'm just gonna go through these, I've got some things, some things I'm gonna read to you over here, some little things, we used to live near George Washington Carver's monument, if you ever heard of him down in southwest Missouri, a little black boy, ended up being a great man of God, and received a lot of hate, because he was black, and he had this statement, you can walk around where the, it's a national monument, we were about four or five miles away from there, it's a national monument, and he attributed everything that he learned to God, he asked God to teach him about, I think it was the universe, wasn't it, and God said, that's too big for your little mind, and he said, okay, God, teach me about the peanut, and he said, that's more your size, and all the things that come out of that are amazing, just a little peanut, but he said this, you must not let the haters of this world divert you from the path of your own duty, for the time will come when the haters will have been consumed by their own hatred, and the ignorant will have learned the truth, and then if you are prepared for it, you will walk the earth as free men, the equal of any other man, so that's what he told his black brethren, grew up in the south, there's still a lot of hatred down there, there's some of them still fighting the war down there, and I grew up, and I saw a lot of that in families of prejudice, that was against them, and so here's the first thing, there's three areas of criticalness that we need to watch for ourselves, we won't, don't worry about your neighbor, just look at yourself, the first one is watch for criticalness against truth, criticalness against truth will say, oh well, that's the word of God, but it wouldn't matter if we would just overlook this or that, so criticalness against truth, even just little things about it, so we need to be careful about this area, when I went into school, I was pretty ignorant, started Bible school, and didn't know much, and I'm with Keith Daniel, I use the King James Bible, but when I went in, they told me to get rid of it, that there's something better, and I used that something, supposed to be better for ten years, and it hurt my Bible memory, and I think it affected my life, and finally the Lord told me to put that away, and go back to the King James, and later on he showed me what was going on in that area, and some months ago last year, I went and looked back, and I was just amazed at how many verses were missing in that version, some of these versions they have whole verses, key things, the name of Jesus is out there, fasting is taken out, and people don't even realize it, it's an attack on truth, it's a criticalness against truth, higher criticism, and so most all our schools, not all of them, are against the King James Bible, and that's a big battle that's going on, and so we have to watch that, we have to watch that area, and so when you're with people, listen to this statement, and this is what we learned when we were going along, I shared with somebody the day, years ago, and we were really going, and I had men coming to church who thought they were pastors, six of them, and were growing fast, but they were critical of the way I was doing things, and what I was doing, I was holding my face with God most of the week, scared to death, praying and saying, God, what are you doing, what do you want to do, I just want to stay out of the way, because God was working, God's blessing was on our fellowship, and people were hearing about it around the country, and moving in, but these guys, you're doing everything wrong, and I said, yeah, that's why God's blessing, we weren't taught to do this and that, and yeah, right, it was wrong, and so listen to this, in any group, in any group of ten persons, at least nine are sure to believe that they are qualified to offer advice to others, and in no field of human interest are people as ready to offer advice as in the field of religion and morals, yet it is precisely in this field that the average person is least qualified to speak wisely, and is capable of the most harm when he does speak, for this reason we should select our counselors carefully, A.W. Tozer, nine out of ten don't know what you're talking about, so need to be careful about truth, so we can be critical of truth, and the Bible says that they resist the truth, 2 Timothy 3, they resist the truth, men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the faith, so we have to be careful, we have to guard ourselves, but this is the route, and then they twist the scriptures, Jesus said, I'm able to destroy this temple, and they're trying to nail him to get him crucified for twisting the scripture, and he wasn't speaking about that temple, he was speaking about his body, yea, hath God said, and it goes on, and on, and on, and you got your call sign clear, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormons, and whatever, here's the progression of being critical of the truth, once you're critical of the truth, then you want to replace it with your own wise wisdom, the next thing you know, you're writing your own Bible, because you don't like God's, the next thing you know, you're writing your own writings, and getting the people that are following you to read your writings, because you have a proper understanding of truth, and they can't understand it, but here's the writings that God has given to me, the progression is deadly, and you got to call it, and so, they twist it, they change it, and so, the second thing, critical of the godly, critical of the godly, of course Satan is the accuser of the brethren, critical of the godly, pride, is behind this criticalness, let me give you an illustration of pride, there's a group of people, standing near a shop window, and this is not a bunny trail, this is an eagle trail, no, it's not an eagle trail even, it's an owl trail, in this window was this owl, these people were sitting there admiring this owl, they're standing there on the sidewalk, and this one guy comes along, he looks in there, that's a stuffed owl, so he works in there, he says, well, whoever stuffed that is a little bit crooked, and I don't think he turned his head the right direction, and his feet are not positioned right, and look at the feathers, and the body's not really stuffed just right, and he's just criticizing people who are listening and looking, and then in a moment, that owl turns his head and winks at him, and everybody laughed at him, and he went slinking off, oh, self-proclaimed professional criticizers. The discoverer must pass through three stages at least, I think this was on criticalness, we'll see if it's not, it won't do anything here, at least each of which is important and quite natural, the first is the knocking stage, any new article offered to the public must first meet certain hostile critics who say this thing is not good, or that thing will never fly, you know, they're out there, then follows a stage of total apathy when everybody apparently conspires to remain silent, however, there always comes to a really valuable and significant discovery that interesting third stage, a stage in which many people, including the former critics and apathetic observers, tumble over each other trying to boost the discoverer, his discovery and everything connected with the project when he is successful, so to walk with God, don't worry about your critics, just keep on walking, they'll be back there complaining, you know, I often say when God is working in our life, and when God's going to do something, the devil, he's going to kick, and snort, and complain, and spit, he's just going to be upset all the time, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, because he's not going to pose something that's not going to threaten him, or you know, if it's no trouble to him, so we should be bothering him on the things we're doing, critical number two of the of the godly, this is where the envy comes in, Cain, Abel, when Moses, and Miriam, and Aaron, and you're going through David, and Saul, just come all the way through there, Jesus for the Jews, and their envy, they're critical of the godly, we need to be careful, because Satan's their accuser of the brethren, Thomas Huxley of someplace, telling a guy by the name of Bramwell, he said, 50 years hence, it will matter very little how these people treated us, it will matter a great deal how we dealt with the work of God, in other words, he said, don't pay attention to these people that are criticizing us, let's just go on with the work of God, there was one time when Moody got done preaching, a man come up to him, and said, you had 11 grammatical mistakes, I probably had a hundred, 150, you know, the grammar, and the enunciation, but 11, and Moody said, he's very humble, he said, my early education was not very good, it was very faulty, but he said, I'm using all I had for God, just a shoe shelf, money, whatever, and then he said, how is it with you, brother, and he said, the man had no answer, and so that's the critical of the godly, then the last one, it's up already, is critical of God and his ways, let him have his way with thee, critical of God and his ways, how many times have we mumbled and grumbled, they're out there in the desert, just, God just got them out of 400 years of, plus maybe a bondage in Egypt, and within a few short days, they're murmuring and complaining, do a study on murmuring, it all goes against God, if we're his children, and everything give thanks, to me, that's the deepest theological verse in the Bible, and everything give thanks, I think we've been under a vehicle attack by the enemy on our church and stuff, and so we had to loan out our 22-year-old suburban, and then we left, we've got a Honda van, and had to leave it there, because one of my girls doesn't drive, and you know, all three of our vehicles have got issues, and the one we had this morning, the blower motor blew the fuse, when we turned on, and you know, I think we needed that blower motor this morning, and so I go out there and mess around with it, and I won't say anything about O'Reilly's blower motor, but it's the second one, and you turn the thing, it's got resistance, it's like it clicks, it clicks in different places, I got the old one, and you just spin it around, anyway, we live at O'Reilly headquarters there, and think, my dad was in auto parts for 45 years, so we know a little bit about that stuff, and I'm thinking about going in and talking to him, take a motor, and say, listen, cheap is not always the best, but here we go, critical of God, we're critical, we're critical of maybe having the car problems and stuff, my wife has to get on to me, don't do this, don't say anything about this problem anymore, you know, and oh, you're right, you're right, I want everything to be right, and working right, and whatever, but it's hard, I fell to the Lord a lot of times, here's a statement I want to put to you on this, God will always work in his own way, he will mark out channels for himself, and so we need to be careful to let him have his way with us, we look back, and God has always brought us through everything that we've gone through, but we are prone just like anybody else to fail, and to murmur and complain, and I've got a lot of virtues here, I'm not going very deep or anywhere thing here, but is there anything about yourself that you are displeased with, you know, when I'm a little kid, look in the mirror, and I thought my ears stuck out too far, well back in those days, I got a haircut once a week, and they just got scalped almost, you know, and in the days, they'd just scalp you, well if you do that, your ears are going to look like they stick out, but also, if your head grows a little bit, your ears may stay there, and your head may come out, so anyway, it was something I thought God did wrong, also, I thought it was too short, then I got to figure it out, okay, I don't bump my head on the top of doors, you know, we've got some people that are tall in our church, and we've had friends that had to duck when they go through from one part of the house to the other, but you know, God designed you physically the way he wanted you, and how much of it do we worry about, we can't do anything about it, so we wear taller shoes, so we're taller, or we'll wear flatter shoes, because we think we're too tall, you know, and all, we do all these things, because God has made you the way he made you, and sometimes we just don't understand, he needed a blind man, he needed a lame man, he needed one day a dead man, to fulfill his purpose in people's lives, he needed a boat, the fisherman, and he needs you the way you are, and if you'll be content in whatever state you're in, I had a hard time sometimes being up in Nebraska every winter, being in Nebraska, that state, I got to thinking about South, where on Thursday we would have the coldest day of the year, you know, I always tell people around Christmas time, I usually went to the woods and cut off jeans and a t-shirt, you wouldn't do that up here, but to be content where God has placed you, along with where God has done you, this is one of the things, we can be critical of God and his ways, and the way he's working, we just need to be careful, are you displeased with something that God has done in your life, you need to get right between God, or somebody that's done something to you that he has allowed, so we need to be careful. Now let me take this one area, very subtle area, but we could be critical of others with partiality, with partiality, we are one way when we're with them, like Peter, he's hanging around, you know, with the Gentiles and fellowshipping in the book of Galatians, and all of a sudden some Jews come and he separates, and if we were to pick out a word that we've talked about tonight, Paul nailed him about his, what, hypocrisy, and he said, that's not right, and so, thou being a Jew, you know, went into that stuff, so partiality with people, we need to be careful about that, and James 3, 17, I didn't mark a lot of verses, didn't plan on going a lot of places, but I will go over to this one, listen to James 3, 17, where was that, it's not the right verse, is it, that one says that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto God's works, that wasn't it, maybe it was 13, you know what it is, it talks about this, I can't remember where it's at, so, anyway, it had seven things in there, 3, 17, it would help if I got in James, see, I told you it wasn't perfect, that was 2 Timothy, wow, new virgin, okay, there we go, thank you, I've got to live with myself, okay, but the wisdom that, now notice these seven things, that is from above, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy, of good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy, so we need to watch in this area of criticalness, that we are not critical, and it shows with our partiality, here brother, you sit in this seat, this is the best seat in the house, and you know, brother comes in, he's all dressed, he looks like he's pretty impressive type of guy, and we have homeless people come in, and that are not dressed too good at all sometimes, but sometimes we can be critical of people because of what they look like, and different things, and God tells us that we're not to have partiality, and so, definition of partiality, by the way, is without separation, what he's talking about, and so, these are just a few things, James 4, 11, as long as we're there, let's pick out, James could have quite a few things, speak not evil one of another brethren, that's a form of criticalness, he that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law, but if thou judgeth the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge, speak not evil one another brethren, and that gets right down to the area of where we might condemn others, evil speaking, he's talking about evil speaking, to speak against, in the Greek there, from Strong, 26, 35, to speak against, and that can come out just so easy, 1 Peter 2, 10, I'll go get another verse here, since I'm close to Peter, 1 Peter 2, 10, which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy, must be the wrong, oh, 1 Peter 2, 10, anyway, it's not right, to speak evil, somewhere in there, speaking evil, and you know about that, Job, 42, 7, and all kinds of other places, there's nothing on that page, oh, it says supper, when you and I are going through life, and when we are busy, it's very hard to have proper discernment all the time, and if we're not careful, and if we're not criticizing ourselves, and watching our ways, and critical of ourselves, and judging what we're doing, and our time, the amount of time I exhorted somebody today, to make sure they had enough time with their family, because we've had some failure, because of being too busy dealing with something, but to have criticalness and discernment about your own self, let me give you an illustration, this is about a real man, Thomas Carlyle, who was a writer, I don't know if he was saved, or what, he might have been, but anyway, his wife was dying with cancer, and he's a writer, and he's very busy, he's writing a book, and she's dying with cancer, and so, he would try to squeeze out a little time to go see with her, spend some time with her, from his busy writing schedule, and then, he's very busy, and then, she dies, and so, he comes in, and after the burial, it was raining, and they buried her out there in the graveyard, and he came back, and he went to the bedroom, and he sat down, and he reached over on the table, and got her diary, and I'll just read you a little bit of it, to condense it down, then I'm gonna come back to the monkey, and then we'll be done, but he realized that he was aware of something too late, he had not been critical of his own time that he was spending with his wife, he read this, he came today, and he spent one hour with me, it was like being in heaven, then another writing, he said, I've listened all day to hear his steps in the hall, but now it is late, and I guess he won't come today, and then he said, if I had only known, if I had only known, he realized he had not spent enough time with his wife in her dying days, he threw the book down, he ran back down, out to the graveyard, went down there in the rain, and threw himself down on top of the grave, in the mud, and his friends found him saying over and over again, if I had only known, if I had only known, if I had only known, the one we should really be critical about is ourself, ourself, time is short, relationships, my dad's 89 years old, and for years, he's the last one, beside my sister, all my uncles are gone, my mom's gone, I've got some cousins, but all of his 13 kids in that Catholic family, there are 14, one didn't live very long, but they're all gone, and I think, each time I leave, it may be the last time I see my dad, and so, and he's 560 miles away from where I live, and I think, wow, wow, I'm going to close up now with the monkey, we started off with the gorilla, didn't we, boys and girls, oh, boo, he was a bad boy, but this missionary picked up this little monkey, ugly little monkey, and he carried him around for weeks, and he fed him, and he got a little bit bigger, and he hopped up on his back, and rode around, and he got bigger, and he got a little heavy, and he built a habit of everywhere he went, he had to carry this little monkey, you know, he starts off, he's just a couple pounds, but now, he's getting to be about 40 pounds, and 50 pounds, and he's getting bigger, and he'll throw a fit, if he doesn't get the ride on top of this missionary's shoulders, and everywhere he goes, he's got this weight on him, he's got his pet monkey, which will not stand to be left behind, he's got to go with him, and he goes week after week, and the monkey gets bigger and bigger, and actually, the monkey turned into, growing into, guess what, a gorilla, a gorilla, we started off with a little gorilla, and they wouldn't leave him, and he didn't leave him until he left him a crushed man on the ground, he couldn't get rid of that little monkey, it was a gorilla, it destroyed him, and so here's my final thought, you need to be careful what you feed, you need to be careful what you get a hold of, because what you get a hold of, you may have, but what you have may end up possessing you, the same preacher said, you know, we can't stop the birds from flying over our head, but we don't have to let them make a nest in our hair, and so be careful, and God bless you, let's pray, now Father, we have done a lot of stuff this weekend, these people have been so good, and we've gone through some pretty heavy stuff, and just a lot of warfare things, and there's deeper areas that could be gone into, but I pray that you'd use these to help us, Lord, we're weak, and you told the Apostle Paul you wanted him weak, so your grace would be sufficient for him, so when he was weak, he would have your strength in his life, and we looked at the life of Jacob, and drew principles out of there, until probably we, maybe, we just did a lot in the life of Jacob, so help us to assimilate these things into our lives, forget the things that we don't need, and not to forget the things that we do need, I pray that you would rebuke the enemy away from every family represented here, I pray that you would anoint everyone here, that you would save any that are lost, any that watch the DVDs, and that you would be glorified in every aspect of our lives, we thank you, Heavenly Father, for your goodness, thank you for ministering to us, thank you for the kindness of this fellowship, and the folks here to us, it's been a real blessing to us, we've enjoyed it immensely, thank you now in Jesus' name, amen.