In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of personal growth and spiritual transformation. He shares his own experiences of being separated from friends and going through a process of stripping away negative influences in his life. The speaker encourages listeners to follow the path of righteousness and avoid the ways of evil men. He warns against the allure of worldly pleasures and highlights the consequences of indulging in sinful behavior. The sermon concludes with a reminder to seek wisdom from God and to be cautious of deceptive influences.

This is tape number 15 in a series. We urge you to listen to all the tapes in the series in numerical order, so that the whole teaching can be received and understood. Listening to a part of this series or to the tapes out of sequence can lead to a misunderstanding of the nature, the intent, and the importance of this series. And they get some more stripping. Of course, that's where it's all headed. There's different, listen to me folks, there's different things wrong with all of us. Please understand what I'm saying. I've had friends that I've been separated from. We tried, you know, tried to walk together and so forth like that. And I'll tell you what, I have been beat to pieces these last many months. And I took a totally different trail than what some of them have taken. Because the Lord led me down a trail that's going to deal with the things that had me. And he's dealt with a bunch of them. And if I hadn't gone that way, I wouldn't have been able to see them, and I never would have give them up. But in the meantime, we have to be careful that we don't judge and condemn someone over here that's going down a different kind of road, and they're have to learn some things different than what you're learning. Amen? So, see, this is the reason we have to leave the judgments alone. Because, I'll tell you what, I was in such hell just a few months ago. See, I was seeing things in the Word, and I was already committed to schedule. I was in a trap. And I could deal with these things during the meeting and right after the meeting, but boy, I was back into the thing of giving out to others, and I couldn't deal with the things of myself. And it broke my heart, and it's no fun. But I was in a trap. Now, what I what I need, and what you need, I need something like this friend of mine from Chicago. He come up, he, you know, he just reminded me of several things. That he saw, a few of them wasn't totally right, but he would, you know, he had reason to wonder about them. And he, in a very loving way, he had the same concern about things that he saw that we were doing that I try to have about what I'm doing, what we're doing, too. It's a loving concern. And boy, you know what, I really appreciated that. And boy, when you see the love of Jesus in someone happy, and you see, this is what we're going to have to make sure to do, because folks, there's not too much that we can say right now about judging. We can judge righteousness, and you know, and pass judgments on people who we call are still around harlot doctrines and things, because we're still talking the same way they are. Amen? So don't let anything I'm saying right here get us into us and them. Because our battle is not against flesh and blood. The powers of darkness snare people, and they can make them do anything to see them. And we have to hurt and love these people. And I didn't used to know that, because I couldn't separate it in my heart. And when you start wanting to do this, then God will make it a reality in your life, because you can't do it. It's all God. And I'll tell you what, you're not going to stay free until you enter in the rest. You know, this friend of mine that I prayed for, I'll tell you about praying for a while ago. He said, he talks about being in a fast. Now listen to what I'm saying. He said, man, I want God so bad, and I get down in the floor. I tell you what, I do, man, I have beat walls. I have, I can't tell you, and he's crying, and he said, you can't know how much I want God. I go on a fast, and I come off of that fast, and discouragement, and hopelessness, and everything's on. Well, I immediately knew what's wrong. But I didn't know what's wrong when it's happening to me. I had to go through it. Now I can help somebody else. See, what he's, what he's into is the same thing I was. I decided I was going to go on the fast. Boy, I'm going, now I see some truth right here, and I'm going to be holy. So I got on the fast, and every demon in Texas, I mean, I got away from everybody, so I'd just be sure that I wasn't bothered by nobody except the Lord. And I got in that room, and every demon in Texas was in there with me. I don't want to tell you why. I was in the flesh. I was in strife. I was in stress. And I went, I just, and I finally just in the fast, I went back home, and I felt so bad because that fast didn't work, I went on another one. And my wife said, I see what's happening to you. Wives say too much sometimes. And said, here's what I see. You say you're going to be holy. And all of a sudden when she said that, I knew that's just exactly my problem. And I saw, I let that strife and stress get back on me again. Now when you get in strife and stress to walk with the Lord, number one, you can't walk in peace. You're trying to do something with the Lord out of the works of the flesh. So what happens when you, when you, when it doesn't work for you, and I'm going to tell you something, it's something you'd be repenting of between now and then meeting so you can be free. I've been through a lot of stuff. I'll have some new ones for you the next time we meet. That's where you learn. Well, what happens? I mean, you want to please God and these things don't work, and you have depression on you, and your problem was you seeking approval somewhere. Well, I got free from that one. But then when you can't break through to God, you're faced and all this stuff, and you're doing it in strife, then the enemy moves you. He says little things, number one, when these things are happening, you know, God's not quite fair about this. You know, I'd hear these thoughts in my mind, what in the world is something like that happening to me? But you know, God's not quite fair about that. He ought to see, He ought to see and understand, you know, there's just nobody around who loves Him like I do, I don't believe. And here, you're in this room, Lord, I come here to fellowship with you, and I'm not eating, I'm fasting, and He let every demon in Texas come in here. Just start blaming God a little bit, you know, and that'll get you a few thousand more of them in there. And then when all of this doesn't work, then they begin talking to you. You get under self-condemnation, and you just, you know, they just, you just, all of a sudden, they just start condemning you. And you get under self-rejection, you get into a false guilt. And then when you get into these things, self-condemnation, all this stuff, honey, every joy that you have, you're in despair of soul right then, because all the works of heaviness would just descend over you like a cloud. And then you're in despair, they're talking to you. Discouragement, there it is. You know, when my wife did that to me, and she said, you're just, you're just sure are going to be holy, aren't you? That's when I went to eat the cornbread and beans, brother. Now, here's what we do, rest. God doesn't want us, just relax, because you can't stay free if you don't let God be God. And that's the reason this meeting's over. I'm telling you, at home, I studied today, I take the Bible and work with it. I'll guarantee you, I tell you, what few weeks that I spent last year at home, I'll guarantee I was either packing, unpacking, or getting ready for the next place. I'm not living that way anymore. Milton's leaving here, and he's going to loaf until God says something. I don't have a cart anymore. I mean, I'm, it's not up to me any longer. It's released. There's nobody but God to make this work. And I'm willing, I'm willing. Dear Lord, I'm willing. Anything that, that, that he'd do to me, I'm willing. Amen. Now, you folks that's been in bondage and can't set, escape free, you get, make sure, James, you cover that strife and stress. I'll tell you what's on you, busyness and restlessness. There's no resting place for the soul you feed. You don't even sleep much at night. It's a false burden and false responsibility. God wants it. You can come in a meeting like this, a false burden, false responsibility with fear and worry on you, and every demon in town will be in there with you. How do you think you can sit all day long like this? We, we, we sit from the morning until 10 o'clock at night. And it refreshes you. Honey, I'm going to tell you what, we're going to get to doing these things. We're going to sit all, all, up all night long and run a foot race the next morning. The Lord has kept me up in the Word. He kept me all night. And I say, well, I've got to go to sleep. And how can you go to sleep when you're ready to do back flips, huh? And see, I've been programmed, I have to sleep. You don't have to do nothing. That's why you step in fast and pray all night and things like that. I mean, our hearts are going to want to do it. Hey, folks, there's a much fun head of us. We're not going to be able to hardly take talking about it for a while. All right, now, where were we? What verse were we? Let's look there. Yeah, okay. Let's look at verse 14, Proverbs 4, verse 14. Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not proceed in the way of evil men. Verse 17, for they eat the bread of what? Let me show you something. Here's what evil men eat right here. Right there it is. There is your doctrine that does not conform you to godliness. And you eat the bread of wickedness. Now, I want to hurry right here. Do not proceed. They eat the bread of wickedness and they drink the wine of violence. That's a teaching of violence. But the path of the righteous is it. The ones that want to walk in righteousness. Now, here's how you're going to walk. It's like the light of the dawn. Now, it's real dark. And then when the light of the dawn comes up, you can start getting a little light. Is that correct? Amen. And then it begins shining brighter and brighter until full day. Now, is that what we've been experiencing in our meetings and in our walks and everything over the last many months? It's getting brighter and brighter. And as it gets brighter and brighter, we can explain it better. Amen. And we go back over some of the same scriptures here and we see 10 times more than what we did a year ago, right? That's right. But the way of the wicked is darkness. They don't even know over what they stumble. Amen. Now, look over in chapter 9. Chapter 9, please. I mean, this is just so plain how we walk. Chapter 9, verse 1. Wisdom, Jesus has built her house. She's hewn out her seven pillars. Verse 2. She has prepared her food, which is the word of God. She has mixed her wine. The wine is a teaching. She has set her table, which is a covenant. She has sent out her maidens, which is the body of Christ. She calls from the top of the heights of the city. Whoever is naive, turn in here to the house of God, to him who lacks spiritual understanding, she says. Come and eat of my food, the word of God, the spiritual food, and drink of my wine and teaching I have mixed. Forsake your folly. Your memory is second-tempting three. The harlot is walking in folly. Let her folly be obvious to all. Forsake your folly, breaking God's law, and live and proceed in the way of understanding. Look in verse 9. Give instruction to a wise man, a wise virgin, he will be still wiser. Teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning. Verse 8. But do not reprove a scoffer, lest he is going to hate you. If you reprove him, reprove a wise man, and he is going to love you. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the knowledge of the Holy One, the Lord Jesus Christ, is understanding. Verse 11. For by me your days will be multiplied, and years of life will be added to you. And you believe it's the Lord talking? Verse 13. The woman of folly, that's the woman of folly you see in second-tempting three. Her folly be obvious to all, has a form of godliness, denies the power of the gospel. The woman of folly is boisterous. She is naive, and she knows nothing, never learning, never able to come to knowledge and truth. She sits at the doorway of her house, the church on the seat by the high places of corner towers of the city, calling to those who pass by, who are making their path straight, trying to walk right before God. And she says to him, verse 16, whoever is naive, let him turn in hearing to him who lacks understanding. She said, she flatters people. Stolen water is eaten, and secret is pleasant. Stolen water is sweet, but he does not know. He does not know that the dead are there, and her guests are in the depths of shield and hell. Verse 5, I mean chapter 5 rather. Back up to chapter 5. Verse 1. My son, give attention to my wisdom, not worldly wisdom. Listen to the wisdom of God, and walk in it. Incline your ear to my understanding, not religious understanding. Verse 3. For the lips of this adulterous harlot drips honey, and smoother than oil is her speech. But in the end, she is bitter as wormwood, because that's what it produces up there, Frank, doesn't it? Right here. That's how you become bitter, producing that fruit of the flesh right up there in the end. That's what the harlot produces right up there. But in the end, she's bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, and that's where that walk up there you see on the screen leads you to. Her steps lay hold of Sheol walking in his lawlessness. The harlot today does not ponder the path of her life. Her ways are unstable, and she does not even know it. Now then, my sons, listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way from her, this harlot. Do not go near the door of her house. Don't go there, near it. Lest you're going to give your vigor to the others, the powers of darkness. And your ears to the cruel one, the curse that come, these sons of destruction to move in. Lest strangers, the powers of darkness, are going to be filled with your strength and bring weakness and disease. And your hard-earned goods are going to go to the house of an alien, the powers of darkness that come to kill, steal, and destroy. And you'll groan at your latter end in sickness and birth pangs, when your flesh and your body are consumed by curses. And you'll say, I have evaded instruction in the ways of God to walk in holiness, and my heart is spurned with reproof and discipline. Verse 14, I was almost in utter ruin, right in the midst of the assembly and congregation. Verse 21, for the ways of man are before the Lord in the eyes of the Lord. Before the eyes of the Lord, and he watches all his paths and his own iniquities, his own sins, lawlessness is going to capture the wicked. That's a righteous judgment of God. And he'll be helped with the cords of sin, and he will die for lack of instruction. My people destroyed for lack of knowledge. And in the greatness of this falling, he will go astray. Chapter 6, verse 23, for the commandment is a lamp, and of teaching is a light, and a reproof for discipline, or a way of life. That's the way we live, to keep you from the evil woman, the harlot. From the smooth tongue of the adulteress. Chapter 7, verse 1, my son, keep my words and treasure my commandments within you. They're going to be written on your heart. Keep my commandments and live in my teaching as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart. That's in Hebrews 8, 6 through 10, if you want to see it. Go to Hebrews 10, you see the same thing. Hebrews 8, 6 through 10, after that verse. Say to the wisdom, you're my sister, and call understanding your intimate sin, that they may keep you from the adulteress and from the foreigner, that's the world, who they both talk the same way, who flatter you with their words. Verse 21, with her many persuasions she entices him, and with her flattering lips she seduces him. And we saw that over in Jude. Suddenly he follows her like an ox goes to slaughter, as one already in bondage and fetters, and he just goes on further to the discipline of a fool. Until that arrow, that's the power that pierces through his liver, as a bird hastens to the snare, but he does not know that it's going to cost him his life, he's going to be destroyed. Now therefore, my sons, listen to me. Pay attention to the words of my mouth, the words of God. Do not let your heart turn aside to the ways of the harlot. Do not stray into her paths, for many of the victims she has cast down, and numerous are all of her slain. Verse 27, her house is a way to hell, and descending to the chambers of death. We could go on and on with some things about Zion and the remnant. It's all over your Bible. And I think we've covered some things here that I sincerely hope is helping to encourage you, that's going to cause you, and I want to ask you, has everything that you've heard here, does it drive you to Jesus? Does it drive you to the Word of God? Does it drive you to the Spirit of God? Does it cause you to want to obey Him and walk in righteousness and holiness? Amen. Now that's what the Spirit of God will always minister to you. But see, if someone takes the Bible, and going to make you part of some camp, and say the Lord Jesus Christ, it'll divide up your loyalty, and you know, that's who, you know, are you hearing what I'm saying? Everything goes to the Lord. But see, what we, what the desire of our heart, we do all things for the sake of the gospel, like Paul does in 1 Corinthians 9, because that is what's going to change people's life. And if you have any measure of love working in you, you want to see people changed and free. Oh, I want to see people free. I just looked around the room, I just, and I just noticed people, and I just think in my heart, oh dear me, people that want to sit and hear the Word like you do, right, you can't know how I want. I'll tell you what, I'm up here, and sometimes, you know, and I'm telling you what, I'm just almost in the floor, I'm just pulling for you, I'm just telling you, and that's the way we should do one another. We just ought to pull one another. But see, we're all just one person, and we've got to remember that there are all parts to this body of Christ, and every part is just as important as the other part. If we've been sitting in Zion, in a place of lawlessness, where the man up front and all these things, he becomes the bigger Jesus than the ones there. And see, if you start seeing things that way, then you're always going to be looking toward men instead of the Lord. Let me see what I'm saying. You have to take your part in the body of Christ. You have to have... God has given the greatest gift of the less honored memory. Folks, I'm going to tell you something. I went to the ninth grade, and I was so demonized and so messed up that I couldn't even concentrate and get through school. Now, later on, you know, I took one old GED test and so forth, but I'm talking about actually being able to... I couldn't study, I couldn't concentrate. I've been in mental institutions with drugs and drinking and things like that. I always had open-heart surgery, and they left... I was on the heart and lung machine and the drugs, and even when I... For a couple of years, I couldn't even carry on a real good conversation with you. I'd say one sentence and be on another. And I want to tell you what, that the Word of God has renewed my mind. So, He'll take the greatest gift, and He'll give them to the less honored members, the people that's despised, outcast, lame, where the, you know, people wouldn't... See, because it's all God, and it's not... So, I say these things, not to boast in anything, because I'm certainly not self-made. I don't have anything to boast about, but the grace and mercy of God in my life. And like I heard someone say, I really don't understand it, but I certainly do receive it. But I'd like to encourage you wherever your walk is and wherever you're right now, that like me, you've walked under condemnation. You've had these things talking to you all your life, and you've been beat down. We don't need any more condemnation from anyone. We need encouragement and love from one another. Amen? And so, I want to encourage you to have a good word for people. The more you have a good word, you're going to be a peacemaker. And you have good words and good conversation to encourage and love people, and then you become a tree of life, and people come to you. And I tell you what, I really see my heart, I can really feel my heart because my thinking is different, and things, and only God can do that. It's my heart changing. I'm enjoying getting to love and help people because I'm getting free of all these things that had me so much in bondage that I had to do. Amen? So, I want to be totally honest with you. I want to tell you something. I enjoy just saying I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Who's right is God. Amen? So, let's just let God be right, and everything else be a liar. Amen? So, let's just say when we're wrong, let's go say we're wrong. Let's just say we're wrong. What do I have to prove to you? If I have to prove anything to you, folks, I am still in a ditch. Do I have to be anything? I don't have to be anything but just show the love of Jesus Christ. Amen? And that's something I'm learning, and I'm still not perfected in. And so, I would certainly like to encourage you because this is a kind of a meeting right here to encourage you, and to wash you, and for you to go back out, and go wherever you go. And then we're walking in things right now that it's going to be a lot more, see, there's a lot fewer of us sometimes back than some of the people. And a lot of people, hundreds of them, have turned back to other things, and been discouraged, and things like that. But now, we're going to move into things that's going to be a whole lot more fun in the Lord because we're getting more and more understanding. And the way we're learning right now, we're getting beat on a whole lot. But you know, like the things I've been beat on, I can teach. I wonder why I had so much, you know, my wife mentioned, I wonder why I had to live with approval all of these years. That approval curse on me has been on me all my life. And if we're close in relationship, eventually, the powers that be would turn it, tear it down because that curse was there. But then, it could be that the Lord had it exposed when I would turn around and could be able to help thousands of other people. Amen? And so, I can relate what is wrong. And so, this is what we need to do. We need very lovingly to not be sure we never take the Word of God to condemn and very lovingly to help and encourage. And by your standard of measure, it's going to be measured to you. When you give this love and mercy to others, as I hope you'll be very, very sensitive to stay here as an example, because God's going to tremendously bless you, to love other people. And see, folks, this is a one-on-one thing. It's not a man standing up front. And waving his hand or something. And it's a relationship. It's the body of Christ. It's not one-man bands. It's all of us loving one another. And when we're going to be the least, we don't have to be anything. Amen? See, that sets you free. We don't have to perform. Only thing we can do is just boast that Jesus is here. Amen? Glory be to God, that's good. Praise God. Amen? Amen.