Phil Beach Jr. emphasizes the dangers of idolatry and the importance of recognizing how it can distort our character and relationship with God. He explains that trials and tribulations serve as a refiner's fire, revealing our weaknesses and prompting us to seek God's strength and wisdom. The sermon encourages believers to acknowledge their shortcomings and rely on Christ for transformation, rather than succumbing to the destructive tendencies of the flesh. Ultimately, Beach calls for a deeper understanding of God's love and the necessity of spiritual discernment in our lives.

Praise the Lord. Okay, let's bow our hearts before the Lord this morning as we need to pray for much grace and mercy that God would capture us this morning. Father, we thank you for the movement of the Holy Spirit. We thank you, Lord, for the incredible demonstration of your presence this morning. We thank you, Lord, that you love us so much, that you're willing to love us, but you're also willing to speak the truth to us. We so appreciate this quality about your character, and we pray, Lord, that you would just continue to speak into our lives now. Our hearts are open to your voice. We want to give the Holy Spirit absolute rights this morning to interrupt any of our thinking and any of our ideas that we may have, and to place within us God's perspective about any area of our life. Help us, Lord, not to become so set and so firm like an oak tree that won't bend in the wind that we set ourself up for a great hurricane to uproot it. Help us to be flexible, Lord, so we can bend and be adjusted as you would want to change us into your image and likeness. We commit the next few moments into your hands, and do pray, Lord, that it is your voice that each of us hear at this time. Amen and amen. The scripture that was read was Psalm 115, verse 8. They that make them are like unto them. What are they like? Here's the qualities that these idols possess. They have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not. Noses have they, but they smell not. They have hands, but they handle not. Feet they have, but they walk not. Neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are likened unto them. The devastating effects that idolatry has upon the Christian is well described in verse 8 of Psalm 115, and this should send an alert and alarm and a fervent desire to want to be walking in the light of Christ's presence all the time, so as to stay free and clear from the temptation of setting up an idol in our heart, in our mind, so that we don't become like unto that idol. There is a great, great need right now that is within the house of God abroad, and the need within the house of God abroad is an awakening, so that our eyes truly see and our ears truly hear, and our feet truly walk, and our hands truly handle and touch. And there's great prayers that are prayed for spiritual discernment, the capacity to see, the capacity to hear. But I feel we do an injustice to our praying and to our desiring when we do not recognize that there is a need with our praying to ask the Lord if perhaps our blindness and our insensitivity could be the result, perhaps even inadvertently, unintentionally, could be a result of an idol. Brothers and sisters, do not play with fire. You will get burnt. Oh yes, God's grace and God's mercy and God's long-suffering and God's patience is incredible. And it's new every morning and He's so tender and kind and so loving toward us. And He'll never leave us or forsake us. And He'll continue to provide for us. But from time to time, He will chasten us and scourge us. And part of the chastening and scourging is allowing us to experience the consequences of our idols in our life. And as I mentioned earlier, perhaps some of the most terrifying consequences would be the lights turn out. And when the lights turn out, we have eyes, but we don't see Him. We have ears, but we don't hear Him. We have hands, but we're not handling the Word of Life. We have feet, but they're not set on the gospel of peace. And so my question this morning is this. Are we prepared to receive into our lives and into our homes and into our families and into our fellowship the ministry of the One who sits as a refiner of silver and gold? Turn with me, if you would, to the book of Malachi. That's the last book in the Old Testament. The last book in the Old Testament. Malachi chapter 3. Behold, I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come in His temple, even the messenger of the covenant. That's the Lord Jesus, whom you delight in. Behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who shall abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap. And He shall sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver. And He shall purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver. The purging of gold and silver is an interesting process. And part of it, as everyone in here most likely knows, includes intense heat, doesn't it? The purging of silver and gold. And I've heard the Lord a number of times this week speaking to my spirit, echoing what many of us are saying to Him. Now tell me if you've said this to the Lord this week. Why, Lord, am I going through this? Why, Lord, has the heat been turned up? Why, Lord, is this difficult trial and test come upon me? God is answering your why this morning, beloved. He is answering your why this morning. He loves you with an everlasting love. And part of being a child of God, part of being loved by an everlasting God, is being subject to, from our perspective, the strange ways that God works in our life in order to bring us to His desired end. You see, it's His desired end that we're going toward, not ours. It's His desired end. Every single child of God must be subject at some point in their life to a season and then subsequent seasons, during which time they learn of the refiner's fire and the process of the Lord Jesus Christ in purging us and in cleansing us and in going into the depths of our heart, not to condemn us, as Colette rightly said, not to lay us down bare and to chide us and to speak harshly to us, but to reveal to us something of the depths of our own insufficiency so that His all-sufficiency can become even more brighter to our eyes. And that's why you and I are in the furnace right now. Do you know what our destiny is as Christians? Our destiny has come to the place, and I doubt whether many of us, if any of us, are there, where we lose our confidence in the ability to walk. We lose our confidence in the ability to crawl. We lose our confidence in the ability to stand up straight. And we come to the place where through God's divine work in our life, we awaken to the all-incredible and all-so-mysterious confession, I can do nothing apart from you. Oh, I know, brothers and sisters, that's our theology, and it's good theology. But all too often, the thing that we believe has not become yet the thing that we possess in experience. And that is why our Father subjects us to so many different types of difficulties and trials. You are not going through what you're going through because God is against you. It's because He is for you. And He loves you. The greatest strength a man or a woman of God can have is the knowledge that they can do nothing. The greatest strength that you can have is the knowledge that there's no comeliness in you. There's no righteousness in you. There's no goodness in you. It all comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. The greatest strength that you and I can have is to be converted and become like little children, trusting our Father, leaning heavily upon Him, depending upon Him moment by moment. And in order for that to happen, our Father has to subject us to things that break our pride, break our human strength, break our confidence that we have in the craftiness of our wisdom, the shrewdness of our mind, or whatever else it is that we're trusting in, brothers and sisters. That's what He's doing today because He loves us so much. This morning as we were worshiping, did everybody sense how real the Lord was in our midst and how He truly was walking in our midst, embracing us? And that prophetic utterance that the Lord gave me was so real. Rejoice! Rejoice! For when you are weak, you are strong. Do not despair. Do not be dismayed because you have seen how weak and how feeble you are. Rejoice! But we get all discouraged when we get defeated. We get all discouraged when we see that we don't have the goods to live the Christian life. We get discouraged when we see that God puts us in a situation and we're found out. We're found out. We fail. We thought we could do it, but we end up with our tail between our legs and we say, Oh God, I've blown it miserably. That's when the Savior comes and says, Rejoice! Rejoice! You see, because most likely before that time, your rejoicing is not really pure. You're rejoicing in the Lord, but really part of it is you're rejoicing because you're such a good Christian and you've lived such a good Christian life this week. And you were so faithful in getting up in the morning and praying and you had your devotions. And then you rejoice. And Father looks down and because He loves you, He's happy. But He says, Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I see that part of that rejoicing is springing out of an idea that you have, my child, that you have got it together and that there's somehow an inherent strength in yourself. And that's why you're rejoicing. He says, Now, I love you, but I can't let that go on. So in my divine wisdom, Gary, in my sovereign understanding, I'm going to allow and orchestrate things to come into your life. And I'm going to zero in on that leaven of confidence in yourself and expose it. And at that time, you're going to be discouraged. You're going to be sad. But I will come to you and I will speak graciously, Hosea says. I will speak graciously and I will allure you unto myself in that wilderness of failure, in that wilderness of testing. And I will not find fault with you as you are finding with yourself. And I will not chide you as you are doing to yourself, but I will come and embrace you and I will speak comfortably to you and I will reveal to you at that time something of myself, something of my strength, my righteousness, so that your glorying and your rejoicing will spring purely out of a revelation of who I am. Plus nothing, nothing, nothing. He that gloryeth, let him glory in this, that he knows God. No other reason. This is why our rejoicing gets weak when we're in the fire. Because the fire exposes our weakness. It exposes our inability. It exposes our finiteness. We don't like that. But that's when the Lord says, rejoice little one, you're loved. Rejoice little one, you're loved. Rejoice little one, you're loved. God says, I know what you've gone through. I know your past. I know, I know the pain of your past. I know your failures and I'm here in the now to heal you. I'm here in the now to make sense of your past. Whatever, listen, listen beloved, whatever you've gone through has been in preparation for this very moment. Because whatever you've gone through equips you for a unique revelation of God Himself that you could not have unless you went through what you went through. Oh, he says, I am Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals you. But the one who's never been hurt or sick or wounded can't appreciate that. And so there's some of you with wounds and hurts inside. And you've said, why? God's saying, because I am Jehovah Rapha and I am the Lord that heals you. I am the Lord that heals you. I was there when you were hurt. I was there when you were wounded. I was there when the pain of it was overwhelming. I heard you cry. I bottled your tears. I felt your pain. I wept with you. But now, now I am the God that heals you. I am the God that is the balm of Gilead. I am. What have you gone through? Listen, a lot of Christians are caught by their past. They're caught by their past. And Jesus is saying to you and I this morning, don't be caught by your past. Look unto me and I will heal you. I will heal you. Listen, every one of us are going to have to come to the place either now or in the age to come where we fall down on our face and we pour contempt upon every ounce of trust that we have in ourself. There's no man that's going to stand before the Lord at that day and testify to the angels and to all the saints. I thank God for the Lord and His strength. And I thank God that I had some too. I thank God for the wisdom that God gave me. But I thank God for some of the wisdom that I had on my own. And together it worked nicely. It's not going to happen. So that's why God's putting us through what we're going through now. So that we have that testimony now. And at that day we're ready. Because boy, I tell you, when everybody else is shouting and not mentioning anything about us, wouldn't it be an awful thing at that day to have something that we want to say about us? And we say, boy, this doesn't fit here. I think I'm missing something. Here I thought I was something. Here I thought I can boast about something. Something I've done. Something I've accomplished. Lord, there's something I can mention here before the multitudes of angels and the multitudes of saints from all the nations. Lord, my testimony is coming up in seven minutes. The angel just came and told me, Lord, isn't there something that I can say? I've just listened to 10 million and no one said anything about themselves. It was all about Jesus. Are you there? Are you there? Our Father in heaven is committed to get us there. And that's why we're going through what we're going through. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord, for your faithfulness. Are you rejoicing this morning? Are you rejoicing this morning? Well, Brother Phil, if you knew what I was going through, you'd understand why I wasn't. Okay, I'll give you that. But I still ask the question, are you rejoicing? He is our song this morning. Let's turn our Bible to James chapter one. James chapter one, beginning in verse two. My brethren, count it all joy. I think we can stop right there, can't we? How can we count it joy when we fall into all kinds of temptations and trials when we're able to see beyond the moment into eternity and know that our Father, through this difficulty, is revealing more of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in my life? Without that perspective, I admit, it is impossible to rejoice. Listen, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing that the trying, the proving, the testing of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect or complete work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing or lacking anything. The heart of the Holy Spirit here is that God is wanting a people whose entire sufficiency is realized in God alone. Their entire sufficiency is found in Christ alone. That ye may be entire, lacking nothing. That you may be complete. That is, that you might find your total completeness, your total competence, your total sufficiency, your all and all in the all-powerful, ever- supplying God of all grace, Jesus Christ His Son. If any man lack wisdom, why do you think James places, if any man lack wisdom, right in the middle of talking about going through all kinds of trials and tribulations? Why? Because the time we need wisdom the most is when we're in fire, when we're going through the furnace, because it's the wisdom that comes from God that keeps us together in the furnace. It's the wisdom that comes from God that enables us to go through the furnace and through the trial and through the testing and becomes an anchor. Have you sought wisdom from God in your situation? Things that destroy godly character. Listen, when we go through fire and diverse trials and tribulations, a lot of things surface, don't they? A lot of things come out. A lot of things that we don't even know is in our hearts surface. And the purpose of our Father in heaven is not to allow these things to surface so that they destroy us, but rather so that we might acknowledge their presence and look to Jesus to escape their power. Our Father in heaven is not intending for these things that surface in us, and we're going to go over some of these things, to destroy us, but rather that we might see these things, acknowledge them, and then flee to Jesus in order to escape their power. We flee to Jesus in order to escape their power. Now listen, if any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and abradeth not, and it shall be given. Listen, beloved, it is so important that we understand the heart of the Scripture right now. Why is the Holy Spirit leading James? Listen closely. Right in the middle of talking about trials and tribulations and difficulties, why is he leading James to write about asking for wisdom, asking God, and emphasizing the fact that God gives liberally, super abundantly, and you know what the word abradeth not means? It means God does not find fault. He's not a fault finder. Why does James tell us this in the midst of this? I'll tell you why. Because when you are subject to diverse temptations and trials and difficulties, and you are in the furnace, and you are under the water, the things that come out of you, if you are not close to God, could be a means to bring great grief and condemnation down upon you. Because God has to help you to see what you're made of apart from Him. He has to let you go through the fire so that the gold and the silver can be purified and purged. That means that we have to be subject to those things that surface our inadequacies, our insufficiencies, our sins, so that we can make a clear distinction between Him and us. And during that time, when you realize, husbands, you're not as good as a husband as you thought you were, you're going to be tempted to be hard on yourself. You're going to be tempted to be subject to condemnation and guilt. You're going to be tempted to be discouraged. And that's the time when you need to ask of God for wisdom and receive it and realize God is not finding fault with you. Listen, when the Lord led Israel out of the wilderness, out of Egypt into the wilderness, it was never God's intent to bring those difficulties into the nation's life in order to shame them, in order to embarrass them, in order to heap condemnation and guilt upon them, in order to look at them and laugh at them and say, ha ha ho ho. No. It was His intent to reveal to them how weak they were and how feeble they were and how unable they were to live this life of serving God. And all they had to do was acknowledge their sin. All they had to do was acknowledge their weakness and then look to Jehovah God, and He would have been their strength. He would have been their salvation. Jeremiah's cry to the nation of Israel, time after time after time, is one sentence. Only acknowledge thine iniquity and you will live. That's all God wants us to do. Just acknowledge our iniquity. Listen, acknowledge what is coming out through the difficulty that you're going through. Don't repress it. Don't deny it. Don't pretend it's not there. And don't indulge in it. Because that's one of the dangers of the Christian church today. If I'm going through something and all of a sudden fiery jealousy comes out of my heart, some Christians today are under the impression they're not going to deny it. They're not going to repress it. They're going to follow it. Bless God, this is just the way I am. That's wrong too. Because the Bible says, mortify, mortify your members which are upon the earth. That is, put to death the works of the flesh. Don't glory in them. Don't deny them. Don't repress them. Acknowledge them. And then through looking to Jesus and by faith that comes from Him, living by His power, we put them to death. There is a danger in the Christian home today. And that is, there is a tendency, there's a tendency to get a mindset where if a certain thing happens or a certain circumstance arises, we're just going to let it all out. Don't push that button. Because if you do, you're going to be in trouble. You know your limit. And if you push the button and you go beyond your limit, something comes out. And instead of getting on our knees and praying, oh God, I confess this sin, we glory in it. This is who I am. No, it's not who you are. You are a new creation in Christ. And God is in the process of showing you the difference between your sinful flesh and your new life who is Christ. And so when you come into a situation where sin, or idolatry, or covetousness, or greed, or anger, or jealousy is suddenly burning within the bosom of your heart, don't deny it, don't repress it, and don't lay hold of it and run after it. But get on your knees and pray, Lord, thank You that I am currently seeing right now. Right now I'm seeing, Lord, that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing, and I'm seeing one of those no good things right now. Have mercy on me, Lord. You're not, Lord, You're not finding fault with me now. You're not finding fault with me. You're not pointing your finger at me in criticism. You are allowing this to happen so that I can get lower, and that I could find more of a union with You. And through Your power, I can put to death this work of the flesh. Now here's when godly character, things that destroy godly character, godly character is destroyed when we're in the fire, we're in the furnace, we're in the tribulation, things begin to surface, strife, greed, anger, or rather I'll say sinful anger, lust, things that destroy godly character. These things are in our flesh, and when they are exposed, that is not the destruction of godly character, but it is when they are exposed, and we fail to recognize why they're being exposed. And rather than by the power of the Holy Spirit disowning these things, if a man follow me, let him disown himself. Brothers and sisters, God has got to teach each and every one of us that while we're in the heat of affliction and fire, and things begin to come out that are not like Jesus, we can't claim them as ours. We're new creations in Christ. God has translated us out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His Son. I am part of a new creation. Yes, they're in my flesh, but the Bible says if any man is in Christ, he's a new creation. The Bible says we're not in the flesh, we're in the Spirit if Jesus Christ lives in us. Now we must learn how to walk in the Spirit, but we're in the Spirit if Christ lives in us. And so all of the dregs, all of the things that destroy godly character, inherent within sinful flesh, cannot in and of themselves destroy us, because thanks be unto God, we have been delivered from the law. We've been delivered from the flesh. We've been delivered from the tyranny of the law. We've been delivered from the judgment of the law. We're under grace now. Hallelujah. And so when these things surface, it becomes an opportunity not to destroy us, but to bring us closer to our Lord and our Savior, and to disown these. Destruction of godly character happens when, instead of disowning these things that pertain to our flesh, guess what we do? Lay hold of them. Know you not, Paul said, that to whom you yield yourself, you become the servant thereof? Isn't it something how we have been seduced by the world that we live in? Well, I'm just an angry person, and that's the way it is. Jesus Christ is my life, and He's a gentle person. Who am I going to identify myself with? The man that's been buried? The man that's been crucified? The man that God says is dead? Or am I going to identify myself with the new man in heaven, whose nature I have become partaker of, whose Holy Spirit dwells within me, and whose righteousness is mine? You see, we've too long claimed He is in you than He that is in the world, than the law of sin and death that's working in your flesh, than the corruptions of the heart. Greater is He than all these things. But I'll tell you right now, this isn't willpower. This isn't mind power. This isn't just positive confession. This is a work of grace. Only God can do it. As we get down on our knees and pray, Jesus, show me. You are my way. You are my way. Listen, it takes great humility. God has to lower the mountains, the pride. Oh, this is why I fear sometimes teaching like this, because I don't want people leaving here thinking that it's the knowing of the teaching that's equal to the reality of it. There is a place for good teaching, but all too often we get this theology and then we start claiming it and equating that with really possessing it. No, we've got to know the truth of God's Word, but we must pray, Lord Jesus, all the truth of your word is never an end in itself. It's always a means to lead us to you, to you. All of this is simply describing what it is to live a life in union with Jesus Christ. And so let me ask. Listen, this is the spirit of God speaking now. What has God surfaced in your life over and over and over again, over the years, over the years, over the years, one circumstance, one trial, one tribulation, and it always brings out the same things, but you've resisted disowning those things. You've resisted it. If you're a controlly kind of a person, you know what God's going to do? He's going to put you in a situation where you are out of control. He'll put you in a situation where you are out of control. If you're a perfectionist, God is going to let you set a standard for yourself that is impossible to reach, so impossible that you are going to fail miserably just to teach you. We need a lot of humility, a lot of grace in our life when we touch on this ministry of the refiner's fire and the ministry of Christ right now in the church. There's a lot of people talking about the glory of God coming and the presence of God coming and the move of the Holy Spirit coming through the church and the church becoming a great company of people. And you know, I believe all that, but there's a yellow light flashing in my spirit from God, and that is this. That will not happen without a deep purging and cleansing of the church. That will not happen. You can't put that into motion with just a bunch of emotion and just a bunch of music and just a bunch of activity. You can't put that into action. That's got to be the result of a purging and a sanctifying and a cleansing and the erupting and the taking out of our lives of those idols and those things in us. Yes, God wants to pour out His glory. Yes, God wants the church to be a representation of the glorified Christ, but He's not going to do it until we are brought down and down and down and made to live a life of distrust in all that we are, in all of our confidence, and depend upon the daily bread that comes from God. Hallelujah! I believe Christ is singing right now. He's rejoicing. You know why? Because Jesus loves truth. Yes, He loves truth. He wants to pour out His glory, and this is what He wants us to know this morning. This is why you're going through what you're going through, beloved. He wants to purge you. He wants to cleanse you. This is a prophetic word this morning, a prophetic word for every ear that's listening. You are destined, if you are loved by God, if your name is in the palm of His hand, you are destined one day to wake up and look and see one lichen unto a refiner of silver and gold. You're going to be tempted at that time. Hear these words. What happened? God's acting differently. Oh, God's acting differently toward me. He used to bless me. He used to provide all my needs. He used to let me do what I wanted. He used to let me go where I wanted, but all of a sudden, my world is caving in on me, and my plans are not working out anymore, and I have pain, and I can't feel His presence, and I'm confused. What's wrong? Jesus says, Nothing, my child. Nothing's wrong. I am just leading you through the path of darkness unto maturity. Yes, yes, some of you have enjoyed a season of unprecedented blessing and nearness of the Lord, but you've not known. You've not known the deep searchings and dealings and purgings of God that go into the depths of your being and strip you of your pride, strip you of your temper, strip you of that tongue that oftentimes is set on fire from hell. Oh, yes, it is. And you know it, but you also know that God hasn't condemned you, and that He still blesses you, doesn't He? You wonder why. You know why? Because He loves you, and He paid the penalty for that sin. But God doesn't save us to keep us in sin. He saves us to deliver us out of sin. And don't, don't be mistaken, because God's coming to you in spite of your sin. The day's coming when the refiner will come and knock at your door, and you can have it double bolted, and it won't stop Him from coming in. You can get the latest security system, and most likely when Jesus comes on the scene, He won't set it off. Be aware, beloved, from the Holy Spirit this morning. Think it not strange. Don't think that some awful, strange thing has happened to you when these words come to pass in your life. But rejoice, because you have become the object of Father's intense love. And the end of what you're going through will be spiritual maturity, which is realized when the soul is brought to the dust and distrusts all of its beauty and all of its comeliness. And the eyes of the soul no longer looks to itself, but steadfastly looks moment by moment to the living Savior who has become the bread of the soul, the life of the soul, the water of the soul. The soul has learned to trust in God alone. My God, this is where we're going. Verse 12, James 1. Blessed is the man that endures temptation. Do you know why you're blessed when you endure temptation? Do you know why you're blessed when God starts working in your soul the capacity to stay under the fire and not run from it? To stay under the heat and not run from it? Because during the time of endurance, the things that destroy godly character are being surfaced and purged and taken away. You know what happens when gold and silver is in the heat? The dross comes to the surface. And then what happens to the dross? It's removed, David. It's removed. Blessed is the man that endures. Blessed is the man. Listen. Listen. Blessed is the man that when he wakes up and one day his life is turned upside down and everything he sets his hand to fails and it seems like God has changed his ways. Blessed is that man. Oh, I hear someone shouting amen now. Now, I know some of you might think I'm weird, but you know who I just heard say amen? I didn't really hear. This is just for effect. I just heard brother Job say amen. Remember Job? Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. Remember Job? Job is saying amen. Amen. God is a faithful God. One day I woke up and God had prospered everything I did. And I had cattle and children and honor and prestige and everything that a man could want. And in one day it was taken from me. Why? God didn't love him? No. Because God did love him. And Job said there was a time when I heard about God with my ears. But now, but now I see him with my eyes. I see him. A lot of our Christianity is by the hearing of our ears. And that's okay. That's okay. Because that's where it starts. It starts with hearing about all that God wants us to be and all that his word says. But oh brothers and sisters, don't forget that what you hear is not equal to what you are experientially. And you leave it to God to take what you hear and what you are and make them into one. That's God's business. And he does it through the fire. So are you in a fire? Say thank you Lord. And let me tell you something. God loves us so much that even when we dodge these trials and we try to avoid them, he'll trap us. You know why? Because he knows we're weak. He knows we're feeble. And he knows deep down inside we really want his will for our life. Okay. We're going to come to an end. What have we learned today? Jesus is going to reveal himself to each and every one of us individually and as a church as the refiner of silver and gold. That means that we're going to be subject by God's hand to difficulties and trials and tribulations intended by God not to destroy us but to break our human strength. To break our human will that is set oftentimes against his. It's to weaken us so that in our weakness we say Lord not my will but thy will be done. Not my way but thy way be done. Those are the things that destroy godly character. The things that surface. But when they surface we don't have to claim them as our own. Do you know what happens if I'm in a situation and I get angry or upset? I have to get on my knees and I have to remember that these things that are erupting in me right now essentially speaking do not belong to who I am in Christ. They belong to who I was as a sinner without Christ and without hope. If I don't make that transition, if God doesn't teach me by his Holy Spirit to distinguish between the works of sinful flesh that reside in me and the life that is in Christ that is my life and your life, then I'm always going to be confused and the enemy is going to take advantage of these things and bring us into condemnation, into guilt, into frustration and we're going to end up confused. If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us. So this is what we've learned. He's a refiner. He's putting us in the furnace. Things are going to come out that are not nice and the Holy Spirit will teach us. Don't claim them. Confess them. Receive the cleansing that's from the covenant blood, the blood covenant and then look to Christ who is your life and through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, God will grow in you a character that is identical to the one in his Son. He'll grow it in you through the process of being put in the fire. Let's bow our hearts. Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord. Lord I pray that you will in these next few moments by the Holy Spirit speak, confirm and establish in our spirits all that you intend to do in us. Thank you for giving us perspective. Thank you for giving us hope. Thank you for clarifying so many things. Lord we look to you. Perform your word in us. Everyone this morning who felt specifically that God spoke to you and put something in your spirit that you know is going to affect your destiny as a Christian and you want to acknowledge before God, Lord I say yes to what you want to do in my life. If that's you today, I want to pray for you. I have faith in my heart and other brothers and sisters might pray for you. I just want to ask if you want to stand to your feet, join arms with the others together, come up front and we'll all pray and believe God to do a miracle in our spirit this morning. Let's join arm and arm. That's right. Come on brothers. Arm and arm. Lord we have heard your voice. We have seen because of your Holy Spirit's light and we want to stand. Ladies please come up with the ladies. Guys join arms together. We want you Jesus. We want you this morning. Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord. We want you this morning Lord to confirm your word and to do in us what we heard your voice in our spirit say to us. We want you to do it Lord. As we sing this song, let's just pray together up front here and believe Jesus. Purify my heart. Let me be as gold. Pure gold. Refiner's fire. My heart's one desire is to be holy. Set apart for you Lord. I choose to be holy. Set apart for you my master. Ready to do your will. Let's sing it. Everyone together. This is it. Purify me from within. And make me holy. Cleanse me from my sin. Deep within. Refiner's fire. My heart's one desire is to be holy. Set apart for you Lord. I choose to be holy. Set apart for you my master. Ready to do your will. Refiner's fire. My heart's one desire is to be holy. Set apart for you Lord. I choose to be holy. Set apart for you my master. Ready to do your will. Until the God that abridges untold, If I'd rather have Jesus than houses or lands, I'd rather be led by his healthiest hand. And to be the king of the vast domain, On the earth in sin's dread square, Than in this world at home. I'd rather have Jesus than men's affluence. I'd rather have Jesus than power and fame. I'd rather be true to his holy name. And to be the king of the vast domain, On the earth in sin's dread square, Than in this world at home. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Let's remember our young people. They're being touched by the Spirit of God now. Let me tell you something. These young kids and teenagers will never forget the times when God's Spirit was moving and they saw the adults coming up. This is not going to fall to the ground. It's going to bring forth. Let's just remember our children right now before the Lord. Call upon the Lord to save our children and our teenagers. Lord, we call on you to preserve them from the evil one. We call upon you, Lord, to awaken their hearts. We call upon you, Lord, to awaken their hearts to see Jesus as Savior and Lord. Lord, we pray, God, you'll preserve them from the evil one. Oh, God, we claim them for you, Lord, and pray thy mercy would be bestowed upon them, Lord. Oh, God, do it, Lord, we pray. Reach the teenagers in this area, Lord. Save them from this generation of hell and sin. Lord, bring a great move of the Spirit and save multitudes of teenagers and young people. God, we beg you, give us the teenagers, Lord, for the kingdom of God. Do it, Lord, in Jesus' name. Do it, Lord. Please, Lord, we beg you. We beg you, Lord. Do it, Lord. And what I once, I have guessed now, compared to this. Knowing you, knowing you, there is no greater thing. You're my all, you're the best. You're my joy, my righteousness, and I love you, Lord. Now my heart's desire, yet known as yours, to possess thy name, what I could not earn, also a passing gift of righteousness. Knowing you, knowing you, there is no greater thing. You're my all, you're the best. You're my joy, my righteousness, and I love you, Lord. Oh, to know the power of your risen life and to know you in your suffering, to become like you in your death, my Lord, so with you to live and never die. Knowing you, knowing you, there is no greater thing. You're my all, you're the best. You're my joy, my righteousness, and I love you, Lord. Praise the Lord. Beloved, I want to encourage you to please make sure you get a bulletin. Amen. We can clap for Jesus. Get a bulletin. There are special announcements. Many of you, but not all of you know Joseph and Joyce Perkins. Well, they're coming for a visit. And we've arranged some times of fellowship with them. So the times and dates are in the bulletin. So please get one. God bless you. And remember, beloved, you are loved with an everlasting love by Jesus Christ. God bless you.