Mike Bickle emphasizes the necessity of hungering and thirsting for righteousness in our battle against lust, highlighting that this internal war requires our active cooperation with God's grace. He explains that while we have a part to play in denying ourselves and making quality decisions, we must also seek divine help through prayer and fasting to overcome the temptations that arise. Bickle stresses the importance of preemptive prayer, urging believers to ask God for strength before facing temptation, rather than only seeking forgiveness after falling. He warns against the dangers of complacency and encourages a proactive approach to spiritual warfare, reminding us that true victory comes from a deep connection with God and a commitment to purity. Ultimately, he calls for a serious commitment to self-denial and the pursuit of holiness as essential to experiencing God's presence and power.

Father, I thank you in the name of Jesus for the Word of God. I ask you to release a spirit of inspiration, a spirit of authority on it. I ask you to awaken hearts, to illumine minds in understanding, with living understanding. We thank you in the name of Jesus. Amen. I want to talk about hungering and thirsting for righteousness as a foundational necessity in our war against lust. The scripture tells us that we are in a holy war. Our members lust wars against our members. I'll get to that verse in a moment, but that's the premise of what I want to talk about because we can have victory in this war. God has ordained and made provision for us to win this war, not to lose it. I'm going to start with my introductory principle. I cover this point quite often. So those of you who've been around, you've heard it, but I think it bears repeating over and over. Roman numeral one, that our Christian life is a cooperation in the grace of God. We have a part and God has a part. And God requires us, paragraph eight, to cooperate with Him. The very fact He requires us to cooperate is an expression of His intimate partnership with us. Meaning God's going to hold back things until we rise up and do our part, not because God needs us to do our part because He lacks the power, but because God wants us to have a vital involvement with what He does. And He says, I'm not going to do it till you do your part. I'm not going to do it till our hearts are connecting. I care about your heart connecting with me. He runs His kingdom that way. God will not do our part. We cannot do His part. There is a clear division of labor in the grace of God. We have a part and God has a part. If we do not do our part, I'm reading here in the paragraph, then some of the help and some of the blessing is going to be withheld. There's a certain amount of blessing God's giving us no matter what. But there's a measure of blessing and breakthrough He will not give us till we do our part because He longs for us to be involved with Him. I have just a couple things here. This isn't supposed to be comprehensive. Our part includes, number one, making quality decisions to deny ourself, to say no to sin, to say no to pride. God requires you and I to make a quality decision, means a decision that we stick with and follow through when the pressure of temptation is on us. A decision to say no and then when the pressure comes on us of desire, we say, yes, that's not a quality decision. The Lord wants us to make that decision. Lots of things happen in our soul in the process of making that decision and it draws us close to Him. It bonds us to His heart. And He goes, I really want to visit you, but I want you to make that decision because not just because I don't want to violate your free will, but I want your involvement even in your own deliverance. I want you to be a part of it together with me. Not that we, quote, get the glory for it, but that we have this connectedness with God's heart. Another thing that we do, a part of our part, is we feed our spirit on the Word. If we don't feed our spirit, if we don't water and weed the garden, the garden's not going to be healthy. We have to feed our spirit. You know, we could say, well, Lord, just, you know, give me a Holy Spirit injection and feed me forever. Give me one shot that will hold me forever. The Lord says, no, I don't want to. I want you to feed your spirit on the Word of God. I want you to read it and meditate on it on a daily basis. Another thing, which I'm going to be focusing on here tonight, is this third one, asking for divine help, asking the Lord to break in and help us in our war against lust. Many believers don't ever do that. They ask the Lord to forgive them after they crash and burn, but they don't actually ask Him to help them on the front end. And I find that many, many believers neglect this, and it's a very important part of our victory and our deliverance. And I have some other ways that there's other ways as well. God does His part. He releases supernatural influences on our heart. I can't make my heart get inspired. I can feed my spirit, but I can't make my heart feel tender and inspired. God has to breathe. He has to do His part. God has to touch our body to get healed. And we can pray for healing. There has to be a divine part. God has to bless our circumstances, relationships. There's a divine release of power and influence that you and I can't do, but God won't release it till we do our part. He wants the relationship together. Paragraph B, God has given us. God has chosen to give us a dynamic role in determining some of the quality of life that we have. We get to determine some of the measure of the quality of life. If we give ourselves to God in the ways He's described and some of the ways I've outlined here, but this isn't meant to be real detailed and comprehensive. It's the point, if we will do our part, He says He will do His part. The Lord will open and close. I'm skipping a couple of sentences. He'll open doors of blessing on our heart. He'll open doors of blessing in our circumstances. And He will close doors of oppression if we ask Him to. And if we don't ask Him to, He might do... He'll still do it to some degree, but He will do it more if we ask Him. He will actually withhold blessing if we don't ask Him. And of course, the most well-known verse is here in James 4, verse 2. It says, you do not have because you do not ask. That's in money, yes, but that's in revelation, touching your heart when you read the Bible. That's in your war against lust and temptation. That's in relationships being healed and restored. That's in God using you to lead people to the Lord and using you to heal people. That's in God giving you wisdom. He'll give you more wisdom if you ask Him for more wisdom. He will move your enemies out of their place of advantage if you ask Him to. He'll do it more. He will do it less if you ask Him less. Paragraph C. Now I'm going to skip that. Let's go to D. It's a good one, but I've said it over and over the last few months. Paragraph D, the Kingdom Principle. It's very simple. If we do more, not only fasting and prayer, but if we do more, I just talked a few moments ago about giving. If I give more, God will give me more back. It's this principle that is a bit offensive to some people because they don't understand the Scriptures, because it's a very, very biblical Scripture, but it just seems it kind of sets wrong with people, but it's an absolute biblical truth. If we do more, God does more on our behalf. That's an absolute fact. If we pray and fast and obey and give ourselves more, the Lord releases more. If we sow and serve and give, He releases more. And He wants us to connect with that reality. It's not a mystery. He wants us to understand this. We're not earning His blessing. We're positioning ourself, according to His design, to do it His way because He wants to bless us, but only when we're in partnership with Him. Paragraph E, this is now I'm getting, all that was just introduction. I've shared those paragraphs a number of times over the months and years. If you've been around, you've heard those over and over, but I'd like you to be able to say those principles to other people as well. I want those to be really well-known, common, understood principles, our cooperation in the grace of God. Now, I'm getting on now to the direction of what's on my heart this evening. We are in a spiritual conflict, obviously. It doesn't take a great amount of insight to figure that out. This conflict has different battle fronts. And in the most general way, there's a war on the inside of us, and there's a war on the outside. And the war on the outside is revival. It's the breakthrough of God and healing and money and impact that, you know, oh, there's a giant sphere out there. I don't want to try to define all that. You understand that. But what I'm trying to distinguish, there's a war on the outside, and we pray for the break-in of God, and we serve and we work, and we lay hands on people so that the war of Satan resisting the will of God, we are part of driving back the forces of darkness. But there's a war on the inside of us as well. Now, here's my point. In the end of paragraph A, it's a very important point. Most people acknowledge the war on the inside. If you ask them, they go, oh, are you kidding? I got so many crazy desires. War, absolutely it's a war. It's not news there's a war on the inside. It's not even news. I mean, it's not even a new idea that they would pray. Say, do you pray? Oh, yes, I go to the prayer meeting and pray for revival to break out in Kansas City. I pray for God to turn around abortion. I pray for people to get healed. I lay hands on them. Yeah, I sit in the prayer meeting or at home, and I have intimacy with God. I read the Bible, and I, oh, yeah, I pray. I love God, and He loves me, and I do intimacy. Whereas all of those are very important dimensions of prayer. Of course, they are. It's called intercession for revival or praying for somebody who's sick or just loving God and God loving you. That's not the same thing as a specific, focused prayer on the war happening inside of you. Most believers that I know pray for the war that they're waging outside for revival, for the community to get touched, for the person in front of them to get touched, but they don't turn the same prayer upon their own battle on the inside. And it's very important part of Scripture that we pray. Jesus told them, His disciples, we'll get to it in a moment, but He talked to them about in the garden of Gethsemane. He said, pray that you don't enter into temptation. Before there was any temptation on them, He urged them to pray as a preventive strike before the storm of temptation ever hit them, and they were feeling good. They were with Jesus. They were enjoying His presence, and they were like, you know, He tells them this on several occasions, but they're feeling wonderful. They're going, why? I'm with you. You're with us. We feel good. We just had a great meal, the Last Supper. Jesus, you're being a little extreme, praying under temptation. We're here in a garden. It's a great evening. The weather's great. And they lack perception that the prayer they pray right now, even in a good mood when things seem good, is the very thing that's going to deliver them when the storm of temptation suddenly comes on them, and they don't know it's coming. And most believers don't pray in the preemptive strike mode that I'm talking about. They worship God. They read the Bible. They meditate. They pray for revival. They pray for other people, but they don't pray for the war going on inside of their own soul, and they're swept away by temptation that they could have cut short and minimized if they would have done what the Word of God said. So you ask them, do you pray? Oh, of course I pray. You kidding? I'm a part of the IHOP staff. Do you ever pray about the two to three areas of lust that are pounding in your soul, asking God to deliver you from it and to order your steps in a way to where you avoid collisions with it? Well, not really. I do my 10 chapters a day. I pray in the Spirit. I pray for revival. I pray for Israel. I pray against abortion. I pray for the sick. No, I don't really pray for that. And that's the point I want to focus on tonight. It says, paragraph F, we wage an intense internal war for purity. It's intense. It is called a war because the term war is the best word for it. Beloved, it's not kind of a bummer deal. That's a bummer. I got these desires. It is a war with the powers of darkness. It's more than just an inconvenience. It is a war for your soul. And as a believer, it's a war to cut off your fruitfulness. And the Lord, I mean, the enemy wants to cut your fruitfulness off. Now, Peter said in 1 Peter 2, verse 11, he says, I beg you. And I can feel the power of that word as a shepherd of the body of Christ. I have felt that. I feel a little bit of that now. I beg you. I mean, I beg you to pay attention to this, to abstain from fleshly lusts. They are warring against your soul. I plead with you to take this serious. Now, here in paragraph F, lusts are more than we think of lust. And the first thing that comes to our mind is sexuality or immorality. But lust is a far bigger subject than the subject of sexuality. I have here in F, pride, addictions, the legal addictions, the ones that are legal, but still some of them are out of the will of God. Those are lusts. Drunkenness, overindulgence with food, entertainment, possessions, covetousness. Those are many. Our anger is a form of lust. Lust wages war in many, many different manifestations. Paragraph G, top of page two. I'm saying the same thing here, that there are many different expressions of lust. Evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, theft, covetousness, wickedness, and on and on. These are words directly from the scripture, from two different passages, one from Jesus and then one from Paul the apostle. In 1 John chapter two, I'm just giving you the idea that lust is bigger than sexuality. That's the point I'm wanting to make here. Because we're waging war, not just against sexuality. I mean, immorality is what I mean. Sexuality out of the will of God, because sexuality is a beautiful gift of God in the confines of marriage. It's a tremendous gift of God that is beautiful, and God honors it, and it was God's idea. Adam and Eve didn't tell God the idea, he told them the idea. God invented it because he likes the idea of it. So I don't want to say sexuality, I want to say immorality. Sexuality out of the will of God. But the idea that lust is far more than immorality. It's all these areas. In 1 John chapter two, verse 16, the passage there at the bottom of the PowerPoint, the lust of the world are the lust of the flesh, and that's more than immorality. That has to do with food and addictions, many different things are lusts that bring pleasure to us out of the will of God. Then there's the lust of the eyes. And that's we have desires for things that are out of the will of God. It's covetousness. Lust of the eyes, there could be immorality that's lust of the eyes, but it's talking more in this passage about looking and coveting and envying and longing and being filled with desires for things you can't have. And then the third type of lust is simply called the pride of life. And in verse 17, John the apostle said, the world is passing away. And all of these three categories are called the lust of the world. It's one big subject, the lust of the world. And the reason I wanted to establish that point was so that as you're warring against lust, you're not limiting to say, well, I don't ever, you know, do pornography or I'm not involved in any immorality. And, you know, I have a few bad thoughts here or there, but I wouldn't call it a major war, you know? And I said, no, no, don't limit, don't limit your definition of this war to those subjects. It's a vast subject that affects every single one of us on the planet. Paragraph H, now I want to focus in. There's two real main points that I really want to make here tonight. And I'm focusing on it here. And in paragraph eight, the scripture exhorts us to embrace the difficulty of abstaining, of denying lust, of saying no to it. And, beloved, it is difficult to say no. Our body says yes, our ego says yes, because lust isn't all just body. It's ego, it's pride, it's desire. It's covetousness. Our desires go yes, and there is a very powerful place that nobody can do for us, and God will not do this for us. He says, I want you to abstain from it. Our hearts are going, I want! And God says, my leadership over your life is going to be measured, my leadership over your life and your love for me is going to be measured in part by you having desires, but say no, because you love me. It's an arena of which your love for me is measured and the quality of it, it's a theater to express it before God. And we all have five or 10 desires over our life that get us in trouble and pain. And the Lord's saying to us, those very desires in you are a theater in your life of which you can express your love to me in a unique way. I'm watching you, I'm watching you. And every time you move to me and your heart is pounding the other way, I consider it your love for me. I take it serious. It's a powerful way we express love to God. Now, once the desire's gone, we still, then there's no issue because we don't need to have the thought to go the other way. We still love the Lord, but we're not expressing love to the Lord in that area right there. And the Lord takes it serious and He rewards us and remembers and honors us for this. He remembers it forever. This thing's pulling you over here. You want to do it so bad and you don't. The Lord goes, I take that personal, that moves me. You love me. And you go, yes, that's the point. And the Lord goes, yes, that is the point. That's a theater of which your love is expressed before God. And maybe nobody else will ever figure it out, but you and the Lord will. And the Lord likes it and He values it. It's powerful. There's a place where we say no. When our heart, our desire says yes, the quality of our love, the expression of our love says no, our love to God. And in the Western church, I'm still in paragraph H, the necessity and the value, the value of this in our war against lust of self-denial has been very minimized. The church in America and in the West, we don't like this say no when your desire says yes. We have this greasy grace thing that is really mixed up. And grace means if it's easy, it's grace. And that's a false concept of what grace is. Grace means that God's power is helping you as we cooperate in a biblical way. Grace means the word grace, you could put the word enabling. I will enable you, but on my terms, I will enable you to resist it. If you will say no, I will come alongside and help, but I'm not going to say no for you. And I'm not going to give you the enabling if you don't say no. And I want you to feed your spirit. And I want you to do these other things too that are outlined, I put on page one. Titus chapter two, the apostle Titus is speaking. He says, the grace of God has appeared and the grace of God, it teaches us something. Here's what grace teaches us. Grace teaches us we have to deny worldly lust. If it's the grace of God moving on you, you feel clear that it's your mandate to deny unworldly lust. Now, here's what we would like this passage to say. The grace of God has appeared and has removed every feeling of lust. It's not what it says. It says the grace, now that's going to happen in the days to come. What it says is the grace of God appears and you have to deny it. You know why you have to deny it? Because the feeling is real. It's strong and it's real. And God knows it's real. And God loves it when we say no. And God does forgive us when we yield to it. And we say yes to the sin, but he forgives us. But on the basis that we rise up and we declare war against that sin. And we may yield to it a bunch of times. But beloved, if we yield to it, and that's not my point tonight is how, what to do if you do yield to it. I've talked on that many times. The Lord's grace is free. But the Lord's grace is given to us when we are sincerely seeking him. A lot of people, they say yes to lust. And they just, you know, go to the Lord and say, hey, Lord, you'll forgive me or forgive me. And they move on. It's a very casual attitude. And it's not a biblical approach. It's not biblical Christianity. That's a false Christianity. It's not enough to ask the Lord for forgiveness. A person isn't saved based on wanting forgiveness. Who doesn't want forgiveness? We are saved based on Jesus's offer to us in the grace of God. He says, come and repent and come under my leadership. And I will forgive you. But I want you from that time forward to be aggressive about your desire to obey me. You won't always obey me. But when you don't, it's an enemy. Your disobedience is an enemy. It's something you're attacking. It's not something you're making peace with. Going, well, boys will be boys. You know, I'll get through one of these days. The Lord goes, no, no. You know, I hear people talk a lot of times. They go, so-and-so asked the Lord to forgive him. And what we need to do is get people to say, Lord, I want to belong to you. I want to be under you. I want to buy into your values. I want to do your agenda for my life. Those are the fruits of salvation in a person's soul. And that's the introductory kingdom of God. That isn't something somebody grows into five years after they've been saved. That's the heart of a genuinely born-again person the first day they're saved. I don't want to be mean to people, but I talk to people, and I lead them to the Lord. And I say, you know, this means God owns your money, your sexuality, and your career. And if he wants it any different than you're doing it now, you're committing to obey him. They go, whoa, tense. I go, no, there is no salvation outside of that. This isn't fire insurance. This is a bridegroom God who you will live with forever. This is the Lord Jesus Christ wanting you to become his bride forever. This is a real deal. Anyway, the grace of God appears. And here's what the grace of God teaches us, two things. Deny ungodliness and look for the second coming. Isn't that amazing? That where the grace of God is moving on people's hearts, they're denying the Lord, and they're looking for the second coming. And you know what it means to look for the second coming? Well, there's several things involved in it. Yes, the great appearing of the Lord and the war is over. But it's more than that. It's personal. When we look for the second coming, that means in the New Testament that we're understanding our earthly reward. I mean, our reward on the earth, in the resurrection, on the earth is going to be given to us because we denied sin. And when he says, you're going to deny sin, and you're looking to the Lord, it says you're denying sin, knowing God's going to remember and reward you for it forever. And your reward will be on the earth, and it will come with the second coming. This is a passage, many times when it refers to the second coming, the meaning is the time where you're rewarded for your obedience. That's what the second coming meant to the early church. It's not the only thing it meant, but that was a major point. Whenever you read about that in the New Testament, put the phrase in, looking for the second coming, waiting for the second coming, waiting for his appearance. It's not just, so finally the war is over. It's where I am vindicated for my decisions to obey when it was costly. God rewards us, and he shows forth the wisdom of making godly choices through those decades on the earth. So wherever the grace of God is moving, people are denying ungodliness. And there's a lot of mega ministries today that are growing at rapid speed and filling up buildings and building bigger ones, but the people aren't aggressive about denying lust. And I tell you, that is not the grace of God bringing great gatherings of people together. Gatherings of people together with religious dogma, religious sentences, with a little Jesus language is not the grace of God necessarily. Wherever the grace of God is moving, I don't mean there's not some hypocrites in the crowd, but the majority of the people are serious about saying no to sin, and they're looking for eternity to find their place of reward. Those are the evidences of the grace of God operating. I'm not interested in crowds. I mean, I like crowds because crowds mean a lot of people are saying yes, but I want crowds based on this. I don't want to just see if I can fill up an auditorium. I want people gathering together in large numbers if this is what they're gathering. We want to say no to sin, yes to God. We will live forever under your leadership. We're saying no in this age because we believe in the reality of Jesus in the age to come. We so believe in it. Beloved, this is New Testament Christianity. In the next passage, Matthew 16, verse 24, Jesus said, if anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself. Beloved, the Western church does not like this term, deny yourself. Deny ourself means it hurts. Deny ourself means, I don't necessarily mean physically, but I'm saying denying ourself means that there's pain in our heart. I want to get my honor. I want to put that guy in his place and tell him off. And the Lord says, no, deny yourself. Ouch, humble yourself, serve him and say nothing. Ah, you're under my leadership. And that's what I do. He doesn't have any right to A, B, C, D. And the Lord says, that's right. He doesn't have any right. I'll take care of it. I will repay you some in this age, mostly in the age to come. But you are an example of who I am and I'll be with you in it. Deny yourself. It's not just denying ourself in terms of immorality. It's denying ourself. I mean, there's all kinds of arenas of overindulgence in our life because I really want you to say no to it. For real, I do. In pleasures as well as in positions, but as well as in possessions. I really want you to give your money away. I really want you to do this. I want you to not to deny your goal of what you're going to do with your time and your money and do what I tell you to do. Deny yourself. And this isn't mostly what's happening. This gospel, this is the only gospel there is, by the way. The other gospel is no gospel. It's just religious jargon with Jesus' name sprinkled through it. This is the gospel. We deny ourself. We take up our cross. You know what a cross is? An instrument of death. It hurts. Taking our cross up is like, ugh, I didn't like that. I didn't like humbling myself. I didn't like saying no to my desire. I didn't like pushing myself. Ugh, I don't like it. I want to do what I want to do, what I want to do. I want to look good and get as much honor and return now as I can. The Lord says, no, die to it. Die to it. The cross is not just a symbol. We hang on a building or hang on our neck or whatever. It is an instrument of death and we are called to death. We are called to die while living. And this is the only way Christianity works. This is the only way we can wage war on immorality. Which is going to be an ever bigger Goliath in our society. It's a giant that's staring at the church. And the church is cowering and retreating and withering under this giant of immorality. And we're just, the church is just crumbling under it. And beloved, we don't have to. We have the power if we do a God's way to deny ourself, take up the cross and to have might in our spirit. And to have a vibrant spirit with joy and life and a radiant spirit right through the process. I don't mean we don't have a bad day. But beloved, this is what he's called us to. He says, whoever desires to save his life will lose it. I've asked people that question. I go, what does it mean to save your life? I don't know. I know what it means to lose my life. I don't know what it means to save it. If you want to choose to live in your sinful pleasure, you will lose your life. And not just will you end up in hell and you will end up in hell. People need to know that. People that prayed at the prayer altar come forward, but they live in immorality. They live in drunkenness. Many of those people will end up in the lake of fire. It doesn't matter if they hang around a church staff or they don't. It doesn't matter if they're a preacher. They end up in hell for real. You lose your life if you deny the lordship of Jesus as a lifestyle. That doesn't mean a person messes up. When they mess up, they take it seriously. I'm repenting. This is not okay. And this is the 10th time I've done it. But I'm serious about saying no to this. That's true repentance. And you're secure in the grace of God. But the person says, yeah, I'm just gonna play around with a little pornography. I'm gonna do a little adultery, a little drunkenness here and there, wherever. You know, I don't know. I'm just into the grace of God. Beloved, that's deception. Jesus said, you don't deny yourself. You choose to save your life. You will lose it. You will, two things. You'll end up in hell. That's one way you lose it. And the second way you lose it is your spirit is dead the whole time you're on the earth, even though you have Jesus on your lips. Your spirit is dulled and dead and lethargic. That's losing your life in this age. And then some of those people, I don't know the percentage, they lose their life in the age to come. But he says, if you lose your life, and I've asked people, what does lose your life mean? Be a martyr? No, that's not exactly what he's talking about. We are saying no to the pleasures that we have within our reach that are out of the will of God, but they're within our reach. We say no to them. That's called losing our life. And notice the word Jesus used. It's a great word. It's the word loss. You feel it. It's like, ouch, I feel this. I'm losing right now. The Lord says, you got it. You're understanding what I'm talking about. A lot of folks have this idea that the grace of God, there is no suffering loss. We're not losing anything. We're just simply trading our religious dogma, living in our lust, and we end up glorified in heaven. And that's called deception. And you live with a dead spirit the whole time. And most of the church, most of the church in our nation, from my observation, and of course, I don't know it all, but I certainly have had lots of interaction, is living with a defiled, dulled, dead spirit. And maybe even a bunch of them are legitimately born again, but they're going to be saved as though by fire, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3, or by the skin of their teeth with no reward, and they're living spiritually depressed and lethargic through the decades of their life since they were born again. And that is a shame. That is a disaster when they stand before God. That is an absolute disaster. Though they could be saved as though by fire, Paul said. And then Paul goes on later in this very passage, verse 27, and he tells them that if they deny themselves, they're going to get rewarded. Here it is again. Jesus constantly ties self-denial with the reward a person gets at the second coming. Beloved, the second coming doctrine is not just the time the war's over. It's the time our reward is manifest. Finally, it's manifest and your decisions for righteousness are vindicated, meaning they're made obvious to everybody that they were wise decisions. Even though people laughed at you when you made decisions for godliness, there's coming an hour when your decisions for godliness will be openly seen by all as wisdom. That's called vindicating them. And that happens at the second coming. I'm not expecting most of my rewards on this side. I have breakthroughs of power and blessing and some favor here and there. But most of my reward is on the other side. It's true of all of us. And I don't overly try to measure how much I'm getting on this end because you can get really off course. I want to flock in. I want to look for the blessed appearing of Christ Jesus. When the whole thing is over, I'm with him face to face and my reward finally comes for my labors. Look at the next passage. Matthew chapter 7, verse 14. This is biblical Christianity, Sermon on the Mount. Narrow is the gate, difficult is the way, few who find it. If you were to turn on any number of media preachers today, it would say broad is the gate, easy is the way, and everybody who joins my church finds it. That's not true. And the point I want to focus is the word difficult. It is difficult. People say, man, this is hard. I go, you're getting it. Yes. No, it's a paradox because it's difficult. There's a difficult dimension to it because we got lust in our mind, in our being. And we have a devil coming against us. But our spirit has flashes of the presence of God that touch us. And some of those flashes last longer and some are shorter. And we have the assurance that God loves us. The easy road, the easy yoke is the assurance that he's with us even in our struggle. It doesn't mean the struggle is easy when he says my yoke is easy. We have the assurance that he is watching, and he cares, and it all counts. And we have the confidence he will forgive us 100% if we're sincere. That's what makes it easy. But then the paradox of that, it's difficult. And too many people are signing up for a Christianity that is not a difficult road. And therefore, they're not really signing up for Christianity. And therefore, they'll go through the class for a month or a year, and they will then get on the road with their lustful passions. They'll just get out of the class, out of the Bible school, and go right back to their drunkenness, their immorality, whenever it suits them. And they spend their money, they spend their time, they squander their nights and their weekends away. And the Lord says, what is this about? I thought you were mine. Well, the Lord didn't say that. He knows that. That's my language. But I want to tell you, having walked with the Lord some years now, the difficult way is the way where the vibrant spirit is. That's the way where there's assurance. That's the way of life. It really is the word life. But I want to ask you this. Did you sign up for a road that was difficult? Did they tell you on the front end it was difficult? Or did they just say, keep living your sinful life and ask forgiveness in your claim? If they did, they lied to you. It is a difficult road. It's a paradox. There's an easy dimension to it. A joke is easy. But that's in the ways I described a few minutes ago. Colossians 3, he tells in verse 5, put to death your members. Put to death your members, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire. That would mean envy, evil desire. It means desiring that which is in others. Covetousness. Did you know covetousness is idolatry? Loving money. Many people love money. Many people in the church love money. I've never met anyone, almost, one or two exceptions. In 30 years of preaching that has said, you know what? I struggle with covetousness. It's kind of like the sin that is invisible in the church. A lot of people know they start struggle with immorality. They know they struggle with alcohol. They know they struggle with pride. They know they struggle with anger. But almost nobody thinks they struggle with covetousness. And it's one of the most common defiling lusts in the body of Christ and outside the body of Christ. Here's what he says, verse 5. Put it to death. To death. Say no to it while you still desire it. I don't want to say no to it. I still desire it. That's why it's the word death. Why do you think the word death is used? Because that's the best word. What does death mean? It means that when you like it, you say no to it. And you go, ouch, there you go. That's death. And that's true Christianity. There is a true cross that Jesus went to. And there's a true cross that you and I sign up for. And there's a true cross which is the open door to life in the spirit. And we put to death these passions. We say no to them. And we don't only say no. I'm not giving a comprehensive picture here. There's other, like I said on page 1, I gave it, you know, we feed our spirit. We do godly activities. We get into godly relationships. There's a number of things. They're all pretty straightforward. Everybody knows them. They're real simple principles. But my point is the saying no is one of the missing elements in people's understanding of the grace of God. Because it has an ouch and it's uncomfortable, they assume it can't be grace. And it is the grace of God. Let's go to I, paragraph I. There's a great reward in warring against lust. Staying in the war, there's a great reward. Says in Psalm 19, King David said this. He goes, the law of the Lord, that means the Bible, the word of God. It says the law of the Lord, the judgments of the Lord. He gives a couple different terms. It means the Bible. The Bible is perfect. It converts the soul. In keeping the Bible, the law of the Lord, or the word of God, there is great reward if we keep this. Beloved, there's a great reward if we will do it. And the reward is in this age and in the age to come. There is a reward on the inside in this age. And there's some reward on the outside, but it's minimal, but it's there. But it is minimal on the outside. But it's cool. I like the outside reward. I like the reward in the other arena. But the primary reward in this age is internal with some external. And in the age to come, it's fully internal and external according to the way we've walked with God on the earth. Well, we're going to be face to face with God either way it goes. But look at this in Matthew chapter 5, verse 8. Blessed are the pure in heart. They'll see God. And in that word for see God, put the word you'll encounter God. Now, one of the things I'm sure of the vast majority, if not everyone in this room, you want to encounter God. That's why you're here. That's why you're at this meeting tonight. You go, I want to be in a lifestyle to encounter God. I want to tell you this. There's only one category of people that encounter God. It's the pure in heart. It's not just the sincere. Sincere is not enough. A lot of people are sincere, but they never get around to purity. And though they're forgiven in their sincerity, and God loves them, God delights in them. They never have a vibrant spirit. They never encounter God because you can fake out the leaders. You can fake out your friends, but you can't fake out the Holy Spirit. And the only group of people he will give the revelation of God to are people that are pure in heart. And the more pure in heart we are, the more we encounter God on the inside. And then in the age to come, we encounter him in the bigger sense. But beloved, I want to encounter God. That's an incredible reward. When I feel the power of his word on my heart, when I feel him in prayer, when I feel his pleasure, even when I'm working and it's hard, or I'm bearing up under a sacrifice, I can feel his pleasure on the inside. That's a little bit of seeing God. A little bit. I love that. And when my spirit is grieving the Holy Spirit, when I'm in pride, or I'm walking out an area where the Lord is grieved with, and I'm not yielding to the Holy Spirit, I feel my spirit quench, and I don't, and I'm going to use the word see God, I don't have the same encounter with God. I'm still forgiven. I'm still in the kingdom. God still loves me. It's not an issue of that. I want to see him. I want to feel him. I want to connect with him. And you can't do it based on sincerity. You do this based on purity, walking in purity. So you're there, and the situation presents itself, and you think, well, one more time. It doesn't matter. I tell you, it does matter. It matters to God, and it will matter in your soul. It does matter. Well, one more time. This is the last time, the great hurrah, the last blast of sin, and I'm starting new, starting tomorrow for sure. Beloved, you can pick a demon up in that 12-hour span. I'm for real. Sin invites demons. Sin brings our callousness on our conscience. And we can get the demons out, and we can get the conscience alive again, but that takes work and effort, because whatever we say yes to, even for this one last fling, I tell you, you will have more demonic energy and more callous on your conscience tomorrow, and it will be more difficult to say no to the same sin. Sin gets easier. Demons have more access to us if we open the doors to them. I want to tell you, there is great reward in saying no. And you think, nobody knows. Nobody notices. God is watching. God cares. God delights in it. And your spirit is expanding in its ability to connect with God. Paragraph, I mean, Roman numeral two. So my first main point, I'm making two main points. The first one is, we say no, it hurts. It's called death. It's called the cross, but it matters. It has to happen that way. And if somebody frees you from that difficulty of Christianity, they're lying to you. It's point number one. It's a powerful part of the grace of God. Point number two, the second main point, although I got lots of points on the notes here, but this is, I got two main points tonight, is that we have to engage in prayer and fasting to win the war within, not only prayer and fasting. I'm not telling you prayer and fasting is all that we do. This is not meant to be a comprehensive presentation on how the heart is set free. What I'm trying to point out is that even at IHOP, we like prayer and fasting, but most of our prayer and fasting is for the outward war. We're praying against abortion. We're praying for Israel. We're praying for the outreach. We're praying for the sick to get healed. We're praying for prophecy to flow. Most of us don't pray and fast for the lusts that are rising up in our soul. Because when we feel them rise up, we don't feel like praying and fasting. When that lust is burning, I don't want to pray and fast. And when it's not burning, we go, well, I don't need to. I feel fine right now. Well, then when are you going to do it? When you feel fine, you're not alerted. And then when you're alerted, you're in a bad mood. And prayer doesn't seem very exciting right then. And I'm telling you, most people don't take the war internally with the same kind of focused way that we take the war on externally. And we need to turn it in ourselves. Ephesians 6, our battle is spiritual. We know that. And what I mean by spiritual, there's supernatural dimensions to our battle, external and internal. I mean, our battle against abortion, it's a supernatural battle, not just a physical one. It is physical, but it's supernatural as well. But that's true on revival and all the things we're trying to do outwardly. But inwardly, beloved, there is a supernatural enemy. It's supernatural. And you can't move a supernatural being just by saying no, which is my first point. The importance of saying no. Now I'm telling you, saying no is not enough. Saying no is critical, but it's still not enough. Ephesians 6, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but we wrestle against spiritual hosts of wickedness. Those are demons. Spiritual host, the word host is armies. That's what the Lord of hosts, that's one of the Lord's names. He's called the Lord of hosts. He's the Lord or he's the captain of the armies of heaven. The Lord of hosts, the word host is the armies of heaven. There are spiritual armies. I mean, real demons with real power. And here's what they do. Well, let me read verse 13. Take up the whole armor of God that you'll be able to stand in the evil day. And notice that word, the evil day. That's a critical phrase called the evil day. Because Jesus is going to appeal to the same idea. In a minute, I'm going to show you. He's going to say, pray that you do not enter into temptation. There is a very specific storm of darkness that hits a person's soul called the evil day, or it's called entering into temptation. We'll look at that in just a moment. But I want you to notice that there. He says you can stand when that storm, that heightened energy of darkness hits your soul. You can stand if you do this thing the right way. You don't have to be always picking yourself up after the tornado goes through and wrecks your being. And then it passes because these temptations come with intensity for minutes or hours or a day or two. They come with fierceness and then they lift. That's an evil day. And there's an assignment where there's an opportune time when Satan comes after us to wipe us out. It's like a storm coming across our hearts and it passes. And we go, what was that? That's called in verse 16, a flaming missile or a fiery dart, a flaming missile, a flaming arrow of darkness. Satan flings these flaming missiles and their arrows, they sting and they burn and they bring a heightened demonic energy to our rage against the person that's mistreating us at the office or the envy towards the other person that has the role you want or the gifting you want or the boy you want or the girl you want or the car you want. It's this rage. That's a fiery missile that's striking you. It's this compulsion. I got to eat. I just have to eat more. I just ate, but it's called gluttony. Gluttony is a problem in the body of Christ. And it's like every other thing. We've got to say no to it. There's alcohol. There's immorality. There's so many ways that these missiles hit us. They burn us and they sting us and they're called flaming missiles or they're called fiery darts. And it says in verse 17, you take the word of God in 18 and praying always. I want you to notice the word praying always because that's the one thing we don't do about our own flaming missiles striking us. We pray for somebody else's, but we don't pray for our own. We mourn over our own, but we don't actually pray about it. And more specifically, we usually don't pray it as a preemptive strike before the missile hits us. And that's why so many missiles are hitting us. The next passage, 2 Corinthians chapter 10. Though we walk in the flesh, that means our physical bodies. We can't war according to the flesh, meaning we don't have the equipment in ourself to pull this thing off. We need the divine power. And the way that we use these weapons, you know what the weapons are? They're simple. They're very, very simple. It's called prayer and fasting and confessing the word and weapons called humility and kindness. They're very simple weapons. We all know what the weapons are. We don't think of them as weapons. How could prayer and fasting and kindness and saying I'm sorry and confessing my sin and humble myself in serving. That can't be a weapon. Absolutely, that's the weapons. Those because when the spirit of God, the reason those are divine weapons, they attract the power of the Holy Spirit. Those actions attract the power of God and the power of God on those actions are mighty and it can diffuse and drive back the flaming arrows of darkness. We have to use supernatural weapons against supernatural enemies and the enemy isn't just our natural lust. The enemies are natural lust plus a demon putting his hand on us or like a dragon breathing fire and flaming that natural lust. Beloved, your problem isn't your natural lust by itself. It's your natural lust with a demon helping you, exciting it and you become enraged with that passion for that 20, 30, 40 minutes, 3 to 4, 5 hours and then the next day it's kind of gone. You go, man, I was mad yesterday or man, I was depressed or oh, I was hopeless or I was incensed with lust and oh, I was just craving just to get drunk out of my mind and the next day you think, I don't even know what that was. Beloved, that was a demon breathing like a dragon on your spirit using, taking advantage, exploiting your natural lust and exciting them to another level and they have to be stopped. Most people only pray after the storm goes through and the next day and they're sobbing and they're, oh God, I love you, I'm so sorry, I don't know what happened. He goes, I would have that you would have done war to this preemptively before this thing ever hit you. Well, I don't ever do that. I only talk to you about my sin after I do it. I don't talk to you about it before I do it. Why would I do that? I haven't done it yet. That's why you do it, to cut the thing off. Okay, let's go to the top of page 3. The war against sin in our heart, it requires fasting and prayer. Matthew chapter 5, I'm in paragraph B. Matthew chapter 5, verse 6. Have you ever noticed what, have you ever thought about what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness? It means to hunger and thirst for righteousness. That's what it means. And what I mean by that is that most people that think of this verse think it means of to generally like God. I just like God, I like his presence. It means to actually fast and pray for the breakthrough of an unrighteous area of your life. That's actually what it means. It means to hunger and thirst because there's a lot, a stronghold of lust in your heart that won't leave. It literally means that. It's not just a figurative kind of a euphemism for I like his presence and worship. Oh, I love it when they worship. This is called hunger and thirsting for God. That's called enjoying God. Hunger and thirsting for God means you quit eating. You quit drinking some of the things and you go to war against that area of unrighteousness in your heart. That's actually what that verse means. It's kind of simple, isn't it? I mean, when you take Jesus at face value, it really makes it more practical. Well, he's going to fill you if you'll do it. What's he going to fill you with? He's going to fill you with insight on how to get through that area. He's going to fill you with power of how to break the power of it. He's going to fill you with joy in the process or intermittently through the process is probably a more accurate way to say it. Paragraph C, God will reward people that hunger and thirst. It's still in the Sermon on the Mount. This is all from the Sermon on the Mount, most of these passages. Jesus said, when you fast, your father will reward you. I want to assure you, when you fast, you will be rewarded. And one of the ways you're rewarded is by righteousness taking root in an area where a lustful area, a lust is dominating you. Righteousness. I want not just insight, I want the power and the ability to understand how to walk in righteousness in every area of my life. The Lord says, hunger and thirst for it, fast for it, and I will give you a reward and that will be a reward. And beloved, I can't think of anything more powerful than an area of unrighteousness being dislodged in my members. And that means my mind, my emotion, or my body, just my whole experience as a person. Now, D, here's the central verse of this second point that, again, I said I want to make two main points. Jesus urged the apostles to pray beforehand so they would not enter into temptation. Look at this, he goes, pray that you would not enter into temptation. To enter into temptation, I'm reading in paragraph D, speaks of something far more intense than the general temptations we face in a sinful culture. This is a specific storm of darkness coming on them. To enter into temptation is far more than just kind of walking through the mall and getting tempted to buy this or to go here or to do that. It's not a general thing, it is a specific thing because when he told them this, they were not in temptation at that point. What Jesus is talking about has not come on them yet. And they're kind of like, again, this is just right after the, you know, they've just had the last supper. And the only person that's really taking serious what's going on is Jesus. He goes, I'm going to die. They go, no, you can't die. You go, we're buds forever. Hey, we'll be there. Peter says, don't worry, Lord, I'm with you. I got your back. He says, Peter, just stop, Peter. I'm going to die and you're going to cry and it's going to be a really bad night. But as the preacher said, it's Friday and Sunday's coming. Don't worry, it's going to all turn around. And he's telling them, I mean, they just had a great meal. They sang together. Jesus talked to them and he says, I love you the way the father loves me. They thought, oh, I couldn't be better. It's a great, you know, a spring evening. The weather is great. They go up to the garden and they're just feeling great. And Jesus is getting like all heavy. Pray because a storm is about to break on your soul. That's what it means to enter into temptation. They're going like, I feel great. I don't witness to that, Jesus. I just feel good right now. I'm in your presence. I feel safe. I feel like the camaraderie is higher than it's ever been before. There's no enemy around. And Jesus saying, let me, I'm trying to tell you guys something. I'm trying to tell you, if you will pray now as a preemptive strike, God will give power to your soul. And in a day or an hour or a week when the storm comes suddenly, if you've got that power because of this prayer, it will all be different if you pray preemptively. And again, it's kind of, it's hard to get through to people because they think I feel good. I don't need to pray. I don't feel lost. I don't feel any like drive to go look at pornography or steal money or get drunk. I just kind of happy right now. I'm at church service and I'm sitting next to my friends and the worship was great. Beloved, this, you don't feel like praying now because if things feel good, then you get in the storm. But you don't feel like praying then because you feel so bad. Then when do you ever pray then? About your own heart. Well, I just love the God and do have intimacy. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about praise specifically. You would not enter into this special defined. It's a short term storm that breaks over them. Beloved, find out the five or six or 10 areas in your life. It might be gossip. It might be complaining. It might be have to do with food. It might have to do with alcohol. It might have to do with sexuality. It might have to do with envy. Find the three to four to five areas. You know what they are. Be real honest. You can hide the list. You don't have to publish it on the internet. And look at it, lock into those and start praying now that you would not enter into temptation. When you're in a good mood, pray this. You will be surprised how things will go different when you begin to do this. Now to enter into temptation, there's three different things here in paragraph D. This specific storm. Number one, it's a time when our lustful passions, it could be anger. It could be again for it could be the food drink thing or it could be the sexuality thing. It's the number one when the lustful passions are aroused. Number two, when the demon comes and puts extra energy on it. And number three, when the circumstances are just optimum for you to fall. And so when we pray, Lord, don't let me enter into temptation. You're saying raise up a shield against these demonic powers. Lord says, if you ask me, I actually will do it. If you don't ask me, I will let them touch you. I will let them come. If you ask me, I will break in. It's part of the agreement. I'm not going to do it automatically. He does it to some degree automatically. But he says, I'm going to let you feel what it's like to not live with me. If you ask me, you will see it. You'll see my hand. I will drive back the demonic. I will bring grace to your soul. And you know what? There are more doors that will be shut where the Lord cuts off. You were supposed to be at that party doing this. And all of a sudden, Aunt Susie called and said, hey, I want to give you $1,000. I'm in town. You didn't know it. I'm going to take you out to dinner. And you're sitting at dinner and you're talking. You end up prophesying to her accidentally. And you find that you meet your friend the next day. You go, oh, I should have gone to that party. I went there to witness, to relate to sinners. I got drunk and did some sexual thing. And then you go like, God just reordered my steps. How did he know to do that? And the Lord says, you asked me. You asked me when you were in a good mood, a preemptive prayer that you would not enter in. And I reordered your steps a different direction. I moved in and away ahead of time and set things up. Beloved, it will really change your life. E, Jesus, I mean, Luke talks about the time. And I'm running out of time here. I'm going to just kind of wind up here in just a moment here. Jesus talked about, I mean, Luke talked about the time when the devil came and tempted Jesus in the wilderness. And look at what it says in Luke 4.13. The devil came back. He tempted him fully on that day. And he didn't have any inroads. And the devil departed until an opportune time. There is a strategic moment to get you. You know, it's whatever time of the day, because we got all different schedules. You're tired, you're lonely, you're depressed. You got a problem with internet pornography. Your roommate went and his computer's there. And this or however it all goes to work, you know, that wouldn't work because he'd find you out in a second. But anyway, just say it would work. Anyway, the whole thing is set up just right. It's an opportune time. You're in a bad mood. You feel depressed. Something bad happened yesterday. Somebody yelled at you. You're just at the exact mood. And everyone left the room at the right time. And there you are. That is the opportune time. That's called entering into temptation. The demon power is touching you. Your spirit is heightened in its desire. Your body's weary. You're all alone. Beloved God will cut these things off ahead of time if we ask him to. I don't want the opportune time. See, because praying, the praying, when we pray before we're in trouble, that's humility. When you pray before you're in trouble, you're saying, I don't trust the strength of my soul. I need help, but I'm not feeling the power of my weakness right now. I know my weakness and I need you. It's called humility dependence before the crisis. Most people only pray with humility after the crisis. And the humility is real. But it's the humility of getting forgiveness when God wants. And that's dependence because you're trusting he'll forgive you. And that is humility and dependence. But there's another kind of humility and dependence. It's that he would give us strength before the crisis. And then we walk through it and we go, it's just as different now. And we're fasting. We're praying for righteousness in our heart. And we're asking for areas. It's humbling to do this because you're in a good mood when you're talking about being delivered for when you're going to be in a bad mood in a week from now, but you're not in that bad mood right now. And the Lord's saying, why are you asking me so ardently? And you're saying, because I love you so much. I don't trust me at all. And I know you will help me. The Lord goes, that's wisdom. You're good. That's good. That's called humility. And most of us only know humility in the crisis. When we're weeping in our failure, we don't know the humility on the front end of asking for strength when we don't feel we need it in that moment because we know that we do because of our track record. Look at paragraph F. Jesus exhorted his disciples. He told them at the very beginning of the ministry, the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, he goes, I'm going to give you two prayers. Pray, ask the Father not to lead you into temptation. In other words, ask the Father to lead you in a way where you avoid these situations. That's really what that prayer means. And then ask him a second thing, that he would deliver you from the evil one. I'm going to ask you, do you actually ask God to deliver you from temptation? And do you ask him specifically to stop demons from touching you in the areas of your lust? And I would go as far to say almost all Christians, most Christians don't ever pray this prayer, except when they do it rote. You know, our Father who art in heaven, they'll do it real quick. But we are supposed to lock into those two prayers. Say, Lord, I want you to order my steps. I want to miss that opportune moment when the devil's coming. Set up a scenario that hymns me in, help me. And don't let the evil one breathe that energy on my lust to inflame them. And he says, okay, if that's what you want, and you take time to ask me, and you even praying fast, I will actually meet you there if you will do what I tell you. And he told him to do that. And look at what the Lord does in the next passage. John 15, here they are at the upper room. They're at the Last Supper. This is, you know, they're having all these warm, loving feelings. And Jesus is there. John's got his head on his breast. And they're all, you know, having a great time. And Jesus says, I pray. He's thinking of two to three hours later in the Garden of Gethsemane. Keep them from the evil one. Don't let demons touch their spirit. Keep them, keep them from the evil one. He's praying for them. They won't even pray for themselves three hours later. They fall asleep. Jesus said, I know how this thing works. This is real. Beloved, I want to challenge you to pray this prayer for your friends. I want you to pray this prayer for me. I'm taking advantage of my position here. Pray that I would be kept from the evil one. What that means is from that extra energy of darkness at the opportune time, when you're in the wrong place, in the wrong mood, at the wrong hour of the day, when things went horrible that day, and you're vulnerable, this is what we can cut off through prayer on the front end. Paragraph three, Roman numeral three. You can read this on your own. These are David's prayer. David's praying these prayers, but in the Old Testament language. That's Roman numeral three. I'll just skip those. Let's go to the top of page four. It's a very important passage. First Corinthians 10. Let him who thinks he stand, take heed lest he fall. Paul's talking to the man. He goes, if you think you don't need prayer, you think you're standing because you're in a good mood tonight, you don't think you're going to have a problem on Thursday because you feel good Sunday night in this meeting. He goes, if you think you're standing, and therefore you're kind of casual about it, take heed. And then he goes on to say, every temptation that comes your way, God will give you a way of escape. Every temptation, he will give you a way of escape. That's what that passage says. We're going to skip the next one, and we're going to go back to just to the very last passage on the last page. I'm going to end with that. The very second Timothy chapter two, verse 20. Second Timothy two, verse 20. In a great house, you have the worship team coming up. In a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, there are vessels of wood and clay, some for honor, dishonor. Beloved, in the great house of the kingdom of God, there are people in this age that are living as vessels of honor, and there are people in this age that are in the kingdom, but they're living in dishonorable ways. And that's the, I mean, I'm not trying to overdo this, but it's the majority of the church in the West. And here's what he says, and I'm going to give you this promise. If any of you will cleanse himself, if you will cleanse himself, you will be a vessel of honor in the house of God. In verse 22, flee youthful lust. Say no to them. Say no to them. No matter what somebody gives you on the grace of God, you can do it. It's okay if you do a little immorality, a little drunkenness, a little this, a little pornography, a little sexuality in the movies. Beloved, flee youthful lusts and be a vessel of honor in the house of God in this generation.