Romans 15:16 - Repairing the Door of Your Heart, Pt. 3 (12/18/2022)

Park Meadows Church

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find out loud. You ever heard anybody named Pop -Pop? But what I'm trying to say is he is, he, him and my wife work more or less together a lot and she knows what he does.

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She says he's a miracle worker. She says sometimes he gets out there and it's like he's walking on water with people.

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He does, people are mad and angry and they'll talk to Pop -Pop and going, well how are you doing? Well I'm not mad no more, you know.

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So anyway, I just want to tell you, I'm going to shut up and look at the pastor up here because he's got more to say than I do, but love

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Jesus. Be with Jesus. Be like this man and his family. Those two little girls walked up to me this morning,

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I've sent them a few and I've never done that in my life. Hi, my name is. And they could teach us all something.

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As adults, we're so worried about how we look and how we come across. They don't care. They're little kids and they have love in their heart.

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They've been taught that by very good people. Pastor, I just can't figure out why you feel like crying.

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I just need more sleep, right? That's one of the reasons

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I'm crying. Did he make you snort?

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We might start a new movement, the snorting movement, right? That the charismatic's find out about this will be big.

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Yeah, I'd be building a new church. You come back next time, you get like a $50 ,000 love off.

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Only if you can heal the snorting though. Glad that wasn't on.

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The camera wasn't on until just then. That's good. Everything is composed and excellent. Going great here today.

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Ron, great message. Thank you. He went around the room.

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He didn't name everybody, but he could've. I know you feel like I do.

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There's no other church you'd want to be in anywhere in the world because we don't argue over the color of the carpet.

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That's the thing I've taught for 40 years here is don't argue over the color of the carpet. And so we don't.

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Man, that was such a great message this morning at 10. And thanks so many of you for showing up.

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You're not always all able to make it here at 10, but you did today. Most of you, everybody that could was here.

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So appreciate that. Great message though. It wasn't just technically good.

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It was had the power of God too. And that's what it takes. So we will be voting about whether to support you or not, but the handwriting's on the wall on that issue.

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So thank you so much. I know you got to leave in a minute. Let's see, Matt, when they do, when they leave, would you just keep an eye on the door in case they forget something and need back in because it's going to lock them out.

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And when you see them drive off, then you can come back in. So you guys be safe. Turn to Romans chapter 15, verse 16.

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And, you know, Ron, you, you kind of helped change my life too.

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When I first met you, you probably can't hear me back there, but I'm talking about you, but it wasn't just your life that got changed when we met.

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You guys changed my life and made me have so much joy. Romans 15, 16 talks about the offering up of the

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Gentiles being accepted by the Lord, as you know, and that sent us off on a springboard of studying why is that true, but also studying the idea that the

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Bible says we are believer priests. And so we've been kind of walking that through the new Testament first.

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And then we started going through the old Testament recently, actually looking at the tabernacle, the wilderness tabernacle, and then later the

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Solomon's temple, which are pictures of a lot of things as we've seen.

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But the main thing it's a picture of is Jesus Christ. But it's also a picture of you and me, any born again child of God, it's a picture of you.

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Because as you walk into that temple, when you go into the larger area, the first thing you have to go by is the altar.

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And that's where the animal sacrifices were done. And you know that and it's a picture of Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice.

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Nothing can happen correctly concerning bringing us together with the Lord. If we don't have the blood of Jesus Christ, we can't even go in his presence.

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So that's why you meet that first. And, and you go through and you see the different things we've talked about.

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But that outer area, you know, when the temple was built, that's the only place the

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Gentiles could go in. And what's funny about it, to me anyway, is that sort of pictures the body.

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The whole thing pictures us. We're, we're a spirit living,

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I like to put it this way, we should be a spirit controlled soul controlled body. So we're triune like God is, we're in the image of God.

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And all parts of us are pictured by that wilderness tabernacle and Solomon's temple as well.

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And so what we saw here, as we started going through some of this real interesting information, mostly we've been in 2

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Chronicles chapter 29, if you want to turn there, is that they had gone a long time, the people of Israel, without using the temple.

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They couldn't even get the door to work properly. So they couldn't get in easily. So they had just neglected all the temple service for a long period of time.

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I'm not sure that I know how long, but a long period of time. They didn't even know where the word, the scrolls were, the

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Bible, they didn't have access to the Bible because it was inside there somewhere hidden. The door didn't work.

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Everything was out of order. The sacrifices hadn't been made.

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And everything was in really bad shape. And God's blessings were not on them.

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Well, King Hezekiah came on the throne. He recognized the problem and began to fix it.

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Wouldn't it be nice to have a leader like that in America? A president who understood that biblical

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Christianity and the Lord that we worship is the only thing that can fix this country, just like Gavino spoke of this morning.

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The problem is the salt and light, not that we need to worry about all these things that are changing.

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It's because the churches in the country got so weak that these changes just happened because they could.

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And that's sad, but that's where we are. Well, this king understood that was going on in Israel at the time.

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Same type of thing. Evil was predominating. So what did he do? He went through, the first thing he did was he had them repair the doors.

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And we talked about that for a couple of Sundays, right? So they came in and the priests were ordered by the king to go in and repair the doors.

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And we talked about how that can picture the door of our hearts. If you're saved, but you just haven't been walking with the

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Lord, or you've been walking in the flesh or whatever, if you can just open that door, he will come in and sup with us, fellowship with us.

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And that's what that's a beautiful picture of. So you have to start there. And that is exactly where they started.

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Now, in 2 Chronicles 29 verse 3, it says, he, in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the

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Lord and repaired them. That's a picture of our own hearts.

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That was the starting place. He then brought in the priest and the Levites, gathered them together into the east street and said unto them, hear me, ye

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Levites, sanctify now yourselves. So now he's talking to the priests and the

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Levites. And that's a picture of us as believer priests in this world today. And he said, the next step, now that you got the door fixed and we're going to have the service of the

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Lord, which pictures communing with God, we're going to get that fixed and start doing that again.

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First thing that I need you to do is to sanctify yourselves. Now, what does that mean? Does it mean start being perfect all the time?

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None of us are going to start being perfect all the time, are we? It means be different.

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Be sanctified means to be set apart from the world unto God. So that the predominant purpose for your life is to serve the

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Lord, not to serve this world or our flesh or the devil, but to serve the

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Lord as the predominant direction and purpose of the life is what that means. And he said, get back in that mode because you've lost it.

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Get back in that mode. The King commanded them to do this. Now, sanctify yourselves and sanctify the house of the

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Lord. It was in disarray. Doesn't that picture the American church today that, you know, the huge churches across this country that are playing like church is going on there.

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They have 45 minutes of rock music. I'm not against rock music. I'm a rock musician. No, I'm not against that.

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But then they have 20 minute little devotion that, and then go home. They're not digging into the word of God.

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The people aren't growing. Therefore, they're not the salt and light. And therefore we're giving everything in this country to the devil.

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All of our seminaries, all of our universities, Hollywood, the music industry,

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Washington DC, we're giving it all to the enemy because they're getting a little sermonettes on Sunday morning.

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And they're not studying on their own because when you hear a little sermonette, you just go home feeling good about yourself.

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And that's a problem because selfishness is not what brings you to be salt and light. So there's where our nation is.

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And this is pretty much where these people were in this time. So they were told to sanctify themselves, start living for the

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Lord again. Remember who you are. Quit being hypocrites. You saved on the inside and then living like the world on the outside.

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That's hypocritical. Stop being that way. Just be real, be who you are, and then get the house of God in order, which to them, that whole place was a picture of not only ourselves, but also the

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Lord Jesus Christ being with us and us being with God. And so he said to sanctify yourself, sanctify the house of the

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Lord of your fathers and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place.

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Now think about that for a moment. Do you remember the sections as we go into that temple?

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I like to talk about the wilderness tabernacle. I've studied it more, but the temple is just a big permanent, supposedly permanent, of course it's been torn down twice, place that pictures the same things.

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The holy place is the first curtain you come to after you've passed the altar where the sacrifices took place and the labor, which pictures the water of the word.

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And then there's a curtain and you go inside there and it's called the holy place. And then there's another curtain and you can't go in there because that's called the holy of holies.

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Only the high priest can go in there once a year and not without blood. But the holy place is the first little area and these priests were supposed to go into that area and take care of that room.

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Well, it says here that that place had been allowed to become filthy. Not the place where God was, which is the next room, where the presence of God, the

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Shekinah glory, not that place, that can't become filthy because it would blow up. It would disintegrate into the whole universe, would be gone basically.

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But the place before it, which is where the priests were supposed to meet and take care of all these things, where it pictures

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Jesus, you know, you have the bread, which pictures his body, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, the bread of life. You had the candlestick, the light of the world, the mental understanding of God and how we are and how

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God is and how we can know God and all of that is pictured in the altar of incense, where he is our advocate.

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That place had been allowed to become filthy. Now think about that. Now let me tell you what that picture is in you and me.

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That picture is your soul and the soul is an interface between your body, which the world sees and which you sense everything with, right, and your spirit, which is the highest part of you that walks with the

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Holy Spirit and is connected to him from time to time. When we're spirit filled, we're actually one spirit with him.

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We become one with him in that place. That's pictured by the Holy of Holies, where the

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Shekinah Glory was. But the soul is the part of you that's higher than your body, but it can go either direction.

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If you get in the mode where you're wanting to be fleshly and carnal, it just connects with the body side of you and you become soulish.

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That's not spiritual, but you may think it is. Loud music can make you feel spiritual when really you're just soulish, all right, but that soul also connects to the higher part of you, your spirit, and when it makes that connection, it is spiritual.

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You may feel similar feelings, like you may feel like crying, you may feel like laughing or snorting, and when the

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Holy Spirit gets hold of you, it can feel like those things, but it's different than when you're just soulish, which is caused by the rock music, and what's interesting about it in this particular revival we're reading about, the music didn't come until last.

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Now, they had it and it was loud. It's going to be louder in heaven, and they had professional musicians playing in Israel at this time, and it was loud and it was probably amazing, but it didn't come to last.

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The first thing that came was the preaching, and what the preaching was really just the reading of the

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Bible that they had found and dusted off in that place when Hezekiah told them to go get it in order, find the

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Word of God and start reading it, and they just read it. It does say that they gave the sense of it as they read it, which means difficult passages where it doesn't just, it's not just super plain.

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They would say in context here, this is what God is saying. It may sound like he means this, but here's what he means by what he's saying, and then they would keep reading.

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Pretty much a verse -by -verse sermon, right? Not that's how we do it here, but that's how, if you just read, go back 150 years, every preacher used to preach that way.

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It's just the modern guys that like little topical, sweet little cute things, and then look where America is because of it, but anyway.

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So, we see the picture. Well, that part in the middle, that middle room, the soul part was filthy.

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Your soul can get filthy when you allow your brain, which is just part of your body, like your liver, only it's the part that thinks, and when you let that be in control of what you think about, it will cause your soul to become filthy sometimes, because it will cause you to think about the lower, baser things in life, or even evil things in life, and this is pictured at this point by this tabernacle, and the king said, carry forth the filthiness out of that place.

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So, these are some of the stages that they're going through here, and they fix the door, now they're starting to clear out the filthiness, and they went into the innermost parts, not the holy of holies, but the innermost center of this place that pictures your body, yourself as a triune being, and even picture

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Jesus, but the filthy part can't picture Jesus. That's picturing us right now, and they began to clean it out.

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So, let's talk about that just a little bit, and I don't have my whole time today, and I'm glad I didn't, because everything that's happened has been marvelous, but in Daniel, don't even try to look these up, because I'm going to go really fast for just a few minutes.

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Daniel chapter 7, verse 15, I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body.

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Now, there's a lot more talked about in the context of that, it's very interesting, but for today, I just wanted you to notice that Daniel recognized that in the middle of his body, he had this thing called his spirit.

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Now, what's interesting in the Hebrew, the word spirit and the word soul are very similar. You can only tell by the context, sometimes even in the

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Greek, in the New Testament, whether it's the soul or the spirit, but they are two different things, but the point is, this innermost part of Daniel, he called it, in this place, in English, it's called his spirit.

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It's the part that makes him alive and makes him able to commune with God, and it probably is a combination of his soul and spirit in this context, really.

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It just means the part of him that is the highest part that can commune with God, and he talks about that he has that there, and so we know from a lot of scriptures,

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Old and New Testament, that that's how God has made us to be, and that part of Daniel had to be working right and couldn't be filthy in order for him to commune with God on this day in Daniel 7 15 and do the things

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God wanted him to do in his life, and ours has to be, the filth has to be removed, and the thing is, the reason it talks about this in Second Chronicles is because there are times when it does get filthy with us.

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There are times when we don't even realize it, and all of a sudden, we're just relaxing and just not even thinking about what we're thinking about, and that brain just keeps working with all the input that's gone into it from the time you can think.

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The very first moment, the bad influences and the good influences, the things that you saw in relatively good movies but always have that little subtle evil message that Hollywood wants to stick in our brains, that message is in there too.

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All the commercials, those little evil messages. Now, you can, if my grandmother were to see just a regular commercial on TV right now, she would throw a rock through the

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TV set and blush. They got men kissing men just subtly in the background.

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You might not even notice it. Women kissing women in the background. It's not so subtle now, all of a sudden, and like Gavino said, these things have changed just since COVID.

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We didn't have that on TV, and now it's just everywhere. I make note of the companies that do those advertisements, by the way.

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I don't buy stocks in those companies. I might buy a call option but not stocks because a call option doesn't help the company.

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My point is we should make note of these things, but I agreed with the sermon at 10 o 'clock hour.

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We're not going to change them by protesting. We need the churches to get strong again, and I don't know that that's going to happen in a day when the

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Bible said there must be a great falling away before the antichrist rises up. That's where we are, folks, but it doesn't mean we can't be salt and light and have whatever little influence we can have, and who knows it may be a big influence.

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This church is the backbone of a ministry that reaches hundreds of thousands of people every week through Tradeway, which is interesting, so think about that.

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Don't think of yourselves as little. Just ask God to do whatever he wants to do through us, through all of us, and those of us who work at Tradeway couldn't do what we do without you here and the fellowship we get with you here and the support that we get and everything that Ron said, all of that.

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If we didn't have that, we would be crushed by the evil in this country and the problems

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Satan can throw at everything good, so we have to start by making sure that from time to time we realize that our innermost part becomes filthy, and we need to immediately go in and clean it up.

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We need to figure out what got it filthy and eliminate it. Don't make it so easy to get to.

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Does that make sense? Is that practical? I mean, I'm not going to name the stuff. Just don't make it so easy for the filth to get in there and control again in this particular moment, in this particular day.

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First Corinthians 6 20 says, for you are bought with a price. What is that price?

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The blood of Jesus and his body, his blood, his life, his giving up of some of his very attributes as God in heaven to come here in the first place and be a bit, you know what

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I loved in the song you sang. I just happened to notice the little place, and this was that some of the songs, the lyrics, even in our hymn book, they're not extremely really strong doctrine, you know what

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I mean? Like they'll be a little off. Musicians can be that way sometimes. It's a little off on the doctrine because they're into the music part, and that's okay, but that person that wrote that Christmas song was not.

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They were strong, and that little place in the middle, second, what do you call that?

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I'm not much of a verse. Okay, second verse, and it says, and he cried not.

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Did you see that? How did it word it? He made no cry or something like that. A cry he did not make.

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I don't remember. No crying he makes. What is, do you understand what that is?

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He had no sin nature, and the Bible says we come forth speaking lies. You know when your baby cries, sometimes it means

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I'm hungry, but sometimes it means you need to stop what you're doing and come take care of me because I'm the center of the universe, and he's not hurt, and he's not hungry, or she, and they're lying.

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You say, oh that can't be true, Brother David. The Bible says it's true. Depraved human beings they are, especially the little ones because they can't understand the gospel yet, so we just have to love on them, but anyway,

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I prefer to make them laugh at that point, so stop that stuff.

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Laugh, smile, do something, and it's so beautiful that little lyric where he didn't.

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Picture Jesus born in the manger and just laying there looking at the cows. It talked about that in the song.

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You know the cows made little, so they were snorting, the cows were, and Jesus would look at him and say, you look like Pastor Mitchell.

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Why are you doing that? So he would just look, and then he'd look over here, and I see our babies doing that some, you know, where they're just looking at stuff.

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It's kind of cool to watch and think what are they thinking, but then when they want mommy in particular, they start lying.

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They cry. They don't even need it, but they want it, so Jesus never did that. Wow, that's a neat rabbit trail.

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Where am I? Where am I here? Okay, so we're bought with a price, therefore glorify

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God in your body. That's the part that can sin, isn't it? You know, a lot of Christians have heard so much about, you know, being carnal, and that they look at the body as if it's bad and evil, and it's not.

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It's kind of neutral, really, only the part of it that has a problem is the brain part, and it's full of negative input and positive input, both good and bad, just like Adam and Eve asked for.

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Satan said, oh, all you know is good. Don't you want to be like me and God, no good and evil? And they said, oh yeah, so now the brain's got all that in it.

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All right, so it can, my point is, I shouldn't say it's neutral because it is depraved. The body is depraved, but the point is, it can go either direction because when it gets under control of the

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Holy Spirit, who's one with your spirit, and that controls your soul, which is the interface, it goes right down in the body and makes you holy.

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I tell you what, when Dr. Criswell walked by me the first time I met him in person in Dallas at his church, because we were there with Dr.

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Freeman, the hair on my arm stood up. He had on white shoes, white socks, white suit, white tie, white hair, and been preaching his whole life, a godly, godly man, compared to today's standards, just way, way up there in sanctification and holiness in his life, and the hair on my arm stood up when he walked by.

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Well, why? Because he had this inner thing cleaned up in his life, and God was using his body as well as his soul and his spirit, not just his mind and praying and being with the

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Lord on the inside. His body was used in the service of God, and ours is supposed to be also, and that is the salt and light.

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Listen, they don't see your soul. I mean, they might look in your eyes and know something's different. I guarantee you that. So, they can see your soul and your spirit in a sense, but they make first contact.

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The lost, they make first contact with our bodies, right? And so, if we don't have this innermost part of us cleaned up in the midst of our body, as Daniel said, or here, as we see that we're bought with a price and we need to glorify

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God in our body and in our spirit, which are God's, which means our body is owned by him, too, because he bought it with a price.

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This is the motivation behind cleaning up that inner part. Why do we need to mess with it?

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It's just off the place, you know, it's just off doing bad stuff and thinking bad things all the time. Why do we need to mess with it?

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Why do we need to work it? Why do we fight this schizophrenic life we live? Because he owns us, and we need to be living for him, and we can't unless we start on the inside.

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We got to start on the inside out, every day, all the time, even in the moments, and it's so pictured so beautifully here.

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And then in Romans 8 and 9, it says, but you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. Now, this is encouraging.

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This one's encouraging. Some of the other ones are troubling, but this one's encouraging, because look what it says.

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You're not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God lives in you, dwells in you.

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Now, if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he's none of his. So, if you don't have the indwelling of the spirit, you're not even saved.

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But if you got saved, you got the indwelling, is one of the 33 or more things God did instantly to you the moment you got saved, was he put himself inside of you.

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Now, if it says here that you're not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if you're indwelt, we know that it doesn't mean that, even though that's what it says, because we know that we're always indwelt until the day of redemption, the

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Bible says. After that, I don't know if we're still indwelt, or if we need to be, because we'll be with Christ at that point, right?

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But I do know that he is sealed within us until we meet Jesus face -to -face. That's one reason we know we can't lose our salvation.

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But now, we still can be carnal in sin, though, can't we? And he doesn't leave us.

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He's always in us. So, you see how this verse doesn't mean what it sounds like it means. It doesn't mean what it says, because it is not true that just because you're indwelt by the spirit, that you're not in the flesh.

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But what it means is the predominant direction of your walk is not in the flesh.

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It is not, in fact, in the Greek, not in the flesh. The verb would be in the continual sense.

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You're not continually in the flesh. You don't like it when you're in the flesh.

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You might like it in the moment, and then the next moment, you hate yourself, and you say, that's not me anymore.

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Lord, you know, I agree with you. That's a sin. Cleanse me from all unrighteousness.

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And then your next thought is, I had to pray that three times yesterday. Is he going to still think

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I mean it? How many of you thought that? You don't have to raise your hand. Okay, and then later that evening,

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Lord, I agree that was a sin. Cleanse me from all unrighteousness.

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He probably doesn't think I mean it, because I prayed that this morning for the same thing. You see my point? But guess what? He does mean it, because he's not like us.

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1 John 1 9 means every single time he is just, and he is faithful to cleanse you from all unrighteousness, and that's how you clean up that inner room.

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It's the only way you've got to do it, and it is the way to do it, and when

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Satan comes and says, Lord's not going to believe you, because you just prayed it 10 minutes ago, and you did it again. Don't listen to that.

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It's a lie. It's all you've got, and you're commanded to clean up this middle room, and you have to do it.

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1 John 1 9 is the best verse in the Bible for how to do it. So, because it's not us that does it, it's

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God that does it. Our only part is to agree with him that what we just did was sinful, and not make excuse for it.

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Say, well, you made me this way. You made me this way, so I did that. Don't make excuse to say it was evil.

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You said don't do it, and I did it, or you might even have a case where there's no place in the Bible where it says don't do it, but he said that which you cannot do in faith is sin, and you can't do it in faith, so you have to admit to him, okay,

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I, you know, the Bible doesn't say this is wrong for some people, but for me, I know you didn't want,

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I just know I wasn't supposed to do it. It's sin, and you agree with him, and it's gone, right? That's how we clean it up.

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So, in Romans 8 9, when you understand all of that, the verse 9 makes sense. You're not continually in the flesh, but you're a person who is a spiritual person.

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You're a person who should be walking in the spirit because you are saved. Verse 19,

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I'm sorry, verse 10 there in Romans 8 says, and if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin.

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So, this is positional truth. If you are saved, then you are not a fleshly person.

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You're a spiritual person. You're moving that direction. That's what you want to be, and when you're not, you use 1

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John 1 9, and you clean it up, and you keep, get up, and you walk again, and the body, and here it doesn't mean just because it's a physical body.

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It means the carnal part of you, the sinful part of your body, that depraved part that wants to pull away from God and do selfish stuff.

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That part is dead. It died in Christ the day he died on the cross, the

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Bible says, in God's mind. You were crucified in Christ. It's dead, so why listen to it, right?

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That's the point. Why let it control what you're going to do in the next moment because it's dead. It has no life in it.

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It's dead, so stop listening to it. The body is dead because of sin.

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Sin killed the body, right? The reason Jesus had to die is because of our sins, and it put him on the cross, and God put you on the cross with him, and it's dead, but the spirit is life because of righteousness, and that means because of imputation.

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God took your sins away from you and put them in Christ, and he died with them, and he took his righteousness and put it in you, and you now have it, and it's his, but it's yours because he gave it to you as a gift, and what you got as a gift you now own, so it's yours too, so you have that righteousness, and now you're equipped to clean up that innermost part of you at any given moment and then have your whole body used in the service of God.

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Your mind, your gifts, your efforts, everything you are, everything you have can be used in his service, but if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you.

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That's not talking about you getting raised from the dead. That's talking about you right now being raised from the dead. That's talking about when you walk out this building instead of walking around like a dead

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American like so many of them are, you're full of life. God can use you in their lives and in the life of your own family, and by the way, she doesn't even say bad stuff about me.

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I just happen to think about that. It's weird. She probably got it all written down somewhere in her closet, and she has a closet inside her closet.

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It's probably in there somewhere, so just in case she needs it, but whatever.

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So this is just beautiful in Romans how it speaks to this whole idea of cleaning up the inner man.

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Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh. So much motivation is given to us there to clean up the inner man at any given moment.

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We don't owe anything to the flesh. It killed us. Unless the rapture happens, we will experience physical death, and I don't know about you.

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It bothers me. Charlotte doesn't even bother her. Now see, there you go again. She says, yeah, we won't be in the body.

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We'll be in with the Lord. No, but I think about my body in that cold ground on a winter night when it's raining, and I do not like the thought of that.

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She says, honey, won't be there. Well, I don't like it. I can't explain to her theologically why

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I'm weak in that area, but I don't like this. So I told her, I said, put me in a cement mausoleum.

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I know it costs more. On top of the ground, close the drawer and seal it and leave me in there.

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She said, no. It costs too much.

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So we're, listen, we're not debtors to this body.

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It killed us. Without the sins that this body want to do, we wouldn't have even had to have Christ. Would we just go walk right into heaven?

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We'd be perfect. We're not debtors to it. So why do we listen to it when it wants us to sin? Don't, right?

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That's the message. Now we will, but when we do, we need to clean it up again and that's the life and God made it that way on purpose.

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All right. Let me just read one little passage back in 2 Corinthians 7, 17.

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Wherefore, come out from among them, saith the Lord. Be separate, saith the Lord. Touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you.

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That talks about more than just our inside and how we are and how we need to keep that clean.

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It talks about who we hang out with, other human beings. Come out from among them, that's the unsaved, and be separate.

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Be different than they are. Don't hang out with them. Don't partnership with them. Witness to them.

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Be soft and light, but don't be their buddy. That's what it's saying. Sounds harsh, doesn't it?

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Now the world wouldn't like that message. Well, God loves everybody in the first place. No, He doesn't.

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He loves His own. Now He does love everybody in the sense that He loves His creation. I'll grant you that, but He's saying, be careful who you hang out with, young people in particular.

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We need to teach them that because they're going to be really tempted in this area. Wherefore, come out from among them.

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Be separate, saith the Lord. Touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you and will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters, saith the

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Lord Almighty. And 2 Corinthians 7, 1 says, having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and the spirit, which is a scary thing to think about, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

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That's how we clean it up, but listen to that and I'll be done. You don't just have filthiness in your body.

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Do you realize that you can have filthiness in your spirit? Now, I personally believe that that verse in the

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Greek, which can sometimes be translated soul, is most likely speaking of the soul, not the highest part of you that dwells with the

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Lord in that holy of holies now. And certainly it's not talking about when you are connected to the

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Lord and walking in the spirit, but when we are in the flesh and that soul can move and go more towards the fleshly, and I mean that in the bad sense, the carnal thoughts, the evil thoughts, the evil things we can do.

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This is what I think it means by filthiness of the spirit. I think it's tantamount to filthiness of the mind.

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So think about that. So I've said it my whole career in the ministry.

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It's not a career, my life in the ministry. Think about what you're thinking about.

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Be on guard all the time. Think about what you're thinking about. And if it's filthy, say,

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Lord Jesus, here's a prayer formula. Just memorize it and use it. Say, Lord Jesus, you said in the scripture that I have the mind of Christ, give me your mind right now.

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And it flees. It will flee. Well, that's all I've got for you for today. But it's talking about cleaning up that inner part of ourselves so that the outer part can shine and be salt.

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Like the gentleman said earlier, it all fits together. So let's stand and have prayer. Oh, by the way, let me announce this for Christmas Sunday, we're going to have internet only church.

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We're going to be online church only. We won't meet here because we have so many people traveling. It'd be like six of us.

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So we might as well just worship from home together. So we'll do it that way. I'll send out an email about it, but just so you know.

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And also, we will only have the 11 o 'clock hour next

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Sunday. So no Sunday school, just the 11 o 'clock hour, because I know some of you will be doing family things early that morning and so forth.

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So we'll start at 11, promptly at 11, and we will go till roughly 1215.

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And that'll be our service for next Sunday. I had asked John King to preach for us because his very first message after he got called to preach was on Christmas Sunday.

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And he did a great job, but he already had a commitment. So it shall be me, the Lord willing. If not,

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David or Ben or somebody, but we'll see you then. So let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for your word and how you shared it with us.

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And bless this young family as they travel to San Antonio, give them safety. And Lord, give him power again as he speaks this evening, maybe even more power because maybe we were a blessing to him.

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And he'll carry that through to this evening service as well. And bless those people like you did us with his presence and that of his wife and kids.

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And Lord, thank you for this church and for the love we have for each other. Help us to spend some wonderful time together in the next hour of fellowship.