Identify Strongholds and Clean House (Video) — Shane Idleman

The Perpetual Fire on the Altar

Heaven burning, keep the fire from heaven burning. And it comes from Leviticus 6 .12. And the fire on the altar shall never go out. It shall always keep burning. Isn't that interesting in the tabernacle there of the holies of holies and where they would make a sacrifice for the sins of the people.

That fire could never go out and it was started by God. God came down and consumed the sacrifice and said keep that fire of my spirit going. Basically, I'm paraphrasing there, but the fire on the altar was to keep going.

And our application, I believe today, can be that fire of the Holy Spirit to keep that going in our hearts. And people comment, even on Facebook, or they'll tell me, but Shane, fire always had to do with judgment.

No, when you have the fire of God, it has to do with a very good thing for the believer. If you're not a believer, yeah, be worried about the fire. But if you're a believer, the fire of God can be very good because that's where boldness comes from.

That's where passion comes from. That's where wanting to do, I have a holy, righteous indignation, a fire of the Holy Spirit in my heart. That's why we sing songs, Holy Spirit, fill me. That's actually biblical.

Paul said be filled with the Holy Spirit. It's biblical to say God, I want more of you, more of your spirit, I need that fire. John said when he comes, he's gonna baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

There's that fire of God. So conviction alert, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, here it comes. The people who have a problem with that have never experienced it. If you don't like talking about the fire of God and the Holy Spirit, that's because you've never experienced it.

Because once you've experienced that, you can never go back. You can never go back. And people say, well, you talk about the Holy Spirit too much. Well, we talk about them just as much as scripture does.

It's God the Father, the Holy Spirit, His Son, the triune nature of God. Sometimes there are times to talk about. When I'm going through the Bible in Genesis, that's gonna start when the stadium is over.

I'm gonna go through the whole Bible. I wanna encourage you to be here. I'm excited about that. We're gonna learn about the Old Testament, minor prophets, major prophets, Levitical priesthood and the sacrificial system.

What does that mean for us today? It's gonna be very relevant. We're gonna talk about it. We can probably talk about all kinds of things from critical race theory to creation to all types of political hot buttons, gay pride month and LGBT agendas.

And how does that fit into scripture? Now, I'm already in Facebook jail. So I'm not gonna be sure how long we can put that out there. People, their YouTube channels are just shut down. Eric Metaxas, I don't know if you follow him.

His YouTube channel is just shut down. A friend of mine knows him. They're going after people. But we cannot capitulate and back away just because they're gonna take down videos. So, and God is doing something here, but keep that fire burning.

If you don't have that fire, ask God for it. Lord, I want that fire. I want to be able to sing and feel it. People say, well, Shane, you can't trust feelings. No, you don't, you can't. But God-given feelings are good and God-given.

Thank God for feelings. Can you imagine just having no feelings? You know, your baby's born. Here's your new baby boy. Oh, thank you. Put him there. What's for dinner? I pronounce you husband and wife.

Well, all right, big deal. I don't want to go on a honeymoon. Let's just go home and watch sports. There's no feeling. So we just come in here, it's like a cemetery. You're created to experience God. As long as those feelings line up with scripture, you're on very good ground.

Identifying Demonic Strongholds and Open Doors

So what I'm doing now this morning, the title is Identifying Strongholds and Cleaning House. Okay, identify strongholds and clean house. This is do not demonize the demonized. We're talking about the demonic realm, what they call an aspect of theology is studying the demonic realm.

And you don't want to put too much emphasis in it, but you also don't want to ignore it. So this is part two. What does it look like? If you didn't hear part one, please do because this will make a lot more sense if you listen to last week's message where I talked about how demonic influence works.

And we believe in a demonic realm because Jesus did. When you believe on me, Jesus said, you will cast out demons. How does that work, Shane? Well, you're gonna have to grab a CD on the way out because we talked about that a little bit last week.

And I'll talk about it more probably today, of course. But identifying strongholds and cleaning house has to do with the demonic realm as well because how demons will work is they will look for open doors in your life.

And once you open that door, now they have a stronghold into your heart. So what might be an issue for you might not be an issue for me. I've always told people this. You can line up marijuana, Xanax, whatever on my kitchen sink and I'll throw in the trash in a month.

But don't put a cold six pack of IPA in my refrigerator where I have to look at it every single day, right? That's gonna be a different, come on, let's be honest. You guys don't play church with me this morning.

You all have that little, I mean, you can put, honestly, you could fill our pantry with Oreos and donuts and Captain Crunch, I'll never even touch it. But you put a nice big dark chocolate on the sink with a little thing of peanut butter by it, that's gonna get tough.

And so the enemy knows, and that's why when we talk about maybe what is in your family history, it's because there could be that same type of predisposition. So if you ever hear that, my dad struggled with and my grandpa struggled with.

And you can look at where there might be strongholds in your life that you have to identify and pull down and not give the enemy a foothold into that area of life. And that's why with young kids, even as they get older, we want to guard them in the area of sexual purity and what they're exposed to at a young age because you can open that door and that door is ugly, especially where things are going.

And I talked to someone as well this week who knows somebody that has embraced transgenderism. And we often wonder, where did that come from? I mean, it was never, you know, people struggle when I was younger, but this huge push, and I believe we can open a door to that demonic realm.

We start to watch Hollywood and these superstars and the kids, if they don't have the spirit of God in them, they're going to be drawn to, oh, this is cool. This is the next thing. This is kind of rebellious.

I like it. And they begin to open their door by their mind, thinking, well, what is this about? Maybe I should consider it, maybe. And that's how the demonic realm works is there are strongholds in our life.

So if you struggle with anger, guess where he's going to shoot some fiery darts? In this area of anger and upsetting that area. If you struggle with, you name it. I mean, I could sit up here for the next 10 minutes and fill in the blank of different types of sins that are out there.

Confession, Repentance, and Practical Application

And what I decided to do this week is list some questions, and I'm hoping I can get through it, where if we answer them correctly, it can identify strongholds in our life. And I went to the top 10 questions and I said, oh, we need to talk about the top 15, and now I'm at the top 22.

So I'm hoping I can get to these because when we can identify these areas and confess and repent, you'll see tremendous healing take place. Do you know what's often the difference between, you see, let's say someone at the altar weeping over their sin and being set free, rather than someone in the back or the balcony or over here or over there that has not been set free?

Confession. It's often confession and repentance that sets them free. And the scripture I want to look at this morning, before we take a spiritual assessment that's going to be very helpful, really a spiritual assessment is this.

Here's what went wrong, here's how we fix it. Here's what went wrong and here's how we fix it. And as a pastor, that should be a goal of every sermon, is to point people back to Christ, of course. Spurgeon was a master at this.

And at the same time, here's what went wrong, here's how to fix it. They call it practical application. And if you ever go to churches that seem dead sometimes, or that you say, oh, I'm not getting much out of that, it's often because they don't give you practical application.

I've heard pastors spend a month in Leviticus, and I leave there going, boy, that's great that the 12 tribes were camped out here and this happened, and the holies of holies was this, and the brazen altar, and ah, that's wonderful, but how is it going to help me get through my marriage issues?

Uh-oh, dead silent. Shane, you have marriage issues? Who doesn't? Who doesn't? You have two sinners trying to get together. Praise God, we're doing great, but the first year, we were ready for, I don't know, divorce court.

That first year, because I'm single, she's single, like, oh, we're just so humble, and you get married, and all that is thrown out the door. You realize just how sinful you actually are. I like to go to bed early, well, I don't.

Oh, well, how's this going to work? She makes a big thing of birthdays, I never did, and so it's just this trying to work together, and the enemy will use those things also in your life. He wants the marriage to fall apart, so if you understand his tactics, that he's going after the man often in the family.

That's why you don't see a lot of men leading in the prayer meetings, or men at the altar, or men at early morning worship. You see men getting so distracted by other things because they're called to be that spiritual leader, so he's going to go after them many times.

He's also going to go after those who are in ministry, and then he wants to go after your marriage. Can you imagine, if I can get the men not following God, if I can get the marriages falling apart, you might have a nation like we see today.

The condition we're in now is directly related to the health of the family. That's why we're experiencing everything we're experiencing, is because the family unit was destroyed long ago, and that's why his attack is still on there.

I mean, it was amazing to see some of the things that came out in Father's Day. People were offended, because we can't call it Father's Day. Why not some binary name that's not offensive? I'm starting to get pretty offended myself, so if this is about being offended, then we need to change some things, and get back to what God's word says.

Oh, I'm offended, I'm offended. Get over it, the gospel will offend you. It will cut to the heart. God says, my word is like a hammer. It's like a fire. It's like a sword. All of those things are meant to destroy something, and hurt, and then ultimately to build back up.

But we shifted, well, who's going to get offended? When we need to stop and say, am I offending God? Because once you can align that up and fix that problem, everything else will fall into place. And so identifying these strongholds, we're going to look at Psalm 32 very quickly.

Psalm 32 and the Burden of Unconfessed Sin

Psalm 32, beginning in verse one. I usually use the New King James Version, and I put the bullet points here I'll look at. Blessed, now here's what you need to maybe retrain your mind, because we hear that word, we think of bling bling, for the young adults.

The older ones, you're like, what's he talking about? Bread, dough, you know, if you're older. The money, blessed, oh, I'm going to be blessed. But really, the Bible says that you are happy, you are favored, you are filled with joy when you're blessed of God.

So some of you, let me encourage you this morning, you might not ever have a big savings account, and you can still be blessed of God. Because if you take a survey of most Christians in, let's say, underground church in China, the Middle East, they're not wealthy, but they are blessed.

And so we have to remember, blessed is favored, filled with joy, so blessed is that person, filled with joy, whose transgression is forgiven. As far as the East is from the West, God forgives those sins.

And not only is it forgiven, whose sin is covered. We have to remember this, when God covers our sin, why do we keep bringing it up, meaning our past? And that happens a lot in marriage. Well, remember five years ago, this and this, and God has covered up our sin.

Blessed is the man whom the Lord does not impute iniquity. That word means guilty, God does not call you guilty anymore. If you know Jesus Christ, you've confessed Him as Lord and Savior, truly have. And not just trusting in your parents, or you go to a good school, or you own a Bible, but have truly confessed Him as Lord and Savior, and He has saved you, you are no longer guilty before God because of what Jesus Christ did.

It's very freeing, it's very, you get very emotional when you sing those worship songs, understanding what He has done for you. And in whose spirit there is no deceit, meaning once that confession takes place, there's no area of deceit in your heart, because those sins have been forgiven.

But here's the contrast, but when I kept silent, moving on in the chapter, but when I kept silent, isn't that interesting? When I kept silent about my sin, silent about my transgression, when I didn't deal with it, and what the enemy wants to do is often keep that sin covered up.

But when you bring it to the light, when you expose it, it loses its power in a very significant way. When I have kept silent, my bones grew old through my groanings all day long. Have you ever been in such a pain where your body hurts?

It's like you feel it in your bones, or there's a groaning, there's a desperation, there's a pain that is hard to explain because we're keeping silent with our sin. For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me.

So sometimes people feel the heaviness of God, instead of running to him, they run from him. They can't get away from that heaviness as they live in disobedience. And you know, friends and family member, as they're living in that disobedience, they feel the heaviness of God, they feel the pressure of life.

That sin just, it's a burden you weren't designed to carry. It's a very heaviness that rests on your shoulders. And that's why you're not joy-filled, filled with joy. That's why there's not that excitement about the things of God, because you're carrying that burden and pride tells us to just keep it in.

And God says, let it go, bring it to me. My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Vitality is energy. There's energy and there's an enthusiasm about the things of God. And all that though is turned into a drought.

And we're actually going through a very big drought right now, I don't know if you've been watching what's going on in the different dams and the different lakes. And you realize we are so reliant on God that people have no idea.

I mean, if you have another dry winter is what they call it, you're gonna start replacing your grass with decomposed granite. You're gonna start draining your pools and making them look like flower gardens.

When it starts to get the drought. And he said here that all of my passion, my energy, my zeal feels like I'm in a drought, thirsty and don't know how to satisfy that thirst. But he said here, I acknowledged my sin.

I acknowledge my sin to you, God, and my iniquity I have not hidden. So I'm not necessarily telling you to go tell everyone. Sometimes you have to be careful. You have to be strategic, because you don't want the gossipers and the back biters to take that and then to hurt you with it or to use that against you.

But there has to be a confession of sin to God. And even to those who you have wronged, probably maybe your spouse or someone. And when that confession is acknowledged, and it's no longer hidden, he said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

And then he puts on there, say la, that's like an agreement with God that let this be done. And so there's a tremendous burden that is lifted when that confession takes place and you bring something to the light.

You say, hey, I'm struggling with this. Would you pray for me? And there's something lifted because that demonic realm no longer has that power on you because it's keeping the dark hidden things in secret.

And it grows, it strengthens. Something about sin is it never remains static. You know what that word means? It's never neutral. Sin is never neutral in your life. Did you know that? It's either growing or it's withering depending on whether you're feeding or starving it.

And so if a person is dealing with a sin and they keep it hidden and they keep it hidden, it'll just keep growing and growing. And that's why the Bible talks about removing even a root of bitterness. Because that root, what happens when a root starts?

And that's where I believe a lot of things come from, problems in churches and marriages and relationships is that root of bitterness. And it's not confessed because pride won't let us confess it because we're bitter.

And if we're bitter, I'm not gonna confess this. It's their problem. It's their problem. Or unconfessed sexual sin. You talk to people like, at some point, I'll just get over this. God will set me free.

Well, you also have to do something on your end or other types of sins. If they're constantly pushed down and not brought to the surface, it will eventually cause a very, very dark thing to happen in your life because sin grows in darkness and repentance leads to freedom.

Freedom. And so I wanted you to know this morning how we open up the side room often. The prayer team would love to pray for you, even if you're a child, a teenager, a young adult. We want to, and you don't have to confess specifically.

You can just say, I need to confess something in my heart to God. Would you pray for me? And I believe we can just set people free this morning because once confession takes place, you leave here and there's a new joy.

There's a new excitement about life. Now, see, now you're gonna wanna come to Wednesday nights or Sunday mornings or whenever we do things and there's a passion. I've got to get to the house of God. I've got to experience God because I've been cleansed.

I've been set free. And like David said, after a year, can you imagine committing adultery and then killing the spouse? That's what David lived under. That guilt for, theologians are somewhat divided, but probably a year, probably a year.

And he was confronted and he finally confessed. And he said, oh, God, would you return to me the joy of my salvation? My bones have been broken and God, create in me a clean heart. Renew a right spirit within me.

God, I am broken before you and I confess before Almighty God. And now some beautiful words come out in the Psalms that David is now writing from a broken, contrite heart that has confessed its sin. And you compare that with the other Psalms that he's where he's living in darkness and depravity and the full weight of his sin is on him.

It's like, oh my, even the bones are hurting and the tears, my tears on my bed have not stopped. They're like a river and you see the contrast from being set free from the bondage of sin. Now, it doesn't mean that now you will live perfectly, but it does mean that you expose what is going on, that work of Satan and now healing can take place.

Strongholds Falling One Choice at a Time

And I have to encourage people once a week on this sometimes there's so many different varieties of how this could apply. But let's say somebody is being defeated on a stronghold time and time again. Well, let's just say marijuana, throw it out there.

Because that's very prevalent today. As soon as they legalize it, I knew, watch out. Here we go. And now you see what they're dealing with, the Valley removing cartels and different things. But let's just take that for example.

And, but I talked to another person who's been set free. So I've never had a desire. I've never touched it again. I can't believe this is amazing. This person hears it and they get discouraged. And I don't know how this works.

I just know that God doesn't always set people free. Sometimes he does, but sometimes that stronghold has to come down one brick at a time. That wall has to come down one brick at a time. Sometimes God brings the demolisher and you just demolish that brick wall.

But sometimes it's one brick at a time, one right choice at a time. And you begin to remove that stronghold by prayer and fasting. This kind cometh not out except by prayer and fasting and petitioning God and pressuring the demonic realm and pressuring and working it.

And then the whole thing begins to come down and unravel. But he keeps you discouraged because you can't, you can't relate to the other person who's just been set free. But sometimes it's a fight for some people, it's a struggle.

God, wouldn't you deliver me from this? But sometimes through that journey, God becomes even more real to you. And that relationship becomes deeper and stronger. I'm reading a small booklet, actually I just finished, it's called Hunger for Revival by Oswald J. Smith.

He said it's a very common experience to find souls kneeling at the altar and calling upon God with great anguish but who fail to receive anything. Their prayer is not answered. So he says, what is the trouble?

The trouble is what the prophets used to say, your iniquities have separated you and me. God is saying your iniquities, your sin has separated you from me and you and I cannot hear. He said, my arm is not too long that I cannot save and my ear not too heavy that I cannot hear but your sins, your iniquities have separated me from you so that I cannot hear because of that separation.

And it's an interesting concept, but when we hold unconfessed sin in, it blocks that line of communication with God. And I've seen so many people over the years, that's why it breaks my heart, they're coming in and they're even sometimes at the altar, they're praying, God, please set me free, what is going on, what is going on?

Their prayers are not being answered, it's because they're not gonna let that go. Isn't it interesting, the living water is just a step away and people don't want a drink of it. And so I want to just give you some questions to think about, I can even post these or share them, but these are areas where the enemy will come in and gain access and allow you to be in his clutches, as it were, or gripped by fear, gripped by anxiety, not seeing God move in your life because of these areas.

Forgiving Others and Rejecting Anger

So number one, have we forgiven, have we forgiven, do we cherish grudges in our heart and refuse reconciliation? And so many Christians hear that in one ear, out the next, but if you really study forgiveness, it's an amazing concept because God says, you forgive others as Christ, I've forgiven you in Christ Jesus.

It's pretty, it's a big deal. Who are we to say, no, I'm not gonna forgive. And then he gives that parable of the person who was forgiven a little bit, and then he went and got this, actually forgiven a lot, and then he went and got this guy, rang his throat, was gonna throw him in jail because he owed him a little, and that master said, you foolish, you wicked servant, I'm going to send you to the torturers because you didn't forgive in your own heart.

And so that unforgiveness can stifle prayer like nothing else that we know of because it's a wrong heart. It's holding animosity in. So are there any grudges that you cherish? Are you refusing to reconcile with someone?

That can be a stronghold. Number two, if you're saying praise God for number two, let's get off number one. You fill in the blank. Do we get angry and impatient and irritated with others? Are these uprisings happening often within us?

Now, who doesn't struggle with these things from time to time? And I hope you realize that if you're struggling with something, that's a lot different than a lifestyle of unconfessed sin and unrepentant sin and where you actually enjoy these things or these things are a mark of who you are and you're not gonna repent of it.

And I've talked to over the years, it was one of the most shocking things to me. I would talk to men at conferences, let's say about anger. Instead of repenting, the excuses were endless. Well, you don't know my spouse.

No, I don't. You don't know my situation. You're angry. You don't know what I'm going through. You don't know what I put up with. You don't know what I give. You don't know. And always the excuse, always the excuse.

That's what the lifestyle of anger is. Or my favorite, I'm just German. It's in my blood. I'm just Irish. The fighting Irish Shane, it's in me and they're proud of it. They're proud of it. And there's nothing to be proud of when it comes to anger.

The wrong type of anger. It is something that will destroy your family. It will destroy your marriages. And it has to be confessed of and saying, I'm an angry man or I'm an angry woman. I struggle with anger.

I lash out. I hurt people with my tone or with my, and once that confession takes place, there's a cleansing that also takes place. Number three, are there any feelings of jealousy? Are there any feelings of jealousy when another person is preferred before you?

And that can often turn into a bitterness, animosity. And jealousy comes in often in many different forms, many different ways. We can start to become jealous of other people. And then number four, are we offended easily?

There's a spirit of offense happening in our culture especially among young people. Everything offends them. And are we offended easily? Because what that is, is they don't want to be convicted. I'm offended by that.

I'm offended by this. I'm offended. It's all about them. Number five, have you been dishonest? Have we been dishonest? Is your business above reproach? How you handle things? Is it above reproach? Is there any shenanigans going on in finances?

Are we dishonest in this area? Number six, have we been gossiping about people? Gossip, slander, the devil loves it, God hates it. And maybe to give you the definition, gossip is telling someone something that's true, they just don't need to know.

Slander is saying something that's not true and you're slandering them and hurting them to usually to put them down to elevate you. And some of you might be saying, I'm dealing with a lot of stuff on this list.

And who doesn't struggle with a lot of these things? Do we criticize others? Are we unloving, harsh and severe in our tone? Basically a fault finder? Boy, I've never heard it this quiet in this church in a long time.

Where's a pen? But guys, be encouraged, we're digging deep. We're digging deep. To experience the wells of revival and change, we've got to dig deep. You've got to dig deep to get to the water. I don't know what it is out here, but when I used to be in construction, you can find water maybe at 30, 40, 50 feet, sometimes 300 feet because you have to dig down to find that.

The golden things that God wants for us sometimes take a lot of digging. So are we unloving? Are we harsh in our tones? Number eight, do we rob God? Have we stolen time or things that belong to Him? Have we robbed God?

Giving, Stewardship, and Trusting God

And I thought about that a lot this week. Like what exactly would that look like? Maybe because if God calls us to be a good steward and we're not stewarding ourselves or our resources wisely, we could be robbing God.

And Malachi the prophet talked about that. How have we robbed you, God? They said, how have we robbed you? And God says, with giving, not giving of yourself, but also your money. And if you've been coming here even a short amount of time, you know we don't talk about this topic often.

It's usually because of what people think with the money in church. So we said from the get-go, we're not even gonna mention it. The true givers will give. But what I struggle with, I'll just tell you.

Here's one of my faults as a pastor. You guys ready for this? Is because I don't like this subject so much in the church, I don't talk about it much. And it's doing you a disservice. It is actually doing you a disservice because when you start to give back to God, what they call tithe, when you start to give back to God, it really is a heart check.

We see what really owns us by our pocketbook, by our checkbook and our calendar. You look at those two things. So I've had to struggle with that over the years to make sure I'm talking enough about this.

And that's why I'm glad when I go through the Bible, I'll be able to bring it up more. But because of the, just maybe growing up, the money aspect of church, you know, it's every service. Come on, I know there's 10 of you that can give $1 ,000 today.

Come on, we got to get those kids some air conditioning. Those little stinkers are all hot over there. And if you could just find it in your heart to give a little bit. Oh, and then after the service, I'm going to do another collection and we're going to do a giving fund and we're going to have a big thermometer or whatever they call it, big thing here.

We're going to hit our goal up here every week. What can you commit to before you leave? Could you fill out a commitment card? And they spend 30 minutes. You want me what? Yeah, we do. Oh yeah, we do have air conditioning, by the way.

But the funny thing about that is it's a swamp cooler. That doesn't work too good in the summer. So we are getting quotes on putting a good air conditioning unit in that building next door. So if anyone's convicted, I, you know, just sharing that with you.

And I personally never like passing the plate. It's kind of, you know, some churches do it. I'm not saying it's not good to do. I might get to heaven and God say, I'm saying you really missed it on the passing plate thing.

But it's just the way it makes people feel and things like that. But giving can also be a form of worship to God. So when you give to God, giving is a form of worship. Time, money, resources, energy, all those things.

And if we never talk about it, you miss a very important biblical principle about giving back to God. And even the tithe that is, you know, 10 is where that number comes from. And I love how the people who are convicted about this topic always come up and say, pastor, you know we don't live under that anymore.

Well, God loves a cheerful giver. It actually might be more than 10%. How do you know? But see, they use it as an excuse because most people, generally speaking, will give about 1%. That doesn't hurt too much.

But you start talking about 10%, that's a car payment. See, that's where it hurts. But I think we should structure our life in such a way that God's bill is the first bill. If I can't pay God, if I can't pay God, if I can't pay God when I pay my car payment, we have a problem there.

So we've always, from the day we got married, to make sure we live in such a way that the 10 right off the top, before even taxes, or take home, however you want to do it, but that is to God. And if we can't make it based on that, then we need to live below our means, even more so.

And it's been hard, it's not easy. So I feel like there's so many people that could be helped in the area of finances if they would put God first, and they would begin to give back to God. And it's not that the church needs it.

What it is, it's a gauge to the heart. Because if we have a tight pocketbook, that means we have a tight heart. What it boils down to also is, oh, I can't give God that much because I don't trust that he's gonna see me through.

It doesn't boil down to a trust issue. We went through this, Morgan, remember 2009, I stopped paying tithe for about, I don't know, a month, till I was convicted and realized that's not gonna help, because it was a very low point in construction.

We were pulling out of savings every month, all the time. And I realized, oh, wait a minute, I'm just not trusting God. I'm thinking, oh, Shane, you gotta hold this, you gotta keep some, because I can't help you now, and I don't trust you, God, to provide.

So it has to do with the trust issue, financial issue, what's really got our heart, because we should be able to give back to God. And so I'm not a person who teaches you have to give the tithe, but I think it's a good place to start.

The only thing you'll find in the New Testament is that God loves a cheerful giver. And if you wanna get technical, if you go back even to the Old Testament, it was more than 10%. It's probably upwards of, what, 30%, I think, by the time they gave us certain things, and first fruits, and all these different things.

So back to this point that wasn't supposed to take so long, do we rob God? Because if a person, I believe, and I do believe this, if a person is coming to church, let's say this is your church, whatever the church, and they're not tithing, they're not giving, there's some type of issue there.

There's something going on in the heart. And I've asked people, and they'll be honest with me, they'll say, I just don't feel good about giving to the church. Or, you know, I'm in a tight spot financially right now.