Are You 'Playing' Church — Shane Idleman

Jesus’ Warning About Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit

Matthew, chapter 12, is where we're at, verse 33. But I wanna put verse 33 into context. And how do you do that? You read a couple verses before that. So Matthew 12, 31, here's a famous passage that a lot of people talk about.

Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. And if you're wondering if I've committed that sin, well, I'm not gonna tell you tonight, you gotta go back and listen to the message from two weeks ago, I spoke on this already.

In a nutshell, if you're worried about this, you probably haven't committed the sin. The sin is you're rejecting the call of God, the conviction of the Holy Spirit to bring you to God, and you're rejecting that call, and you're blaspheming.

That's why he says all other sins can be forgiven because we're all sinners, but then when we come to the cross and come to Christ and repent, all sins are forgiven. But if you continue to ignore that conviction of the Holy Spirit and say, I don't want God, I don't want God, I don't want God, the day we breathe our last breath, it will be the unpardonable sin.

It's a sin that is not pardonable because we didn't repent and believe. But the context of that, and I think John MacArthur noted this too in his study Bible, is that they were attributing the works of God to Satan.

That's what these people were doing. They were attributing the works of God to Satan, and this reflected their heart. So as they were saying, listen, Jesus, everything you're doing, that's not of God, that's of Satan.

That's not of God, that's of Satan. Jesus, you're of Satan. Can you believe these guys? They're saying, Jesus, you're of Satan. And he's saying, just look at the fruit. People are being raised from the dead, lives are being restored, blind eyes are seeing, look at the fruit.

That's not, Satan cannot do that. That'd be a divided kingdom. So that's the context. Then we go into Matthew 12, 33, and Jesus tells them, either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for a tree is known by its fruit.

Religious Hypocrisy Comes From the Heart

You brood of vipers. How can you, being evil, speak good things? And you have to understand the whole setting here, historical setting, is he's talking to the religious leaders. He's talking to the religious leaders of the temple, the sacrifice, the priests.

These were the religious leaders of Jesus's day. Can you, how he's talking to them is unbelievable, but he's calling them on the carpet, because in order to wake people up sometimes, you have to hit them hard.

If Jesus were just coddled, right, as I said before, just coddled and never confronted, these people would have never changed. Many of them never did, but some of them did. So he said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give an account of this on the day of judgment.

For by your words, you will be justified, and by your words, you will be condemned. And I'm gonna take some time, but I'm gonna get through all of that pretty soon. But I just feel the need to maybe say to some of you that this might be the most important message that some of you have heard before.

I don't know how long you've been in church, I don't know how long you've been coming here, I don't know what you've heard about God's word, but this is a very important topic, because Jesus is saying, by their fruits, you will know them.

In essence, many say to me, Lord, Lord, and he says, depart from me, I don't even know you. There's no fruit. We can't just say Jesus and not have any fruit. We can't just say, I've been raised in church, I think I know about God, and there's no fruit.

For out of the abundance of the heart, your mouth is gonna speak. And that's what he's talking about here. It's a very important topic. It's funny, I noted that religious people often speak good things, but their hearts are evil.

If you find religious people, I'm talking about Christians, I'm just talking about religious people. They'll say good things, but their heart is just a cesspool. It's evil. And that's what Jesus is doing.

He's calling them on the carpet. Later on, he would say, you whitewash tombs. You look very nice, but you're full of dead man's bones on the inside. It's always an issue of the heart. And then what he's saying is out of the abundance of your heart, your mouth is speaking.

You're saying my words are of Satan. You're saying that I'm against God. You're on fruit. Your own heart is deceiving you. For out of the abundance of that deception, you're speaking these things. So that's what he's saying there.

So the first point on this, religious hypocrisy comes from the heart. Religious hypocrisy comes from the heart. God rebuked this sin as much as any other sin. If you want to challenge that, go throughout your Bible.

I could be wrong, add it all up. But to me, it appears that Jesus rebuked hypocrisy just as much as any other sin. Why? Because you say you're representing God, but you're not. That he takes that very seriously.

These people are saying we are children of Abraham. We are God's seed. And John the Baptist even challenged him. He said, even now the ax is laid at the root, bear fruits worthy of repentance. Don't say that Abraham is your father if you're not in right relationship with God.

It's not possible. So God rebuked this sin of hypocrisy more than any other. First John 4 .20 says, if a man says that he loves God, but hates his brother, he is a liar. If we say, well, I love God, but I hate men, or I do this thing and evil's coming from my heart, then we're a liar, it's hypocrisy.

What about Matthew 7 .5? Jesus said, a hypocrite judges his brother without first looking in the mirror. And throughout the scripture, he'll say, you hypocrites. You hypocrites. Who warned you? You hypocrites.

You travel land and sea. You go back and forth and try to win one proselyte. And when you do, you make him twice a son of hell as you. You hypocrites. And he would go throughout the scripture saying that.

And here's why, billions of people on the planet, I don't know how many people are here, six billion numbers out there, billions of people, think about this, have religion, but not a true relationship.

How many people have religion? Go travel. And you ask them if they're right with God. Sure. Go to China. Go to Pakistan. Go to India. Everywhere you go, people say, yeah, other than some atheists here and there, but most people think they're religious and they're good.

So billions of people have religion, but very few have a relationship with God. And that's why Jesus said, these people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

Don't you think that's a dangerous spot to be? Do you ever run into people that say the right things? They just have all the right religious talk, but their hearts are evil. Their hearts are dead inside.

And sometimes it takes a message like this to wake that person up, because they're not gonna wake up on their own. They're not gonna wake up watching Oprah. They're not gonna wake up watching the new Rob Bell show.

They're not gonna wake up watching, just nothing's waking them up. Joelstein's not gonna wake them up, right? I joke about that often. He's not gonna wake them up. That's why they need to be woken up.

Whoa, whoa, is he talking to me? Is he talking to me? Yes, maybe. But that's a good thing because God will use that to draw you to him. Look, Jesus is using harsh, you think Brutal Vipers? These are the men who wanted to kill him after a lot of what he said.

We need to kill this man. He's coming here, he's challenging our authority. And here's a quote by A .W. Tozer. He said, millions of professed believers talk as if Christ were real. And they act as if he were not.

And always our actual position is to be discovered by the way we act, not by the way we talk. Now, I do wanna throw in a big disclaimer right here. And again, remind you that I'm not talking about perfection.

We all stumble, we fumble. We've got kids that aren't living right or relatives that aren't living right. They've drifted from God. And it's not this hard stern message that you gotta do everything just right.

You gotta just dot that I, you gotta cross that T, you better be praying three hours a day, you better be in your work. You know, we're not talking about that. We're talking about a heart. You know the heart that's set towards God, right?

They might drift away, but their heart, they're like, their heart's, I hate this sin and I'm being pulled back to God. That type of person is in what you call, they're struggling with sin. They're not a hypocrite.

The difference is a hypocrite deceives on purpose. They're trying to deceive. They're just a deceiver. They're hypocrites. Basically, if you had time to go into the original language of what that word means, hypocrite, I don't wanna pronounce it wrong.

It's like having a mask. It's like they're this character and then now they're this, oh, see? See, now I'm this nice little guy. Oh, no, now I'm the devil. I'm a hypocrite. I'm changing my mask. I'm deceiving you.

That's a lot different than a person struggling. Hey, Shane, I need help. I'm in sin, I'm caught. I wanna be back with God. Please don't call me a hypocrite. I'm struggling. I need help. And I get tired of so many people saying, I don't go to church.

There's so many hypocrites. Well, there are a lot of hypocrites or people struggling in sin. There's a big difference there. I don't think there's a lot of hypocrites at Westside Christian Fellowship.

I think there's a lot of people struggling in sin. So I wanna make sure that you understand that point because a lot of people can think that, man, I'm slipping. I'm having a hard time following God. I must be a hypocrite.

Not necessarily. If your heart's set on God and you wanna get back and right relationship with him and it's crying Abba Father and you need help. Remember the analogy I gave a few weeks back about the pig and the lamb?

Both of them are stuck in the mud and the sin represents the mud that we all fall into. But the pig wallows and enjoys the mud. It's just soaking it up. It just loves it. It even leads other little piggies in.

But what's the lamb? Lamb gets out of the mud and cries out. Hey, I hate this miserable condition. Get this off of me. I hate this. So we see a big difference there between the struggler and the hypocrite.

The saved prodigal and the unsaved hypocrite. There's a difference there. It's okay to let people know because there's hope for both camps. One needs, both of them need to repent actually. They need, one needs to repent for salvation.

One needs to repent to be in back and right relationship with God. That's a beautiful word, repentance. Wonderful word. I don't know why it upsets so many people because it challenges us is why. Often the only way to awaken the walking dead is with words that confront.

Here we see Jesus using cutting words to spark change. You brood of vipers. And the simple truth is many go to church sporadically but would rather sit at home and do nothing. They are disengaged and bored during worship when they do attend.

Genuine Faith Produces Genuine Fruit

Their social media posts resemble Hollywood, not the work of the Holy Spirit. They choose friends who compliment their worldly lifestyle rather than friends who challenge them to live for God. They look forward to consuming alcohol and partying and avoid prayer and Bible study.

The things of the world are exciting and the things of God are dull. Their movie and video choices look no different than what the culture promotes. Their conversations at work include every topic except God.

And at home, their words are shallow and lifeless. Their waking thoughts are either focused on wealth, pleasure, entertainment. They have religion but not a genuine relationship with God. I mean, if that rings true in a person's life, you need to seriously reconsider, do I have a genuine relationship with God or am I just going through the motions?

Because if the things of the world, I hate to burst your bubble, but if the things of the world excite and the things of God dull, if you're looking forward to sin, you're looking forward to all these things that have nothing to do with God and you have to go to, you might need a heart check.

You might have religion like these people had and not a genuine relationship because those who have a genuine relationship, although they might participate sometimes and although the Facebook post might not be perfect, I'm not saying that, you can tell where the heart's at by the fruit.

If there's no fruit, you have to wonder, is Jesus speaking to me? And he might be, this is an important topic. Why is this happening? Because these people are spiritually dead and I'm not just trying to upset people, I'm trying to show you that the fruit doesn't lie.

The fruit doesn't lie. If there's no fruit, if I talk to, you just see no fruit, that's a dangerous spot to live. If it's not, show me one scripture that supports that. One scripture that supports that a genuine believer will have zero fruit.

I'd love to see that scripture. Doesn't mean they won't struggle, doesn't mean they won't wander, doesn't mean there won't be challenges, doesn't wonder the question sometimes, but if there's no fruit, you have to wonder what tree they're grounded, what soil are they living in?

Because godly, genuine faith produces godly fruit. And this is the climate where the majority of religious people live in America. That's why these kind of messages shock people. I mean, they're just shocked.

Is he challenging me? Is that, I can't believe what that guy's saying because this culture, this is the American church, folks. What I just read is most of the Christian young adults with this would apply to them.

You go to Facebook, you wonder if they wanna be a porn star or even go to church. They're all caught up in the world. Everything's about the world. The things of God are boring, they're dry, they're dull, they're dead.

But if you have the Holy Spirit of God residing in you, there's a cry for more of God. There is, but you cannot find scriptural support the other way. And I just saw this weed. You guys know the boxer Floyd Mayweather?

He posted this on Instagram. No, I don't follow him and I don't have Instagram, but I did read it somewhere. He said, yes, I think he was talking to Justin Bieber, who just got it, bragging, got a new 14-passenger jet.

So he said, yes, I got a 14-passenger jet, gotta give them another reason to hate, but I will motivate the people that are ambitious and wanna be winners in life. I am guilty, I am materialistic, and I am motivated by money.

But God is first in my life. Really? How in the world do you come up with that? You think he would like this message so far? What? This is the culture we live in. I can party, I can buy this, I'm materialistic, I love my, but, but God's, no, he's not a first priority.

The fruit doesn't lie. The fruit doesn't lie. You're gonna go see a little grape on a watermelon bush. Are watermelon bushes called that or vines? You know, you're gonna find a chestnut over on the apple tree.

I mean, if there's no fruit. Now, I'm not questioning this guy's heart. He could be just, well, I don't know, he might hear this and then come after me, so I better just stop there. I can't outbox him.

But I wouldn't mind if you heard this, because you're challenging him. Do you have genuine fruit? He might be in the prodigal state, drifted from God, loving money, but still, I love God, but money, and there's a battle there, you know?

But this is, the majority of the Christian community lives in this world, that they can enjoy everything the world has to offer, pursue everything the world has to offer, their Facebook looks like the world, everything, but God's still a priority.

No, he's not. Just shoot people straight. The fruit doesn't lie. And that's what Jesus is saying here. And here's a sermon in the nutshell. Get the heart right, and the rest falls into place. So no matter what you're going through right now, get the heart right.

Surrender the Heart and Put Christ at the Center

The rest falls in place. How many of you guys saw the heaven video last week? Some of you were here, I think, to that. The one of the firemen in there, I got to know him pretty well, and they invited me to speak at a fireman's marriage conference, me and Morgan, in February.

And I said, sure, I'll do it. Once I committed to it, he says, I've got to give four one-hour messages in one day on marriage. Like four of them, four hours? I don't even do that on Saturday. Yeah, four, I'm like, here's what they all boil down to.

Get the heart right, and the rest falls into place. And I'm not joking. If I could get away by just saying that, of course you can, but get the heart right, because everything you're working on, realistic expectations, love your spouse, overlook, remove bitterness, unforgiveness, what the truth about sex, meeting each other's needs, all these things, get the heart right, everything else falls in place.

Because it all comes back to that. What I'm trying to do, they probably don't know, is I'm trying to bring all those points back to this. Is Christ central in your life? Is he the foundation? Are you filled mightily with the Spirit of God?

Is God the true priority? Because, and everything else will fall in place. Now, it doesn't mean you never need counseling. I understand there's circumstances, but the majority of people don't need counseling, they need Christ.

They don't need more advice, they need full surrender. Number two, the religious deception comes from the heart. Religious deception comes from the heart. These religious leaders were deceiving the people.

Religious Deception and the Test of Words and Actions

Wolves in sheep's clothing. And do you know a viper has to be close enough to strike? Right, he said, you vipers, people get close enough and then they strike. And you have to be careful with religious people.

You have to watch their words and their actions. Too many people just look at the words. And then they get burned and they go, what happened? Words and actions over a course of time. Watch them, the fruit will not lie.

And I asked a lady if I could have permission to tell her story. We're trying to help her sell, well, the church kind of, well, I don't know if we're helping her, we just gave her some advice and she's trying to sell a drum set, a very nice drum set on Craigslist.

So if anybody's interested in a nice drum set, she has one. And she got a phone call from this guy and he said, I'm gonna use the drums for a worship service down in LA, winning inner city kids to Christ and all these things.

And then she went on to say, he offered me $1 ,500 cash. It was a thousand less than I was asking. He backed his vehicle up to the walkway to load up the drums. When this guy walked out, he was all smiles and two Bibles in his hand.

When inside, he opened with prayer and then set up the drums and started to sing a beautiful praise song. He then asked if I would play the piano and he would accompany me. Rule number one, don't let him in the house, have the drums out in the garage or something.

After the song, he went on to tell me how God has gifted me to do great things. Then he proceeded to tell me that he has, doesn't have the 1 ,500. He has $50 cash and he could write me a check for the money for the rest.

Ooh, sounds pretty good, right? Ah, ah, ah, deception. That's what these guys, come on, man. He had worship music on and two Bibles? That's pretty good. No, it's cheesy. I mean, if somebody comes walking to me like that, phone, come on, because they have to prove it.

That's what happened here. Then he talked about the purpose for the drums in his ministry and in the inner city and how music would bring the youth to Christ. In a nutshell, she had a friend of hers there, so that was good.

They told the man no, so he left. Comes back, she hears the worship music blaring down the street and gets out and says, I have a word from the Lord, from you. Just points to some scripture and here it is.

And she's like, bye, leave. What happened there? He's saying all the right things. But this parallels perfectly to what we're talking about. The words and actions didn't match. You don't say, oh, I love I'm coming down there and then you kind of pull a fast one, oh, I only have $50.

I mean, that's con artist rule 101, class 101, right? Just, oh, I don't have it. Honestly, we said, hey, we're the inner center ministry, check out our website, pray about it, the Lord's direct you and you can't sell it.

You know, you're honest and upfront with people. So his words, I'm coming to check out your drum set for the 1500 and then his actions, I don't have the money, right there. Words and actions don't match.

Also, too religious, too phony baloney, no sincerity. These kind of guys are too religious. You ever hear the too religious? I mean, they're talk and they're just, oh, man. Phony baloney, it's too religious.

Come down off your high horse. That's what these guys were. They were walking around, parading around. Oh, God is this, oh, God is that. And they're praying and they're saying this and praying in the streets and giving of our alms.

Look at how much money and just too religious. And Jesus said, do what they do, but please don't do what they say. Do what they do. So the words and the actions weren't there. And the third thing, this is huge.

They try to control you. They'll try to control you, especially with the word of God. If you ever have to point to a scripture and say, thus sayeth the Lord, I have a word for you, be careful. He's trying to manipulate the situation.

God doesn't work that way. God doesn't work that way. If you wanted the man to have the drum set, he probably would have opened up a financial door for this lady some other way and put it on her heart.

He said something, he said, hey, that sounds great. Let me pray about it. And it would have been, God would have been in the whole thing. God does not work like this in confusion and chaos and deception.

The prince of darkness appears as an angel of light. Never forget that. Hope my voice makes it. The prince of darkness appears as an angel of light. People say, oh, I'm worried, but you don't have to be because if you use wisdom, if you're filled with the spirit, if you take things to prayer, if you judge actions and words over time and you're patient and you wait on God, you cannot be led astray.

Those are safeguards, spiritual safeguards that will keep you safe because you're using wisdom. You're filled with the spirit of God. You're allowing to be, you're waiting on him. You're allowing, you're being patient.

But doesn't the prince of darkness appear as an angel of light? What do you think if we could interview Billy Ray Cyrus right now? What do you think he'd say about his daughter? Say, what happened? What happened?

I mean, when Hollywood mocks you, you got problems. I just feel for them. I know they were raised in a Christian home, Christian church. I know he'd probably say, I'd say, what happened, Billy? The prince of darkness appeared as an angel of light.

And he leads us down. Look at that, see? See, look at that. I know it's Hollywood. I know it's this. But they just lead you down. Same thing, we see this in marriages that are just unbelievable. I mean, I can share horror stories with you of people that don't go here and you say, what happened?

Well, they seem like a good person. I mean, yeah, there were some red flags. They're very angry and they drank and they hit things. But I thought I could change them. That's why they're called red flags.

That's why you date and you watch the words and the actions. I don't give a darn what somebody tells me. I wanna see actions over the course of time. We've had people come in here. I remember one guy came with his family, he said, oh, we wanna be part of your leadership team at this church.

And he said all the right things. He said, well, let's go to dinner. You know, he wanted to go to dinner. And I told my wife, I said, we can sit at dinner and he can tell me what we wanna hear for an hour and a half.

Doesn't show me anything. I wanna see you clean the restrooms or usher for six months. I wanna see you pick up trash. Well, never see him again. What happened? Words and actions. You gotta put the two together.

Watch them over time. They can't lie. That's why I said over time. Because people can put on, people can say the right things and they'll even go to church. You know, especially when people start dating, you're a Christian, I'm a Christian too.

What church? I don't go to church. But I'll go with you. And then they're going with you for the wrong reason. There's a lot of people that go to church for the wrong reason. And then when they get married, all hell breaks loose.

And you say, what happened? Religion, not a relationship. The words and the actions didn't match. And Jesus said, either make the tree good and it's fruit good or else make the tree bad and it's fruit bad.

For a tree is known by its fruit. Can you guys really tell I'm trying to get that point across? A tree is known by its fruit. So you can be, would you please be fruit inspectors? Somebody wants your daughter, date your daughter, you better be a fruit inspector.

He comes over, you're out on the couch cleaning the 12 gauge, right? I can't even imagine that right now. I'm gonna build my daughter's little houses by mine and they don't need to get married. Randy told me that changes as they get older, but right now it's not changing.

My wife said, well, pray for their future husbands. No way, that's not even crossed my mind. There's no future husbands. Lord, come back before then, because that's, oh, you guys got me off track. But it's okay to be a fruit inspector.

Actually, you should be a fruit inspector more than a word inspector. People say the right things, but I wanna see the fruit over time because the fruit doesn't lie. The fruit will not lie. Number three thing we learned from this is idle words come from the heart.

Idle Words and Accountability Before God

But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give an account of it on the day of judgment. For by your words, you will be justified and by your words, you will be condemned. What Jesus is basically saying here is when someone gives a testimony, they use words, right?

Or by what these Pharisees were saying, their words were testifying to the condition of their heart. By your words, Pharisees, you're saying that I'm of Satan. You're saying that this is not of God. You're saying all these things.

Your very words are gonna condemn you. Out of the abundance of your heart, your mouth is speaking, and those idle words are going to condemn you. It's interesting, the word idle there is argos, and it basically means lazy, unproductive, and pointless words.

And it made me really think this week. We should take stewardship over our words. Our words should not be lazy and pointless and unproductive. God wants our words to carry weight. Life and death are in the power of the tongue.

Our words, giving account for what we say because out of the abundance of the heart, our mouth is speaking, building people up or pulling them down. Idle promises as well, and I wanna say just something on that.

I would just encourage people, when you make a commitment to something in this church or at your job or somewhere, keep the commitment. Keep the commitment. I would say that's one area that West Side Christian needs to work on.

We have people commit for children's ministry, commit for the hospital ministry, commit for the, I mean, every area. They commit words, but actions don't follow. They don't show up. We never hear from them.

What happened here? So I would, in other words, don't say it. If our yes can't be yes and our no can't be no, I'd rather just a person say, nope, I can't do that. But because we wanna be people pleasers, right?

Sure, I'd love to. I can help out. And then when the day comes, oh, why did I commit to that? Well, God is probably teaching you and me to keep our commitments. Idle words. We don't want those words to become idle.

We want those words to be, we say we're gonna do something, we wanna do it. And then verse 38, you have your Bibles, you can keep reading out verse 38. Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, teacher, we wanna see a sign from you.

The Sign of Jonah and the Resurrection of Christ

But he answered and said to them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The men of Nineveh will rise up in judgment with this generation and condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah indeed a greater than Jonah is here. And the queen of the south will rise up in judgment and this generation and condemn it for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon indeed a greater than Solomon is here.

Now, here's the difference. Saying, hey, teacher, give us a sign. You know, at first you read and go, why is he being so mean? Well, because there's a difference. There was mockery in their voice. There's a difference.

If you're here tonight and you say, Lord, I want to know you. I want to know your truth. Would you show me? God, I'm asking you to reveal yourself. Show me who you are. I need proof. I need hope. I need something.

Would you show me? And it's coming from a sincere heart. That's a good thing. But they were saying, oh, show us. Prove you're the son of God. Come, get out of here. There's mockery. And I'm thinking, if you saw the dead being raised, you saw the blind seeing, the deaf healed, the mute, you saw these things.

What other sign do you want? Because no matter what he did, they would have attributed it to Satan. And that's why I said this one final sign, as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish, three days, I'm gonna be in the heart of the earth, three days, and on the third day, I will rise again.

Nobody can predict that. Nobody can even do that. That would have been the greatest sign, especially in those days. For those who followed scripture, followed the prophetic elements, and were gonna follow this, how cool would that be to actually see that happen?

And here's a side note, mockery, hypocrisy, and harsh words, all are birth in the womb of pride. Those who mock God, if there's hypocrisy, you're mocking God, all of that is birth in the womb of pride.

Humility as the Path to God’s Anointing

And I wanna talk about humility just for one minute. Remember that King David had to tend sheep. After he was anointed king, he had to go and tend sheep. Moses had to live on the backside of the desert after being a prince in Egypt.

Paul was humiliated and had to be led around while he was blind. And Elisha, the great prophet, had to be fed by birds and a widow. Embarrassing, humiliating. And in the same way, God can't use a man or a woman greatly until he breaks them greatly.

Stop fighting what you're going through and allow God to break your heart. Stop fighting the humiliating, the humbling process. Me too. I can sit in the front row and say, oh, listen to me, tell me, tell me, stop fighting against God and allow that humiliating process, the refiner's fire to break and to mold and to shape, allow that humiliating process to take place because you can't fight against it.

And that's why many people are miserable because they're fighting against that humbling process. Listen, great men and women of God, far greater than us, were greatly humbled. I mean, can you imagine your anointed king?

Now go tend the sheep for a while. What? Elisha calls down fire from God and devours an entire altar. They said, oh, let the God who answers by fire, let him be God. And the fire fell. Now birds are feeding him?

Ravens? Crows? Oh, and then he has to go, the brook dries up, he has to go to a widow's house. Through this time, in the lives of many great men and women of God that I know, they've allowed this humility to break them instead of make them rigid and hard.