How To Actually Test Fruit

How do you know when something is truly the Holy Spirit — and when it only appears spiritual?

In this episode, Codie teaches from scripture on what it actually means to test the spirit, why believers are commanded to discern, and how to recognize the difference between true spiritual fruit and counterfeit influence.

Using passages like First Epistle of John 1 John 4, Gospel of Matthew Matthew 7, and Epistle to the Hebrews Hebrews 5, this conversation breaks down practical biblical tests every believer should apply when evaluating spiritual voices, atmospheres, leadership, and manifestations.

This episode explores:
• why not everything spiritual is led by the Holy Spirit
• how fruit reveals what gifts can hide
• why discernment is not suspicion
• how truth, correction, and scripture expose what is truly operating
• why many believers miss unhealthy spiritual influence

If you have ever felt something was off but could not explain why, this teaching will help strengthen biblical discernment and deepen your ability to recognize what truly carries the Spirit of God.

The goal is not fear. The goal is maturity, clarity, and deeper intimacy with Jesus.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, wow, we just got back from Uganda. If you didn't listen to our last episode, go back and listen to that. We um kind of do an overall recap of what all God did. It was a powerful mission trip. We pray that if you are interested in missions and you would like to step out in faith in that area out onto the water as Peter did, we ask that you would um connect with us on our website at www.globalfootprints ministries.com and we will get in touch with you and let you know about our next mission trip that we plan to do in 2027. And you can join us. That would be a lot of fun. Anybody who wants to expand in missionary work, I would highly encourage you to come alongside us, join us on one of those mission trips to learn and to receive that mantle and get that impartation and um yeah, step into what God's building you um building in you as a missionary. Today, guys, I want to talk about a topic that I think is heard in the church, but it's not understood in the church. And so I want to bring a little bit of clarity on what does it mean to actually test the spirit? We read that in scripture, you know, it says, um, look at the fruit, test the spirit. Um, you know, when Jesus was uh confronted by Satan during his um wilderness season, the 40 days, you know, Satan said all the right things. He quoted scripture, um, he preached the word to Jesus, yet it was a bad spirit speaking. And I think that we need to get to a place in the body of Christ where we can discern this because from my experience, there's many ministries and ministry church, many many churches that they sound good. Um, they're doing all the right things, they are serving the right way, they are doing all these things for the kingdom of God, and it looks beautiful, it looks like Jesus, it sounds like and feels like the Holy Spirit, yet it's not him, it's not Jesus, it's not the Holy Spirit. It is very similar to what Jesus encountered with Satan in the wilderness. He was saying all the right things, doing all the right things, declaring all the right things, yet it was Satan who was speaking. So today we're gonna start in 1 John 4 1. It says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are of God. Many believers know how to receive words, fill atmospheres, and respond emotionally, but very few are taught how to actually test what they are experiencing. Because, guys, if I'm honest, not everything feels that feels spiritual is the Holy Spirit. Not everything that moves in the room is God. And not everything that carries power carries purity. I've seen time and time again powerful ministers with great gifts of healing and miracles and signs and wonders, and they have expressed good fruit, they have expressed the Holy Spirit, yet their hearts were far from him. So, guys, this is a topic that is um very special to me because I've seen God take me to places and show me things. We have to understand that when we ask for a gift of discernment, and there's a difference in having discernment and having the gift of discernment, guys. We need discernment in the body of Christ, but do know this. When God gives you that gift of discernment, your heart's gonna be broken, you're gonna be crushed, you're gonna be betrayed, you're gonna be attacked, you're gonna be hurt, and it's a painful gift to carry because yes, we all wanna see the beautiful things, we all want to see the angels, and you know, the yes, we want to see the face of Jesus and all of those things, and those things come with it, but guys, you're still gonna see the darkness, you're still gonna see the betrayal, you're still still gonna see the idols and the adultery that is in the hearts of God's people. And it's not to condemn them, it's not to point out that they're a bad person, it's truly for restoration and repentance and healing. That is your job as someone who carries the gift of discernment. God shows you these things so that you can warn his people. Because he told Ezekiel, he said, if you don't warn my people, then I'm actually gonna count their sin as your sin. The blood is gonna be on your hands if I show you something and you don't expose it and you don't bring it out and you don't warn them. So God, so guys, God is showing you these things for a reason for restoration and healing. This is not for condemnation or humiliation, but it's to protect the sheep. It's to help the person come to healing and deliverance and repentance, but it's it's doublefold because you are helping the person because these leaders are actually imparting this contamination to God's people, his sheep. And so not only are you should you have a heart and compassion to help the person or the leader, but it also begins to become a domino effect into the flock, and the flock begins to get healed, the flock begins to get delivered. So it does more than I think that we realize as believers. Not an angel of darkness, an angel of light. Guys, counterfeit rarely looks dark at first. It more than likely appears bright, gifted, persuasive, and very impressive. I knew a leader once that everybody continued to talk about the greatness of this leader, the how how great he was at expressing the word of God, and how he broke it down great. And they all just I just began to see this exaltation of this leader, this worship of this leader. This um he be he really became an idol um to this group of people, and the more and more I stayed, and the more and more I discerned, and the more things God revealed to me, I was sick in my spirit, and my spirit was so grieved. And I remember it, you know, years of intercession, years of crying out to God, asking him to forgive the people, to forgive the leadership, to to, you know, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. But the thing is, is when God revealed to me that the spirit behind the leadership it was not Jesus. And it was not the Holy Spirit. But 2 Corinthians 11 14, Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Satan enters a room with language that believers trust. Why? Because they lack discernment. Why do people lack discernment actually? Let's go there, let's ask that question. Why do people have such a hard time seeing truth? Because these people are wounded. Because these people are, they haven't been through healing themselves, they haven't been delivered, they haven't um stood up and confronted generational curses in their family. Um, they just went to the altar, they raised their hand, they said, I believe in Jesus, and the church tells them, Oh, you're good now. That's all you have to do. Now just walk forward and serve Jesus. And then they step into a place of works. And they don't say this, but this is what the Spirit encourages them to do. If you do these things, if you serve in children's ministry, if you if you feed the hungry, if you do the homeless ministry, if you do all of these things, then then that is that is you walking in the right path and doing the right things, and you're good now. No, those are all works. Because the thing is, is in church what I've discovered is that we get to salvation and we receive salvation, but we never learn how to walk into sanctification. We we we skip that process and we just sit around and serve waiting for Jesus to come back. And that's deception, that's not the right spirit. Because Jesus is coming back, guys, for a bride that is spotless, wrinkle-free, and without blemish. Now, yes, the Bible does say that those who are in Christ, there's no no more condemnation. But that doesn't mean that you don't still need to clean up your past life. That doesn't mean that you still don't have strongholds in your mind that need to be demolished. That doesn't mean that there aren't spirits that still have open doors in your life because of your generational sin and because of your own personal sin from that generational sin that caused you to fall, that you don't need to go back just like Jesus did and take back the keys from the pit of hell over your life. Many people want to carry their cross and they even want to die on the cross, but they never go back to hell and get the keys, they never go back and get their authority and close all of the access points to Satan. And then people in the body of Christ, they continue to cry and wonder, and you know, boo-hoo and poor, poor, pitiful me, and they wonder why they keep getting attacked. Why do they keep getting uh into car wrecks and having to have a spirit of s of theft steal money from your bank account because now you got to pay for your car to get fixed? And and why does, you know, um, why do they keep having all these health problems? You know, they they get over something and then it comes right back and they conquer cancer and then it comes right back. Well, it's because you haven't closed all of the access points, you haven't closed the doors through a time of consecration, humiliation, repentance. Repentance is turning from your sin. Yes, but guys, we've got to go back and get those keys to the doors that we opened to Satan in our previous lifestyle. I see so many people that struggle, and Satan is just wearing them out in their faith. They're not, Jesus said, I came to give life and life more abundantly, but these people have lost hope because they're like, Where's the abundance? Jesus said this, and the thing is, is this is a a great tactic from Satan because he's like, hey, let's let's keep them from thinking that they need to go back and deal with their sin and close the doors and uh renounce the contracts that they signed when they were, you know, smoking marijuana and when they were drinking alcohol and when they were, you know, sleeping around and um you know stealing and and all of these things. Like, let's don't let's make sure we just give them this, oh, grace covers it all, and let's deceive them so that we still keep our access points, we still keep our doors open because guys, Satan's not just going to willingly leave, you must cast him out. You must cast out a spirit of perversion, you must cast out the spirit of theft in your life, you must cast out the spirit of destruction in your life. If you are seeing theft in your bank account, if your um your credit card is getting um hacked and people are buying stuff from you on Amazon, guys, that's a spirit of theft. You need to deal with it. It says we do not wrestle with flesh and blood, but principalities and powers and rulers of darkness. The thing is, the body of Christ is too lazy to actually wrestle with these principalities and powers and rulers of darkness and actually take their authority and stand in the authority of Jesus Christ and say, Hey, spirit of theft, no, you touch my bank account, I'm gonna touch you. Don't touch my money, don't touch my credit card. I bind the spirit of theft. I bind the spirit of destruction. Guys, if you are getting in your car and you're having car accidents or a flat tire or whatever, I mean this the simplest simplest things, guys, you need to pay attention and discern where the enemy has an open door in your life. Because he cannot touch you unless you yourself have given him an open door. You have given him license. He cannot just willing. Look at the book of Job. Somebody who is a believer and who is following Jesus. Now that's a whole nother topic. We could go into that, but um, we need to we need to definitely um get to a place where we are obedient. Because guys, if you're not obedient, you don't be going and bind in a spirit of theft. Don't be going and bind in the spirit of destruction or suicide or the spirit of death or um, you know, perversion or anything. Don't do that if you're if you're over here, you know, sleeping with your girlfriend or living in the same household as your girlfriend, and you know that's out of alignment with the word of God, that's disobedience. And if you're walking in disobedience, don't try to go close that door to the enemy or take back those keys because he's gonna laugh in your face, just like the sons of Skeva, and he's gonna say, Who are you? Who are you? So that's a whole nother topic. But guys, I'm talking about people who are obeying, you're following Christ, you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. Some of your warfare is unnecessary. Why? Because you're lazy, because you're spiritually lazy, and you don't want to go back and go through the pain and go through the memories of where your father abused you or where you were molested as a child. Guys, you've got to go back to those areas, those are wounds that the enemy has an open door to attack you. You've got to go back to that place, you've got to forgive the people, you've got to um repent. Because, guys, it's not just everybody else's fault that you fell into sin. There was a reason. There was a reason. Everything that we face, every attack that we have from the enemy, there might be someone else's hand in it, but you need to understand that your hand is in it too. So you need to take care of both areas. You need to take care of your where your hand was in it, where you partnered with sin, and then you need to take care of the unforgiveness, and you need to release the person into God's hands and let him deal with them. You bless them, you forgive them, and you move on. The rest is on the Lord. But we as Christians need to be responsible for ourselves, make sure that you are not functioning in a victim mentality. Some of you truly were victims. So we don't need to preach that nobody you're not a victim because some of us were victims, but you need to understand that. Don't take the identity of being a victim. You release, you let go, you admit, you confess your sins, and you move on. This is why we see so many Christians struggling. They're not walking in abundance, they're not walking in overflow. Why? Because they haven't been taught how to go back and sit at the feet of Jesus and be cleansed. Yes, you are made new. You are there's scripture. I know some of you are pulling up scripture. There's scripture about being made new. There's no more condemnation for those who are in Christ. You know, many people don't want to look back at their past. You need to look back and not not for condemnation or not to see where you were wrong, but guys, to clean your spirit, to clean your to clean up so that when he comes back, you are spotless, you are wrinkle-free and blemish-free. Because those are the people who are gonna be sitted at the seated at the table as the bride of Christ. I tell people this all the time, and I this is not preached in the church, but guys, not everybody's the bride. Some people are just gonna have just gotten there. That's all. You're just gonna literally have just gotten your foot in the door. And well, that's better than hell. But guys, we want to be the bride sitting at the table feasting with our king. But we've got to take time as Christians to sit, learn to sit at the feet of Jesus. Guys, I have we have a whole book on the healing journey. This book teaches you how to sit at the feet of Jesus, not at the feet of your pastor. Yes, pastors are great and they're working, they're vessels for God. But guys, I go back to this and everything I preach. Your foundation must be at the feet of Jesus. If you don't know how to sit at the feet of Jesus, then nothing else, nothing else is gonna fall into place. It's gonna be works, it's gonna be religion, and it's gonna be striving. So these leaders, the guys who are and I wanna say this, guys, you if you're called to help the Lord intercede or pray for a ministry or a church or a congregation or whatever it may be, and you get the revelation of a spirit that is functioning through leadership, guys, it's not the leaders. It's not the leaders. I don't want to say it's their not their fault because they've just been deceived, guys. They've been deceived. And it says that in the end days, even the elect will be deceived. The elect means those chosen by God. It says that they'll be deceived. So I'm not saying that, you know, God knew this was gonna happen. I mean, he did, but you have to understand that you have to pray from a place of father forgive them, for they know not what they do. They're deceived. There was an access point where somebody else who was influenced by this demonic spirit influenced them. Okay? And then it goes back to that leader was influenced by somebody before them that was influenced. So you see what I'm saying? It's like a backwards domino effect. It goes all the way back to the garden where this where Eve was deceived. I mean, that's if you want to go back to the root, like that's the root is the Garden of Eden. So I want you guys to see this. I I'm asking God to give you discernment to where you see these leaders and the pure, the pureness of their spirit, if it's pure. If it's not, you're not gonna see purity. You're gonna have demonic dreams, and you're gonna see spirits that you don't want to see. And it's not to scare you, but it's it's God opening your eyes so that you don't open your hearts to these people. But my question is, how do we actually test the fruit? Let's talk about that. Let's go here, okay? When you're testing fruit, you're not looking at the person's life. You're not looking at, oh, well, um, are their children saved? Are there children in ministry? Um, you know, are their children good kids? Now, all this, yeah, you can observe this, but this is not really where you need to test the fruit the most. So you see these leaders and you look at their lives, you see the where they're connected, who they're submitted to, what church they go to, um, you know, what they do in ministry, all of those types of things. All those things are like almost like observing the outer appearance of the fruit. Okay, so think about it. If you take an apple and you see the external, um, like Eve in the garden, right? She said that the apple was beautiful, it looked delicious. Um, she was seeing the outer skin of the fruit of the fruit. So that's what we do when we just um observe somebody from an external standpoint. How do you actually test the internal part of the fruit? How do you do that without getting close to them, without building? I mean, not everybody can get that close to your pastor, like you know what I'm saying? Not everybody gets invited to the pastor's house or on a beach trip with the pastor or leader or whatever, like not everybody gets to be in that inner circle, and you're not going to, because it's not wise for a leader to let that many people have that type of access. Because in leadership, about one hand of people, about five people, that should really be those who are that close to you. It's just um not wise to let more people in. Um, I know some people look at leaders and they wonder, like, why are they so guarded and all of that? It's actually wisdom. Um, it's very much biblical because they um they're protecting their anointing, you know, we're to protect our oil. And so it's nothing against the people, it's just wisdom that you just don't do that um in leadership. So, guys, if your pastor or leader or somebody is, you know, not wanting to be your bestie and not wanting to get that close to you and they feel a little guarded, honor that. Don't don't get offended, you know, because your leader is is got a guard up. I mean, if you think about the shepherds um who had the flock of sheep, there was there was a wall to protect the sheep about halfway. I'm not you you should never let your guard completely down, period. You should have a guard up at least halfway. Leadership, everybody, normal people, Christians, okay? Don't don't have your guard all the way down because the snakes are gonna slither in. So this is a wise thing for leadership to do. So don't get offended when leaders, you know, don't give you complete access. Um, but how do we actually test that the actual inner parts of the fruit if we are not in that inner circle? This is how you test it, guys. You test it by evaluating yourself. Okay, but pay attention when you go sit in your service on Sunday, or you listen to a YouTube video sermon, or you go to a conference, or you go on a retreat, or you go on a mission trip. Come on, somebody, pay attention to your life after. What happens? Get a journal, take notes. What happens in your life after you have eaten from the table of this person? Okay, because when people are teaching you, when they're preaching to you, you are spiritually eating from their hand, from them, from what they have prepared, right? If they've sat at the feet of Jesus and they've prepared a sermon at Jesus' feet, you will see abundance, you will see life, you will see goodness, you will see grace, you will see peace, love, joy. Okay, all the fruits of the spirit. You will begin to see those things in your life, you will feel those things in your life if they have received their message from the feet of Jesus. Now, if they haven't, and maybe they got it from commentary from a book of somebody else, or they have um, you know, just basically preach something out of their own knowledge or um their own experience. And I'm not saying that um personal experiences are not anointed because they very much are, it really just depends on their relationship with Jesus, and you will be able to tell if they have a true, genuine relationship with Jesus or a relationship with religion, okay? Because religion, you're gonna see the fruit that Eve saw, right? So, what happened when Eve and Adam ate the fruit of Satan? They began to hide, they began to clothe themselves, they began to give excuses, they began to um, they went down, they went the opposite way they were going. They began, um, they got cursed by God. You know, Eve had to endure pain. It caused, it caused pain and suffering. Um it said uh God said that Adam would suffer to reap a harvest from the land. There was suffering, there was pain. God said that Eve would have pain in childbirth. Um you know, there was condemnation, there was shame and guilt. Um, but it wasn't, it was within themselves, they began to feel that way about themselves. That's how you know if it's not Jesus. Okay, this is something crazy, and this is probably gonna touch a lot of church people, and I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry. But if you go home from church and you are lethargic, you are exhausted, you are, you have to take a nap, and I know people preach this, they're like, oh, that the Sunday nap, you know. Uh yeah, I'm sure this will ruffle some feathers, but guys, I really don't care because I want you to learn how to evaluate fruit. If you go home from church and you are not ignited, you are not drawn to read your Bible, you are not drawn to sit at the feet of Jesus, you are not drawn to dig deeper into the word of God, you are not drawn to um, you're not hungry for more of Jesus. If if that is not what you're getting after your church service on Sunday, you are under a spirit of religion, not Jesus. Okay? If you're exhausted and you have no energy and you feel like death and you feel like lethargic, that is not Jesus. That is not Jesus, it's religion and it's exhausting. Every single time I have been under a pure minister or a pure leader, I have come home and wanted to just get in the word of God. I wanted to open my Bible and I didn't even want to eat lunch because I was so hungry for the word of God. That is how you know, but there's been times where I have come home and I've been exhausted and I've been tired and I've been lethargic, and I have sat under congregations where the leadership was so demonic that I would come home and guys, I would literally sleep the whole next day. That night and that day, I would just sleep. It was like I had the flu, but there was no fever, and then after 24 hours, it would lift. This happens to me every time I go to this congregation, every time I go to this church and I listen to the leadership preach in this church, I come home and I am like it's terrible. Like I had the flu. Like I got you know what it is like when you when you um get food poison? Literally, that's how you discern if this is how you discern if Jezebel's preaching. Because when you get out from under a preacher who is influenced by Jezebel, you literally have spiritual food poisoning. Guys, I don't know if you've ever had food poisoning in the natural, but it is not good. So I want to get you to understand how to test fruit. You need to evaluate yourself. Okay. Now I want to tell you this. I'm gonna switch a little bit. If your spirit is full of sin, if you are watching pornography, if you are sleeping outside of marriage, if you are committing adultery in your household with your spouse, if you are um going to the you know, tarot card readings and and you're doing um, what are they? Um if you're doing the Lord help me, what is it called? The devil don't want me to say this one. So I'm gonna ask the Holy Spirit. Um what is it called, guys? Uh Virgo, your sign, your symbol, or whatever it is. Um yeah, you know, you guys know what I'm talking about. Um, if you're looking up your your symbols and all the things and what your birthday means and all that stuff, if you're if you're dabbling with witchcraft, that's witchcraft. If you're dabbling with all that stuff, um, guys, you're you're you're contaminating your purpose and your identity in Christ. And if you're doing all those things, if you're getting drunk every weekend, you're going to the club, you're booty dancing and and all that on people, that's a spirit of perversion. Um if you are if you're if you're doing all this filthiness, don't try to don't try to discern um the preacher, you know, is word because you you don't more than likely the word that it could be that the preacher is not the preacher, is you. So there is a moment where if you are at the feet of Jesus constantly, you're in your word of God, and you are seeking the face of Jesus 24-7, you are walking in holiness, you are on your path of sanctification, if you are going through deliverance, you're going through healing, you're doing all the things, you know, you're constantly seeking first the kingdom. If that's you, and you you feel this way after being under a certain leader or pastor or minister, then you know that there is a spirit behind that leader. There's a spirit um guiding and directing. It's like somebody reminds me of Pinocchio, you know, he was a puppet. Those hands that are actually guiding and directing the puppet is demonic. The puppet itself is not demonic. So the person their self is not evil, but they are being led by an evil spirit, and they don't even know it, they're deceived. Remember that, don't forget that the person themselves is deceived. So don't hate the person, love the person, bless the person, declare their deliverance and their freedom from that spirit. Um, but don't eat from their table, don't eat from their table, and um, you're gonna be able to evaluate that fruit in how you are affected. I see people all the time, they they go to a conference, they sit under somebody, and next thing I know, they get into a car wreck and they almost um lose their life or just crazy things happening. And I'm like, wow, this is crazy to know that they literally ate from the table of demons, and it literally tried to take their life, like cause them damage, caused cost them money because now they gotta pay for their you know car that's broken down, and I'm just like wow, like why don't people discern this? Why don't people see that we have to evaluate two things? One, is it my sin? We need to evaluate ourselves first. God, why did this happen to me? It where where is there an open door to sin to where Satan can steal from me and take my money and take my vehicle and cause me, you know, pain and suffering unnecessarily? Our first question should be God, search me, oh God. Is there any area that I need to deal with? And if he doesn't respond, and guys, don't don't get into thinking everything's wrong with you, okay? I did that and it was very stressful. Every time I turned around, I thought something was wrong with me. You know, I was crying out to God, please, God, get rid of this pride, please, God, get rid of this pride. And he's like, Cody, I'm not saying that you can be completely free from pride because I don't believe that's possible in the world that we live in. But I think you should stay at a place where you're constantly asking God to search your heart to make sure that you're not walking in that. But there was a moment where he was like, Stop asking me that. He's like, the fact that you're asking me, do you have pride means you don't have pride. And it was like such a time of freedom for me because I got into this place where it was like I just over-evaluated myself, you know, and I wasn't even walking in the freedom because here I was constantly condemning myself for having something wrong or there was sin or something I needed to repent of or whatever. So don't get in that place, okay? If he if you ask him and he doesn't say anything and he doesn't bring anything up, then move on. It's the Holy Spirit's job to keep you in your path of sanctification, to cleanse you and to purify you and to make you um into the image of Christ. So if the Holy Spirit doesn't convict you of anything, then just move on. So your first question would be: if you're seeing these manifestations in your life after being under a leadership, a conference, a church, service, or anything, ask yourself first, God, what is there sin in me that I can repent of or get rid of? And then if He doesn't say anything, then you need to understand that it could be that there's a spirit that you're eating from the table of. Okay, pay attention. This is how you evaluate fruit. You can evaluate on the outside, but guys, we need to be discerning and evaluating fruit from the inside. When I watch a YouTube video, when I um you know go to a church service, when I go to an event, when I go on a mission trip, even when I even when me, when I as a leader host a mission trip to a place, I am paying attention to the place and what spirits are there through the gift of discernment, as in what happens to me during the trip, what happens after the trip, because those are all signs. Sometimes it's things that God says, Hey, I'm dealing with this in you. And then there are times where he says, Hey, this is there, and I need you to pray for it to be removed. It's not to condemn, it's to, it's for freedom. It's for freedom for you, for other people, for ministries. We in the body of Christ need to understand that we're not here just to, you know, do the works, but we're also here to intercede and pray and bring forth deliverance in the body of Christ, in lands, in churches, in congregations, you know, in a more greater capacity where God can then bring the Holy Spirit and move upon his people in a greater capacity. There's been times where um he sent me to certain um places and it was it was to shut it down, and that that sounds terrible, but um I didn't do anything but pray, and I just simply asked the Lord, you know, I saw things that he revealed to me, and he just said, Hey, this is not going in the direction of my will, and so you know, I want you to pray the things that I show you and intercede for these people, and you know, a lot of times it would shut down for a season, and then I would watch it rebuild um into alignment with God, and that is just a that's an assignment for a warrior. Um, it's not to condemn, it's just you're out of alignment, and you need to get back into alignment, and so a lot of times we see that um in intercession. It's not a bad thing, it's a good thing because we want the result to be alignment with the will of God, and we want to um we want the result to be a place where the Holy Spirit dwells, and so that God's people can encounter Jesus and not man. We want Jesus to be exalted, not man. So if something is man made, I guarantee you he will demolish it. But just like Jesus said, I will demolish this temple and in three Days, I will raise it back up. And they said, Oh, this took hundreds of years to build this. How can you do it in three days? Guys, it's okay if God tears something down in your life. It's not because you did a bad job. Maybe he saw Satan come in and you didn't even know. And so he's like, you know, there was a hand of Satan in what you built and you thought it was God, but you know, I want to tear it down and build something better. And the thing is, is when an intercessor comes in and rev and exposes the spirit of theft, guys, you get to rebuild sevenfold what you had before. You know, we had a question in Uganda. This guy, he said, you know, he said, What, you know, I I've been trying to build my church and all these things, and he's like, everything just keeps falling and failing. And he's like, you know, did I do it wrong? Did I not let, you know, hear God right? And it was just so beautiful. This man received such freedom because we began to express to him that, you know, a lot of times wisdom doesn't come until we have gone through the path of failure. And that that is such a beautiful thing because, guys, your failure is not failure in the eyes of God, it's wisdom. And it allows you to build stronger than what you had before. I mean, even look at Job. Job was in alignment, but God allowed Satan to come and demolish everything that he had. And what happened at the end? It was, it literally says that God gave him back more than he had before. So, guys, don't get angry when these prophets come into your congregation and they start tearing down things. If it's God, great. Let him tear it down. If it's not God and it's Satan and it's a false prophet coming into your church, guys, if you're at the feet of Jesus, the Lord will take care of that false prophet. The Lord will take care of that false minister that comes into your church to try to cause division and divide things. But remember, if it is God who came to tear down and divide, it's going to bring more. Let him tear it down. Don't start calling the prophet the devil and Jezebel. They said that to Jesus too. But Jesus was tearing down things that had turned into idols, tearing down things that were had gotten out of alignment. They originally were built the right way. But they had become an idol. If you look at everything Jesus tore down in his three years of ministry, they all originally were good. Even Moses with the serpent on the on the staff, Hezekiah had to tear that down. Why? Because it became an idol. What meant for good turned to evil. So God tears it down and he rebuilds it sevenfold. Don't be mad when the prophet comes into your church to disrupt things and tear things down and reconstruct things. That's good. Guys, if whatever God built and whatever is in alignment will stand. But if it is not, let him tear it down. We want that. We welcome that. In my ministry, if I always say, God, if this is not of you or it goes the wrong way, tear it down, take it away from me. I don't care. I don't want it. If it's not in alignment with you. If your Holy Spirit can't dwell here, tear it down, take it away. I don't want it. And I mean that. And it might be painful and it might hurt and it might look bad to people, but I don't care. Because I don't worship man. I worship God and God alone. And I don't care what people think. If it's not of God, I don't want it. If I have to come home and never do ministry again and sit at the feet of Jesus, then that's enough for me. Because if we can't be okay with an audience of one Jesus, then we don't need an audience at all. So guys, test the fruit, test the external skin of the fruit, but pay attention to the inner fruit. How does it affect you? What are you seeing manifest in your life after your church service? After your conference, after your YouTube minister. None of these things are bad. But we have got to increase in discernment in the body of Christ because there's too many believers who are sitting under the spirit of Jezebel and religion and all these other spirits. And they don't even know it. They don't even know it. Things happen to them, and that I just say, Oh, I'm suffering for Christ. No. No. You're not. It's called unnecessary warfare. That if you would deal with your sin or you would stop eating poisoned food, you would see life and life more abundant. There's been so many people that I have watched walk out and walk away from the ministry that they thought was great. But they didn't even realize the abundance that was available until they left. Until they left the church, they didn't get freedom. That's sad to say. That's so sad to say. It's sad. When people leave your church and they get more freedom than when they were at your church. They actually grow in their relationship with Jesus when they leave your church. That is what the church has come to. It's not church. It's religion. And God is calling his people out of the church. Not out of community, not out of fellowship. He says don't forsake the assembly of God. But some of them are not assemblies of God. They're religion. And so these people continue to worship the spirit of religion. And they don't even know it. They call it the Holy Spirit. And they call it God. Oh, it is a God, alright. It's just not God El Shaddai. But it's the God of this world. Guys, make sure. The goal is not suspicion. The goal is intimacy so deep with Jesus that counterfeit becomes easier to recognize. Guys, because a mature believer, they don't just ask what is powerful. They ask, what is truly Him. Father, right now in the name of Jesus, I ask that you would gift the people at the sound of my voice with the gift of discernment. Father, that they would begin to see the difference between light and dark and fake light and true light. Lord, that you would give them 2020 spiritual vision. That their spirit would be off, that they would be nauseous, that they would be sick to their stomach every time that they encountered a counterfeit of your spirit. Father, I ask that your people would receive this gift, receive it now in the name of Jesus. All for your glory and your kingdom. In Jesus' mighty name.