Broken Relationships: Part 3

In part 3 of the Broken Relationships series, Leonard Keene begins to address what many people carry but rarely talk about: the wounds left behind when relationships break. While the earlier messages explored how broken relationships form and how they affect our lives, this episode turns toward the path of healing.

Fore more information, visit www.legacyalive.org

Transcript

Well, I should have wore a darker suit, because we're going to do what we're going to call a guilt ectomy tonight. Do you know what that is? You know what tonsillectomy is. That's when you go in and cut out the tonsils. And an appendectomy is when they go in and cut out the appendicitis. Well, we're going to go in and let the Lord do a gilt ectomy tonight. And take away some of the anxiety and some of the things that have been bothering a lot of us. And we've been talking about relationships. And you recall in the last couple of hours we, we talked about the fact that relationships one to another is a key, of course, in establishing the kingdom in our life. We talked about broken relationships, you see, where where we would have breaks with another person and, uh, whereby we don't get along so good. How many know that sometimes people do that, right? Two people don't get along so good. And so they have this electricity going between them. And sometimes the electricity is there, the anxiety is there, even though they're a hundred miles apart or two thousand miles apart. It's there. You see, and that's a broken relationship. And we found that there were five causes. You remember the five causes, you see? Remember we found that we lost wisdom. We couldn't deal wisely in the affairs of life. We begin to make mistakes. We found that it affected our health. We begin to tear down our health and hurt us and injure us. In fact, is. I didn't share with you, but I want to. I want to share with you now what I call the God's automatic resistance system. I gotta have names for everything. So. But that's what it is. God has within each one of us an automatic healing system. Isn't that true? I cut my hand the other day. Right there. In fact, you can still see part of the scar. Bad. You know. And immediately that thing start healing itself. It began to send out little corpuscles and to kill germs and begin to clot the blood. It begin to bleed, to cleanse all kinds of processes in my body. Begin to heal that injury. See, I've got an automatic system, haven't I? Inside. It's God given. Now, what does the broken relationship do? Tears down the automatic system. It tears it down when I begin to first see this. I was working in a sawmill nights and going to school days, and they had what they call a hog. You know what a hog is? It's a it's a great big thing that has knives on it. And what they do is they put all the excess lumber in there, see, and it turns it all up and makes it into sawdust and they burn the sawdust. You see, now, this knives in there are is made for wood and the extra limbs and so forth. See, and some of these guys, they'd want to go home early, want to go see their girlfriend or something. See. And so when nobody was looking they'd get go and get a great big piece of iron, you know, and they'd pitch it in there and then look the other way. And that iron would go down in there, and pretty soon it hit those knives and go tear them all up. Didn't work anymore. The mill had to close down. They got to go see their girlfriends now. What does that have to do with me? Keene and his silly illustrations. You've got an automatic system That will work provided nobody throws any iron in. You get what I'm talking about. Broken relationships are iron. You can't take it. It'll tear you down. It'll begin to give you ulcers. It'll begin to give you headaches, heart attacks, colitis, all kinds of medical problems. Your body is not able to heal as effectively anymore. Why? Somebody throw a piece of iron in. Somebody wanted to go see his girlfriend and threw a piece of iron in. Somebody's got a broken relationship. It's affecting their health. And we found it also, the third thing it did was it took away our prosperity, didn't it? Answered prayer is directly related to our forgiveness. And our not having broken relationships. Answered prayer. The fourth thing we found that it took away our friends. It's no fun to be around people who have broken relationships, is it? Because you know what they're doing. They're always looking for that unpaid lawyer. How many know that sometimes we become unpaid lawyers, right? Brother, did you know that guy over there? And he begins to tell me how bad that guy is over there. You know what he's really doing, don't you? He wants me to agree with him that that guy is bad, so that I will help him spread the news and be his advocate, his lawyer. But he doesn't pay me for it. See the professional lawyer. When a person's got a grievance, they go down to the lawyer and they pay him five hundred dollars. And they say, you go get him. See? But they have to pay for it. But many times we with broken relationships, we go pick some innocent party and we say, hey, I want you to be my unpaid lawyer. I want you to agree that this guy is no good. See? So it's not much fun to be around people with broken relationships. I didn't mean to pick on pick on you, okay? But she's just so pretty. I just kind of attracted that way I guess. Five is maturity. It affected our maturity. We just learned this, didn't we? We don't grow. We get caught up in one section of our life, and that broken relationship contaminates and we keep thinking about it. We can't get it out of our mind. These are the effects of broken relationships. We found out also the causes. We found out the the one number one was the wrongful act. You remember we went through some of the commandments and so forth. And, you know, we found that lying or telling lies in hypocrisy. Sear the conscious mind. Have you ever seen someone who told a lot of lies? They get to believe in this silly things after a while, don't they? You see, the unreality comes on through. The conscious mind gets seared and they soon. I had a couple of clients. They would tell me the most ridiculous things, and I even quit telling them that was wrong because I couldn't persuade them. They believed the ridiculous stuff. They had told lies so many times. And we found that the conditional gifts, the critical attitudes and the selfishness and the broken promises. Now, we also found that happiness is directly related to the will of God. Isn't that right? You see. And so when God says, Keene, I'm moving your heart from Oregon to Texas. Are you going to follow? I have a choice, don't I? I can say, no, I'm not going to Texas. He say, fine, your heart's down there, brother. You're going to live in Oregon? You're not going to have any fun, huh? Right. The will of God moves your heart different places. And you better follow it. Well, you're going to be a dissected person. You're not going to be a complete person, are you? Okay, so we found that the will of God and happiness are directly related, didn't we? And we found also what the will of God or how to find the will of God sure comes up in Ephesians five seventeen. In fact, there's a lot of people say, oh Brother Keene, I just walk in the spirit. I'm a mighty spiritual person. Well, I say, brother, you know, you haven't read Ephesians five or you haven't even read Galatians five because you gotta live in the spirit before you walk in the spirit. How many know that? But if you're not living in the spirit, you're not walking in the spirit. You may be in some kind of a fantasy land, but if you don't live it, you're not walking it. How many know if you don't live it, you don't really believe it. Right? Isn't that right? If you're not living it, you don't really believe it. So we gotta live in the spirit before we walk in the spirit. Now this scripture five Ephesians five seventeen tells us what the will of God is and how to be filled with the spirit. Really, if you like, we'll put underline that filled with the spirit in green first by speaking to ourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Singing. It's one of those guys who goes around singing, you see. And secondly is by giving thanks for all things unto God. And third, by submitting ourselves one to another in the fear of the Lord, we found this is where we're going to get the will of God, isn't it? When we begin to sing, give thanks and submit. That's called Keene's counseling method. It's the Lord's, but I just gotta put a name on it. That's, I think, of counseling myself. I run through am I singing? Am I giving thanks? Yep, I'm doing that. But I'm not submitting. I've been going around like this. I don't want you to see what's in there. You might criticize me. You might see I got some wrong motives, some wrong goals. You may see I have some weaknesses and some hurts. So what we're going to begin to do tonight is to begin to open up these arms. Just let the Lord open his arms up and get to number three. Because if we don't get to number three, brother, we're not entering into the will of God. The Scripture says it, doesn't it? If we don't submit to one another in the fear of the Lord, we don't enter into the will of God. Therefore, we don't have the happiness and the whole thing is messed up. Now you go to heaven. How many know a lot of people are going to heaven, right? You're going to see a lot of people up there you never expect. You say, how in the world did you get here? Wow, man, I wrote you off years ago. Somehow, you know, in the two battles, you send a guy off over to Vietnam, and he fights and he gets crippled and he comes back. We make him a hero, give him medals, and, oh, come here, brother, let me help you. In a spiritual warfare, slip a little bit and we kick him out of the army. Well, I knew he would fall. He couldn't make it. Wasn't as strong, Christian, wasn't he? Kick him out! Get out of here, brother. You're off in a war. Hey, the Lord says. You know. He says, I want to get heaven down here. What's the Lord's prayer? Our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in heaven. On earth as it is in heaven. Here on earth we want his kingdom. See, Jesus says, I bring you the kingdom. And we started this out by talking about the mystery of the kingdom, didn't we? The mystery of the kingdom of God. Now, the mystery of the kingdom of God is this. And Jesus only taught it to the disciples. Do you notice that when he talks into the Bible, he he'll he'll give a parable and he'll turn over to the disciples and they say, what did you say? The masses are out there just kind of looking at him, you know, looking for healing all the time. Just heal me, Lord. That's all I need. I don't care what you said. Just heal me. Give me some more food. You know, bring some more of those fish. But the disciples says, I want to know what you said. So he took him aside, and he says, I'm going to tell you about the mystery of the kingdom. Well, this is the mystery of the Kingdom. Number three. Submission is the key to power. Submission is the key to authority. Submission is the key to protection. Submission is the key to the most important thing that you want right now. And that's identity. Who am I? What do I belong? Who am I really? This is the biggest prevalent question that you have in counseling. Where have I belong? If I just knew what to do, knew where to go, I'd do it and find out who I am. And this is the key. It's the mystery of the kingdom. Now, I used to have. I had a number of clients, and I still have people just come to me and they say, Leonard, can I just come and sit here with you, you know, and talk to you? And when I was in the law practice, I'd say, yeah, but you've got to understand, you know, I have to charge you while you're here. I said, I don't care, I just want to be here. I say, why? You've got a problem, he says. No, it's just safe here. I'm out of that world. Man, that's a mess out there. You don't know what's out there. It's safe in here, but I'm charging you fifty dollars an hour. I don't care what you charge. As long as I can pay it. I want to come in and spend a half hour with you once in a while, just to be where it's peaceful. Now, the Bible says that the kingdom of God is likened unto a seed. When you plant it in your garden that it grows up. A mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, and when it grows up it comes to a mighty tree. See? And it's the mightiest of all the trees. And then what does it say happens? The birds come for protection. They see shelter, they see protection. And that's exactly what happens when we begin to establish the kingdom where? Inside. Doesn't the Bible say, you know, Jesus says, I bring you guys a kingdom. So the people who weren't so wary on and didn't understand what a kingdom was, they said they thought kingdom meant soldiers. They said, where's your soldiers? I'm just imagining what happens, you know? Where's your soldier? Where's your chariots? Where's your buildings? He said, I don't have. That's not the kind of kingdom I'm talking about. I'm talking about a kingdom of authority. A kingdom of peace. And they said, well, where is it? He says, it's right here. Oh, they said, come on, get off of it. How in the world can you put a kingdom down your stomach? How can you? How can you? It's a mystery of the kingdom, isn't it? Establishing the kingdom. And, and once you begin to establish it, you see, that's the pearl the Bible talks about. When we were small children, the Sunday school teacher often told us the pearl of great price is to be saved. Well, being saved is a tremendous mystery and miracle of the Lord. But the Bible says that once you taste that pearl or get Ahold of that pearl, you'll never let go. Doesn't it say that? And I see a lot of people who are saved who kind of abuse their salvation. And then when I got a little older, they said, well, maybe the pearl is when you receive the Holy Spirit and you can speak in tongues and prophesy mighty things, you know. But I see a lot of people abuse that. And I really believe that the pearl that the Bible talks about, the pearl of great price, it says when you find it, you'll give up everything you have and go elsewhere and follow that pearl and never give it up. I believe that pearl is the kingdom inside you. And not many people have it. Not many people have it. Not many people have even tasted it. And when you begin to taste it, and some of you are going to taste it tonight for the first time. You're going to taste that pearl, and it's going to revolutionize your whole thinking in terms of spiritual life and everyday living. Because some of the things that have prevented that pearl from being established in your life is number three is you've not been able to really submit in a fear of the Lord to another person. And so God's going to help us tonight, and it's going to be neat for some of you people and for some of us to get deeper into the kingdom of God living. Now, the kingdom of God can be established in us. And I want you to understand this verse here as we move into this and this verse says Matthew five three, it says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God or heaven. Kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven are same saying one. I think it's Matthew that talks never says the kingdom of God. It says the kingdom of heaven. But but historically, the writer was concerned he was writing to the Jews, and they were so careful not to take the Lord's name in vain. They were afraid to use the word God very loosely. So, so not to offend them, he called it the kingdom of heaven rather than the kingdom of God. But it's the same thing. You see, Jesus said, I bring it to you. And I studied that for a long time. I said, what in the world does that mean? Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Is, it's a now. How do you be poor in spirit? Just beat down. Kicked, you know. Oh poor me, you know, Lord, I'm poor. Most of us think of poor as being money and so forth. I believe what that means is this. And I see it in my mind. I see a man in the ghetto. And he's in there and he thinks he's got it made. And I look in, I say, hey, Mr. Man in ghetto you're poor. He said, I'm not either. I'm rich. Look at here, boy. I got a car. I got a good looking dolly. He said, I got food and I live in this nice house. I say, oh, brother, come on. Your car is ten years old and the fenders wobble. And look at, you know, the girlfriend may be all right. We won't criticize your girlfriend, but your house ain't all that good. Now, see that brother is rich. Where? In his thinking. In his mind. He says, I got it made. Man, I got it made. Bless God, I got it made. I say wait, come on, come here. I want to show you something. Come over. I want to take you out of where you're at. You're at, you're in the wrong neighborhood. Let me bring you over here. He says, oh, now come on, just leave me alone. I'm just happy. I says, come on. and I keep I said come on, brother. Come on. I want to show you. Just trust me for a little while. Now, at that instant, you see, he's still rich, isn't he? In his thinking. He's not poor. He's as well off as anybody else because he is looking in reference to what's around him. Right now I bring him out and I bring him over to this new neighborhood, and all of a sudden he sees white houses all painted. They paint them. The streets aren't muddy. They're covered with concrete. And he sees people walking around smiling, healthy. He says, wow, I'm poor. Now he's poor. I didn't change the facts of his life any, did I? I changed his attitude. Right now he has poverty. Now, if we can put that into the spiritual realm, that's what I want you to do. Take it out of the physical and put it into the spiritual. If we can recognize where we're at. Is poverty compared to what God wants for us. If we can recognize that God is saying, you may think you got it, brother, but you ain't got it. Come over here. I want to give you a taste of the pearl, the kingdom in your life. And once you see it all of a sudden. And as long as you maintain this attitude of poor in spirit, you shall what? Be blessed and have the kingdom now. When I saw that it changed my whole life. And I share it to you. Begin to get poor tonight. Begin to move into an attitude of poverty, of spirit. Because God will do something for you then. As long as you think I don't want to go out and see it, brother, I got it made right here. That's what you're going to stay. You'll be rich in your head, but not in fact. Okay, the second thing I want to show to you as we open this up is Mark four twenty three through twenty five. And it says, if any man have ears to hear, let him hear. And he said unto them, take heed what you hear, with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you, and unto you that hear shall more be given. For he that hath to him shall be given, and to he that hath not from him shall be taken, even that which he hath. What does that all mean? Okay, Daddy Keene interpretation. Now that says meet, measure by meet. You know what that mean is not. You know what a lot a city lot is. They're saying, okay, now you see, lot is is one hundred foot this way and and eighty foot this way, and ninety foot this way, and one hundred and twenty feet that way. See, that's a metes and bounds description. The Bible says you measure whatever you measure to here. You're going to hear, And the Lord is going to target for that area. He's going to target for that area. And if you have ears to hear, even if it's little old bitty, you know, little old bitty measure there, the Lord will still target for it and he'll hit that area. Now, what does it say? It says it shall be measured to you and unto you that hear. Now here's the key words. And unto you that hear shall more be given. Now, what's that mean? That means that when you measure to hear, the Lord hits that area, that little box, and then more is given, he increases your box. This is why in counseling I spend at least three hours if I can. Because when a person first comes, they have just a little old bitty box there. They just barely submit just a little bit, see, submit, or have ears to hear. It's the same thing and they have just a little area. See. And but if I find that area and I begin to target and let the Lord minister to that one little area, the Lord begins to raise it and make the and make the box bigger. And pretty soon, in an hour or so, he begins to trust me or she or whatever. And pretty soon now the Lord has built that box into an area and increased it. Until now we can get something done. When I first first started counseling and practicing, I'd set aside an hour for each person. I said, okay, now I'm going to have an hour to talk with this brother. See? And sure enough, I'd talk with him for an hour. And I thought, well, you know, if I could cut that guy down, that only allows me about eight people a day. But if I could come down to thirty minutes apiece, that's sixteen people. I could charge about the same for each and make twice as much money. So I did it and it worked. Hey, that's pretty good. So. And I found out that, you know, if I just pushed it just a little bit, I could get draw out of what I needed and I bang bang, bang. We get all the facts and go on to the next case. See? And I got so good at this. So I thought, I know what I could do. I could double my money again if I could just get them cut down about fifteen minutes each. That's for an hour. See? And I did. Boy, that's one of those people. Boy. They'd come in there and they'd say, my name is John, and I don't know what your problem is now. Right, right, right, right. Okay. Now go. Give me the money. Come on. And you see? And I got him in fifteen minutes. And, brother, are we going to have another one? See? And boy, I was a hot rodding through there until finally I realized I didn't give him a chance to talk. You know. In fact, there's some even. I better not pick on doctors, but doctors kind of tend to get. Get it boiled down to 30s each. Choo choo choo. Right there. You know, they just they just run in, stick their head in there your office. You know. I don't have a broken relationship with doctors. I'm just telling the facts. You see. But the Lord says. And finally, when he says, hey, you're doing it wrong because you're after money. You take on one client in the morning and one in the afternoon. I says, I'll go broke. He says, I know it. That'll be good for you. Have you ever heard that before? But you'll accomplish something. Have ears to hear. Whatever. You begin to open up your ears to hear tonight. Let the Lord minister. And let that that ears to hear continue until we get about an hour from now, when the time comes for the Lord to really minister to you, the area is open, okay? And the Lord will begin to zap some of that pearl, some of that kingdom in there. And it's going to be so good that your gonna say, where have I been? Where have I been? Jesus said in John three thirty six, he said, he who believes in the son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Two keys. Believe and obey. All right, that produces life. Believe and obey. So when we have our three counseling principles, when he says obey, he says, sing, give thanks and submit. That's obedience. You see, we gotta do it. And a little later on in the fourth chapter, thirty fourth verse, Jesus said to them, he says, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Jesus was saying, My Spirit is the real me. How do you know that your spirit's the real you, right? This hand up here is not Keene, right? It better not be, because it ain't going to last very long. I pounded the finger last night some. I keep doing that. It's not going to last very long. See, that's not me. That's just the hand. The real me is the spirit that's right inside here. And the Bible says it. It. My spirit dwells within the bowels of a man, doesn't it? That's the real me down in here. And when something happens and when I get a broken relationship, guess where it hurts. Doesn't hurt my hand. Even if I did hit him in the mouth. You know, it doesn't hurt my. It doesn't hurt my head. It hurts right here, right in my spirit. And some people call it butterflies. Whatever you want to call it, brother. It is right here. And it is the spiritual injury. You know what the word saved means? Healed. Healed. The word saved. If you get saved, you say get saved, brother. Get saved, get saved. It means get healed. Have your spirit healed in that one respect. You see. So our spirit resides down here and Jesus was saying, my food or my spirit food for this real me here is to do the will of God who sent me and to accomplish his work. And insecurity. Some people in the social sciences of psychology and psychiatry and sociology and all these things. They talk about a person being secure and insecure. See, it's down inside. You can you can almost talk to a person and you can tell them, tell whether or not there's there's a basic restlessness inside. See, we talked last night about the lie detector. You know the spirit inside is telling and it's showing, manifesting in the physical appearances of a person, you see. So the Lord says, minister to your spirit by doing His will. All right. Now let's take a look at. Luke eight one and said it came to pass afterward that He, this is Jesus, went throughout every city and village preaching and showing the kingdom of God. Preaching and showing the good tidings. Glad tidings of the kingdom of God. It's a dry pen, preaching and showing he had it inside him. People, that was the charisma which attracted them. They could see something inside him. Now listen, when we begin to establish the kingdom inside us. The people will begin to flock around you, to you, because they sense this same thing. Preaching and showing. Instead of just preaching, we're going to show too, like Jesus did. That's what the Lord wants us to do. The Lord's Prayer in Luke two says, Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. I'm told a story about Morris Sheet's a little boy. Now they were, he's a preacher in West Texas, and they were sitting around the table. He's got a little five year old boy, and they were teaching. He was teaching these little children how to say prayers every night. Our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. And about the sixth night, this little boy sitting there praying. And they said, Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom. He said, hold everything. Hold it. He said, stop. And so his dad said, what's wrong, little boy? He says, if our father, aren't heaven, where is he? Now here is a boy. Here's a boy. Here's a boy that had freedom within the family to say, hey, I misunderstood. You know, I thought you're saying aren't in heaven when it says art in heaven. See, they have a submitted relationship. An open relationship so that little boy can say, hey, what about this? Is He aren't in heaven. Or is he? We're going to pray to him I want to know where he's at. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord. Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus says. Okay, here we go. A human being has needs. Let me just write it here. Needs. Those three needs can be those needs can be put into three categories. Love be one. Two is identity. Is that the way you spell identity? It's pretty close. Three is worth a sense of worth. Those are just kind of basic human needs. We all need to be loved, and we all need to know who we are and have identity. And we all need to have a sense of worth. Okay. And if we don't, we're going to have some problems. Now I want to show you, just to give you an idea of what I call wrong goals. Now, most of us maybe haven't stopped and thought about what our needs are, but we sense them. And if we don't have the love need met, what happens? We will begin to focus our goals on attention getting activity. In other words, it's a wrong goal. A kid comes into a room. We were with some families the other night, and this one little old girl, about four years old. She kept walking in front of the TV and she'd walk back. She'd walk back in front of the TV and she knew she was getting in the way. You see, that's an attention getting device because what her need for love wasn't being met, you see? And much the same way the child throwing a tantrum on the floor. See, these are attention getting things. And we as men, a lot of times we want to make a million dollars. I mean, look at me and you'll all love me. You see, I'm not getting enough love somewhere. And so I use this as a device to. It's a wrong goal to try to get the love. Of course it doesn't work, and it's frustrating and so forth. And so we do this not really understanding what our needs are. Okay. And same way with identity. We want to know who we really are. And so the wrong goals usually involve power and influence. If I can just get a little power over that fellow man, then I'll be able to identify who I am and show em who I really am. See? And so a lot of their goals will be all power and influence oriented. I want to become the boss of this project, you see. Not for the love, but to show em who I am. See the identity. Wrong goal. All right. The other is worth, you know, the other need that we have. And the standard method here is perfectionist. We want to be a perfectionist to show worth. Everything's got to be perfect to show that we have worth. And our basic need is worth, not being a perfectionist. What I'm wanting to do is to, is to begin to have us just draw a line through the wrong goals and begin to go back and really concentrate on our love, the identity and our worth that springs forth from the Kingdom... That springs forth from Kingdom living. Okay let me draw another picture. Now we've got a little guy here. And, uh, he's got a goal out here. Let's just write the word goal. We don't know what it is yet, it's just a goal. However, now he's heading towards this goal. And here comes an obstruction. Obstruction? It stops him. How many? Have you ever had a goal and got obstructed? Anybody ever had a goal there? She had one. Hallelujah. I had a couple of them. Now there are four methods of handling that thing. And I will show them to you as we look into the kingdom. There's four ways to handle that obstruction. Number one. Okay. Number one is to what? Run! Run! Just withdraw. Get out of here. I got a problem. I'm going to get out of here. This is number one. See? How many know? The Bible says that everything's going to be exposed, everything's going to come to light, right? Everything you do, all that stuff down there is going to have to come out. See, you say, well, you know, Lord, I wish you'd sure get it out of this other guy. I can see what he's got in there. Get it out. Expose it. How come you let him go for ten years? That way? But let me tell you, I can see this. This is another illustration. I can see you know the Lord. The sun comes up and east, right? So when they bury people, you know, the Lord went to it went into the sky in the east. They bury people, everybody. They bury him. They lay him down in the coffins. They lay them on their back until they face the east. See, the Lord's going to come up and east. That's the you look at all cemeteries. Did anybody like to go look at cemeteries. That's one of my hobbies. Is anybody. I only found two other people that ever had hobbies to go to the cemetery. Hey, praise the Lord. We got lots of cemetery lookers here. Cloetta and I was going to a cemetery one day, and, and and we was walking around and I. And I saw this. I walked up to this gal's grave and I stand right about where her feet were. See, I was facing west and she's facing east. She's down there and and I stand right there about where her feet were right on top. And I begin to read that thing. And it says, where you now stand once stood I. Where I now lay, so will you! Prepare the time draweth near I said, oh my goodness. And I jump back. She's talking to me. See what I mean? You can get out of some of these hobbies. You can just learn all kinds of things. But, but, but the Lord says everything is going to be exposed. You see everything in your thinking, every word that comes out of your mouth. You're going to have to be accounted for. We saw that last night. See? So so the Lord says to me, he says, it's like the sun coming up in the east. Now Cloetta's got a little, little Toyota Celica and it'll go fast. Go one hundred and ten mile an hour. We tried it, and it'll just really go. And so. So I got in my mind, I thought, well, you know, if the sun comes up in the east and I don't want to beat that, I don't want that sun to expose me. I get in that little Toyota and I get on highway twenty, and I head west toward the west coast and get that baby at one hundred and twenty. Wide open. And if the cops don't catch me, I know the sun's going to get me before I get to California. Probably right. And even if I get to California, I can't keep going. Pretty soon, the ocean's there. See, now I can save or delay the exposure of what's in me for an extra two or three hours because of my high speed chase West. Running from the sun. See, the light exposes everything. And the Lord is saying, hey, Leonard, why don't you just head east? Head east. No, I don't want to head east. I'll get the sun quicker. He says, now you got the idea. You're going to get the sun anyway. Why not just get it now and get it over with? Oh, okay, I'll get in that little Toyota and I take off and I get it in a low gear and go about eight mile an hour, and I don't want to get it up to one hundred and twenty. How many know that sometimes we go ahead and shift and get that thing up into high and put it to the floor and get in there and get that light, get that sun on us and get it done with. This is what I want. You know, what I'm trying to do is motivate you. I want to motivate you to begin to face up to who you really are and what you really are. You know, get rid of the Superman syndrome. You're not a Superman. No way. In Jesus, you can do super things, but you're not a Superman. You got problems. We all got problems. You know? We begin to face up to them. Okay, number one is run. We ought not to run unless we run east. Hallelujah, I didn't mean to spend that much time on that number one. Two, two is turn on self. Look at just like this point. Turn on self. I'm no good. I'm beat down I'm just weak I can't do anything. I'm defeated... and start criticizing, condemning, self. Tearing ourselves down. And we can call this an inferiority complex if you like. And I'll talk about one. If we have enough time tonight, talk about what they are and how to get rid of them. When we turn on self to tear ourself down because of this obstacle. Well, number two is a no no. Let's put the word no no here. Not turn on self when you got an obstacle. Number three course of action is to direct anger on or toward another person or object. So we could just draw a line down here. This would be number three. And we put a little poor little gal down here, or guy and maybe some object. I used to have a brother. He used to like number three. He was a number three. How many know what a number three here is? Have you ever seen a number three? And they'll throw a thing and I'll knock the door down and they'll curse and they'll kick and. Oh, that's a number three. Don't be a number three. A number three who has an obstacle can't get their goal. See, he thinks I'm a nut. But. But don't be a number three. Throwing things. Taking it out on people. Taking it out because you can't overcome this obstacle. Okay. Can't get in the Toyota. Can't criticize self. Can't throw things. What can I do. Number four. And that is attempt to direct directly deal with the obstacle or the obstruction. Or reappraise... the goal. It may be that the goal isn't what you're supposed to be after. How many know that there are more people who decided and formulated in their life? I must have that and I'll get it at any cost. And they'll fight. They'll fight these obstructions and tear their way through them until they finally get it. But in the course of it, they destroyed their family. They destroyed their self. They destroyed their relationship with the Lord. You see? The Lord is saying, when you have this obstruction, stop, reappraise your goal and reanalyze the obstruction. And you may have to directly deal with that obstruction. The Lord may be teaching you something. Let me tell you, God's more involved in your life than you think. A lot of us think anything bad happens to us. That's the devil, Satan, you, I curse you, you get out of here, you know? But you know, the Bible says, father, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. In other words, Lord, don't make me learn the hard way. Let me do it the easy way. Show me. Now the Lord tempted me with that thirty six Ford. How many know that? That was an obstruction. And he says, I want you to deal with it correctly, because there's an attitude in you I want to deal with. That's an attitude of possessiveness, an attitude of, of, of of wanting something. And you have to have it. And I want you to get over that. I want you to be able to deal with that. And if you don't do it, I'm going to run you right on around like Bob Mumford says, you're going to get to take another lap around the mountain in the wilderness. Oh, brother, got to be in the wilderness another year. I was seated in a service one time, and and the preacher was praying and or was praying and he started preaching. All of a sudden he stopped. He says there's three people in here that's supposed to come forward. And, uh, man, I wasn't looking for nothing. I'd been saved, baptized in the spirit and I was thinking about other things anyway. I wasn't even thinking about his preaching. Sitting there doing something else. See? And the Lord says you're one of them. I said, no, I'm not. He says, go forward. I'm not looking for anything. And the Lord says, move. How many of you ever had that happen to you? And I got up, but before I did, he says, if you don't move right now, I'll not deal with you for another year. And I tell you, if the Lord ever talked to me, he talked to me then. He says, move right now. You don't have another second to wait. And I got up and I went forward. Preacher said, what are you here for? I said, I don't know. He said, come up, I'm coming up. They prayed me. I thought something was going to really zap me. I thought, man, I'll just fly out or I'll get cast out or something neat's going to happen, see, and I'll get a blessing, you know, come to get a blessing. See? And he prayed nothing. Nothing. I've never felt more nothing in my life. I thought, man... I said, well, you know, I expect him to keep praying something's going to happen. He stood there while he said, well, you can go back to your seat now. All right. I went back and Cloetta said, what was that all about? I said, I don't know. And on my way home, the Lord said, hey, I'm just teaching you how to obey. When I say move. Move. Amen. Now let's put that into. Let's put that into everyday characteristics. The Lord says. The Lord says it's just like the mama and the little boy, or the daddy and the little boy. The little boy is out there playing in the street. Playing in the street. Three year old boy. Here comes a car. Dad says, Johnny, come over here. He says, Dad, why? He says, Johnny, get over here. And he only get about one more "why" and splat! You see what I'm talking about? When the Lord says obey, He means it. And I think he's really dealing with us tonight about when he says, brother, let's open up and let Him deal with each one of us. It may be another year or two before he puts you in his position again. There's some reason why you're here. I, you know, I don't want to belabor it, but if there's some reason I've never taught it quite like this before. In fact, I've never taught it this way before. I want you to know, some of you, The Lord is saying, tonight is your night to submit and let me deal with you on the inside. And don't miss it. Okay. Let's talk about the healing process. We've got all these broken relationships, and let's talk about the healing process. Now remember we have the five basic relationships, the five basic relationships. Now we've got to start with number one. You can go down if you like. If you've got breaks in all these relationships, which many people do, you can go down here and you can say, okay, I'm going to patch it up with my child or patch it up with my husband. But brother, if we don't patch it up on number one, God himself, it's going to be fruitless activity. It'll only be for a while. We just as well start number one and go to number two and do three. How many know you have to learn ABC before you learn DEF? If you don't, you don't really know your alphabet. See? Okay, so what we're going to do is make certain that there is no break in this relationship. How do you do that? Well, simply, we're going to state a confession tonight. And everybody I don't care whether you're a Christian. I don't care whether you don't know for sure whether you're a Christian or you're not a Christian and you want to become one. I want you to say this confession after me and believe it with all your heart. Just close your eyes and just repeat after me. Father God in heaven. I accept your son Jesus right now. As my Savior. As my Lord. I renounce sin and Satan.   Lord, I want your will in my life.   Lord, I want your kingdom on my inside. Lord, I want to be happy.   Lord, teach me to sing, give thanks and submit.   For that is your will   Lord, teach me to clean up broken relationships. Help me to clean them up. I set myself on a new path. To establish your kingdom in my life.   Amen. Now, the Bible says there's something about just believing and confessing. Do you know that the tongue and the brain are connected? Do you know that? Three fourths of all the nerve cells in the brain are connected to the tongue? You can't even think when you're talking. Do you know that about something else? You really can't. You don't believe me? Jack believes me. A couple of others. You don't believe me? Let me give you a demonstration. I got a you know, I'm a lawyer. I gotta see it. I'm not from Missouri, but I still gotta see things, you know. Now I want you. The simplest thing your brain can do is count, right. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Anybody here can count to twenty. Okay, everybody can count to twenty. He raises his hand. Honest. That's what we like. Praise the Lord. Okay, now the easiest thing you can do is count to twenty. Now, the simplest thing you can probably say is your name. Okay, now, when I begin to say count, I want you to silently in your mind, count. One, two, three, four, five. Like that. See? Okay. Now on your mark. And then when I raise my hand, I want you to say your name out loud. Okay. On your mark. Get set. Go. Start counting. One, two, three, four, five, six. Say your name. Are you still counting? You see, you can't do it, you see? Because the spirit inside says mind, shut up! I got something to say. The tongue spoke. See? And this is why the Lord says confession is so important. It stops the mind. That's why you want to sing hymns and praises the Lord. That's why you want to give thanks. That's why you want to. To go to someone and and submit in words and deeds and actions. You see, it has power because the mind is the battleground. And maybe we'll teach on that one of these days. So recognize that you can keep your connection with the Lord and in His will through the tongue. And don't be afraid to speak some of these things. It's hard to learn to pray, isn't it? Now, these other two relationships of husband and wife and parent child are quite complicated. We're not going to deal with them tonight if you want real teaching on it. I have some tapes and things on those, but we are going to deal with this one right here. The self to self and the self to others. This is what we're going to deal with tonight. Now what is an inferiority complex?   Why do I feel inferior? This is the self to self relationship. Can't even spell it. Just slurred up there a little bit. Tell you what it means. Now, inferiority really is when I, when I concentrate my efforts on my undesirable characteristics. See? I say, you know, Keene man, you sure don't know how to diet. Let me tell you, I love food so much. If it falls on the floor, pick it up, eat it. It's good, you know, and I gain a little weight and I'm like, man, you know, you're so weak. I just feel terrible when I start telling myself that, you know. And you can't do this and you can't do that. Concentrating on my weaknesses is inferiority. Concentrating on my weaknesses and my bad character traits and my bad lack of actions and so forth. Now why do we feel inferior? Two reasons. Number one is because we are. You thought I was going to give you some really high sounding. Because we are. How many know I can't bat like some Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron? I can't bat as well as him. I'm inferior on that point. I can't swim like Esther Williams or any of those other people. You see. Why? Because I can't. I'm inferior on that point. I recognize that fact. I can't sing like Pat Boone. You see? And I can pray and believe God that He's going to give me a Pat Boone voice, but it's silly. If he didn't give me one, he didn't want me to have it. He gave me something else, you see. So in some ways, I am inferior. Accept them, you see. All right. The second reason we are we feel inferior is because we think we are. And that's a different thing. We are not inferior, but we think we are. And that comes from five sources. A is because somebody has belittled us. Belittled by others. A parent. A relative has belittled us and made us feel inferior. You can't do anything right, kid. Why don't you straighten up? Just don't touch it. You'll just break it. You can't do anything. You're just clumsy, clumsy, clumsy, clumsy, clumsy. And just. It gives us a sense of inferiority. We're taught this, you see, because somebody's belittling us. Second or B is we are pushed. Beyond our capabilities. We are pushed and generally by parents. Parents pushing us into things, pushing us in. You've got to be a doctor, kid. You've got to be a doctor, I don't wanna be a doctor. You've got to be a doctor. You got to be a doctor. You got to be a doctor. You got okay, I'll be a doctor. And he tries to take doctor courses and he doesn't do so good. He feels inferior. He's pushed into something that he ought not to be. You see this a great deal in ball games. Little kids pushed into sports. You know, one of the most prevalent, uh, suicide rates right now is among the little kids between six and thirteen. It's the biggest raising suicide rate right now. Why? Little league ball pushed into baseball. Pushed into sports and pressured them to a point they can't take the pressure and they hang themself or blow their heads off. They can't stand the failure because failure is not accepted. When I saw this, we had our little kids were. One day we went to a tricycle race and Randy was about five and man, he was the fastest, neatest tricycle. He could make that thing sing. He could go through the house at about eighteen mile an hour, turn corners, spin around and never hit the wall. He was good, I'm telling you. And he hit those old pedals and that thing is just smoke. And he go, so they in the newspaper it says tricycle races. I said, Randy, we're going brother. We got him down there. And I said, okay, now Randy, I brought... giving him the old daddy coax things. I okay. Now Randy, when that thing says go, I want you to burn off. Don't you think of anything. You concentrate on that place up there. You go up there, you turn around and you come back, and you're going to win, brother. And and he and he started taking off and and and boy, he went so fast and he came back and he was sick. He won, but he was sick all inside. He was sick. White. And we and he that was the heat. See now was going to the final race and and he, he had to wait for about a half hour and he just keyed up just nervous like this. And finally God at that time finally got through to us, said, hey, you see what you're doing to your kid, you see what you're doing to him. And then we saw it. Now if my little boy wants to play sports, he he does the pushing. Not Dad. I discourage him if anything else. I said I'd just sooner have you not play. But if you really want to play, go ahead. But I'm not going to push you. I'm not going to push you into becoming a doctor or lawyer, preacher or anything else. If you just want to be a clerk in the store, I don't care. That's okay with me. See, I don't have to live again through you. You can be what you want. Pushing people into inferiority. C. Frequent failures. This really hurts us men more than anything else. Women can kind of stand failures. But I'll tell you, it's tough on a man. It's tough on a man. My first five law cases, I lost. Let me tell you, boy, you know, I come back after about that fourth and fifth one, I come back. Wait a minute. I'm either in the wrong business, or I'm doing something wrong. Because you can't be a lawyer and lose every case. You can't do it. You don't get to practice very long. You just don't get to practice very long. See? And that failures give you a sense of insecurity. And I remember when we were practicing, I used to counsel a lot of guys. They were in a domiciliary, a Veterans of War domiciliary. A lot of the guys would come in and they couldn't do anything because they had had enough failures and they had such insecurity, internal insecurity. They couldn't do anything. They absolutely could not succeed. So many failures. They were totally helpless. They had such an inferiority complex based upon previous failures. I'll give you a cure out of this shortly. D is sin. Many, many Christians have inferiority because they feel they have done something wrong. I can't live up to what the Bible expects me to. I can't do it. I feel inferior. Man, I just think I'm going great and all of a sudden I find myself telling a lie. Or coveting some car. Some boat. Oh, I got car on my head. Still wrestling that, aren't I? But it just. I can't live up to it. I feel inferior. Listen, if you do this, read Romans seven and read it closely and read it very closely. And then slide on into the first couple verses of Romans eight and find out what Paul said. He says, I will to do good, and I try my best. My spirit does, but I end up not doing it. Now this is old, mature hotshot Paul who had the special word from the Lord. He even goofed up some. See? But he says, if I will, to do good, and I do it not, then it must not be me who's doing it. Huh? It's not me who's doing a bad thing. It's that sinful nature that's in me. And it's going to be there. And it's only with the power of God can I begin to overcome that. I can't do it alone. And then he ended up and says, there's no condemnation for those who are in Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. In other words, he says, don't condemn yourself, this is what he's saying, that's the trap. If you condemn yourself because the condemnation and the snare of the devil are, are, are companions, whenever you start condemning other people or condemning yourself, you're you're suckering right into the old trap of Satan. Don't condemn yourself. If you mess up, pick yourself up off. And in first John says, you have an advocate with the father. Father, forgive me, I'm going to do it better next time. You see, sin. Okay, D. E. the last one is overprotection. By whoever's in control of you. A parent over protecting a child, never letting them learn to make mistakes and letting them know that mistakes are part of their life. They tell us right now that some of the most toughest kids to deal with are the organized sport kids. Now, sports are great for kids. If you just let them go play, go get ten kids and just say, okay, here's a ball bat, go play. Fight it out.

01:02:05 Speaker: But instead, an organized ball. We get a parent up there safe. You take my ruling. Go on, play ball, kid. Play ball. Hit a home run. Play ball and see the kid never learns to never learns to make their own decision. Do you think we still making it for them? And then they get out here in real life and they come on to confronted upon a on a on a tight knit situation. They don't know somebody make a decision for me. I feel inferior. I'm not able to. Please help me. Which movie shall we go to? I don't know, I need an adult to help me. Twenty five years old. I need my mom to tell me. Mama, what do I do... [inaudible]