SPEAKER_01 0:00

I'm just a regular person. We had a great time with the men. I have a confession to make. I'm I confessed to the men, you know, how many like Texas barbecue, right? This brother brought the most awesome Texas barbecue, but I'm like this sweet barbecue guy. So it's like that's horrible, isn't it? Is that it's it's you can be honest. Come on. It's like like it's like heresy, right? It's barbecue heresy. So what I did is I took sugar packets by the by the I took sugar packets, I took sugar packets by the coffee and sprinkle it on my ribs. So I could like, you know, I just had to do this. And I I think that I don't know if that was a good thing to do or not. I tried to hide and asked nobody to put it on Facebook. So I but somebody did already. Because my family already got the word through Leon, my friend. Leon and Lori are here, my dear friends. Can they just stand real quick? Come on. Couple I met in the, you know what? Discipleship schools work. It's a young, young, uh, young man I met in a discipleship school maybe a dozen years ago in Seattle. He heard this message about sexuality, you know, and God began to heal him and change him. He had lived kind of a life of the cultural manhood, you know, the indulge yourself and no restrictions on your appetite. And he began to hear a different message and began to let the Lord deal in his life. And look at the princess God gave him and then his children. You know, God can restore any of us from where we are, from the brokenness of our past. And so here, Leon, we don't deserve it. He's got a beautiful family, a beautiful marriage, beautiful children like that. That's the work of God. That's the spirit of restoration coming to our lives. So it's so fun having Leon here. So anyway, so much for my barbecue repentance story. That was uh that went over. We told the guys at the at the uh our retreat. We're trying to do, we're trying to create this beautiful. We're trying to take the don't mess with Texas spirit. Anybody know about that? You guys here? We're gonna have fun. We're gonna have some fun today, okay? I know it's the sex series, you know. Don't worry about this. We're just gonna have fun. We're gonna be able to talk and and so but we were trying to take the don't mess with Texas spirit and then marry it to the spirit of Jesus with a broken heart. And then go after darkness with it. What do you think? I think that's what we want to do. We wanna, there's something beautiful about the don't mess with Texas Spirit if we can sanctify that and get it married to the broken heart of Jesus, and we go after the darkness that's trying to destroy our families, our marriages, our our state and our nation, our cities. We want we want God. We we are desperately in need of God to move in our country, and uh we we need to be vigilant, you know. I mean, we got elections and debate and all conflict, but in the next day the church has to just get up and be the church, no matter what happens. We got to get up and be the church the next day, and that's that's what God's called us to do is be the church. And there are there's single moms to be loved, and there's confused young men to help, and there's even there are people that we need to serve and love and lay our lives down for, and and that's the work of the church, and that's our job. So we're gonna take the don't mess with Texas Spirit, believe God can sanctify that. You know, we call that the the zeal of the Lord of hosts, you know, and says we'll perform this. It's just that passion, you know, and that that sense of uh there's a territory to protect. It's kind of like I think if really if Adam had a little bit better, don't mess with Texas spirit, the Garden of Eden would have changed, the story might have turned out different. Because he he would have been talking, he would have been present, listening, and knowing what was going on in that atmosphere. Says he was supposed to tend the garden and then and and cultivate it. And he he kind of like, what in the heck happened here, bro? You know? Somebody's talking to your girl, you know, like when you're supposed to be kind of watching or and uh, you know, that's uh we know the rest of that story, don't we? Yeah. So hey, let me show you a little bit about me. Um this is me when I was just saved. This is like history, this is the last century. You get history credit for this. This is the last century, and this is when I was cool. Now, there's how many people are cool here? We're the young people. Just raise your hand if you're cool. Come on, I want to just identify self-identify. You can you can be even up to 40 and be cool. Anybody, anybody kind of 40 and up who's cool right now? Come on, come on, where are you? Raise your hand. Participation, you're cool. So it's important you be cool now because gravity and time are coming your way, and you someday are gonna look like me. Because this is when I was cool, and now look at me now. Look at this, it's like hilarious. Look at this hair, man. Like this bald head. I mean, like, but and this is me after the Lord rescued me. I grew up with an alcoholic mom and a dad who never said, I'm proud of you. Because of that, girlfriends and pornography were really important to me because when your mom isn't whole, you never get a taste of female without sexuality. Didn't have any sisters. So I went off into my world broken and confused. And and uh I was a chameleon in high school. I uh I get I'd smoke pot on Thursday night, I'd get drunk on Friday night, and then I'd go to the Bible study on Monday night. What a lot of young people do. They live three different lives. A lot of you might have lived that life, you know. I mean, you just live different lives, and you know, there's this trend in the churches in America is you kind of grow up in church, and at a certain age you leave until you get married, and then you kind of wander back in to raise your kids because you don't want your kids to end up doing the stuff that you did. That kind of right. The only problem with that is sometimes we're packing a lot of hurt and memories and patterns of how we lived because we just it isn't just about sitting in a church, it's about God bringing healing and restoration to us. How many know that know about that? You mean and you know, and the miracle of God, I love the miracle of God because he did restore me and change me. He broke the chameleon spirit in my life. I met some hundred percenters, they weren't perfect, but they were running after God with all their heart. And man, the day, the day I didn't care what anybody thought of me was the day I feel like I really came into that intimacy with the Lord, where he became my Lord. It's like, I don't care what you think of me. You know, every one of us has to stand alone, you know, sometimes. All of my girls would come in, you know, at the night, you know, and we're in bed, and they little tap on the door, and one of my daughters would come in and sit on the end of our bed, and they'd talk about you know what was going on in their life, and we just say, you have to stand alone, no matter what anybody says. Sometimes you just have to stand alone. If everybody else is gonna go do this, you're gonna be faithful to God. You're gonna make a choice, you're gonna stand alone no matter what. You know, and that's every one of us sometimes in our lives come to that moment where we have to stand alone. And that was really me. And the reason Jesus looks like that on the door is because the guy that I used to smoke pot with, we had a day where we were gonna paint my truck. It was kind of stupid, you know. I was like a hippie free spirit, you know. And the day we were gonna have a paint my truck day, and he said, I gotta have the door. Give me the door. Jesus is my co-pilot. You know, he would say stuff like that. And I think what happened is Fitzy saw me change so much. He's still always trying to tempt me. Here, smoke some more pot. You know, smoke. I go, Fitzy, you don't understand. God changed me. You don't understand. And and I and I think something happened, you know, that Fitzy saw something, his crazy old friend. He saw something in him. And he said, I want to paint that. You know, like it's like his gift to me. Here, this is my gift to you. I'm gonna paint Jesus on your door. Like, I go, thanks, Fitzy. Like, look at the eyebrows on Jesus. Like, nobody, nobody in the Jesus can't have eyebrows like that unless the guy who's painting him smokes pot. You know, Fitsi, it's it's kind of sad. It's a little melancholy for him. I'm a real sensitive guy. Fitzy died of AIDS before the 70s ended. He got into the gay lifestyle, and and but you know, we know the Lord, don't we? We know the Lord, when he was on the cross, there was a man that said, Will you re Jesus remember me? And he said, I will, some some basically said, This day you'll be with me in paradise. And you know, in that last, you know, when someone's dying, something happens. And in the last months, and maybe the last weeks, maybe the last days, maybe the last hours, and maybe the last minutes, Fitsi could have turned to Jesus. And maybe this crazy friend of his, the memory of even that warm summer August day when we were painting on the truck, that God could reach through all his pain and all his sin and all his brokenness and say, Fitzy, this day you'll be with me in paradise. And you know, I might walk in heaven and walk up there, and Fitzy will be smiling and saying, I love you talking about my truck picture to everybody. He might be watching that because the Lord is a just God and he knows and he loves. He loves even a broken young man who is confused and broken. You know, isn't that awesome about God, the God of restoration? I love the God of restoration. How many, you know, how many have felt that spirit? How many have ever come forward for prayer or brought some pain to God, and you're in a small group or counseling with somebody or maybe even a church service, and you kind of you you responded to the Lord and God did something in your heart, like He pulled pain off you? Anybody ever experienced something like that? I mean, that's a real somebody prayed for you in a living room or in a home group or a Bible study, and God pulls pain off you. And you think, man, that's because God's faithful. But then, and then, but how many, like maybe a month later, three months later, you it was like it was like somebody downloaded a new batch of pain based on the very same thing you got pain prayed for before. And you're bringing the same thing again. It's kind of like it kind of kind of it sort of assaults your theology, like, well, Lord, didn't you heal, didn't you, didn't you pull the pain off me before? Yeah, I did. And what's going on then? Well, there I believe there's this thing I call like the pain, there's a pain machine in our brain that downloads a new batch of pain based on the very same situations and circumstances. And that what the Lord wants to do, this is why teaching and preaching out of the word is so important. He says, You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So the truth comes and begins to assault our thinking. Because if we think the same way about the things that have caused us pain, especially in the sexual area, it's just gonna download a new batch of pain. And we're gonna be constantly, and I believe breaking the sound barrier around sexuality is the beginning of the end of that constant carrying of those memories and those shame. And how many know what I'm what I'm talking about? That God wants to release his truth and it assaults and breaks the pain machine so that those down lows begin. Because when literally, when we when we think differently about the things that have caused us pain, our life begins to change. It's that renewed mind. And that I love that about the Lord. You're talking to some of the guys, you know, at the at uh out at the retreat, you know, there's already a sense. I mean they're they're saying, I'm thinking different about some stuff, I'm thinking different about the heart of a woman. A handful of guys come up to me and say, I'm thinking different about the heart of a woman. Like I never really thought about the heart of a woman like that. You were talking about it. Something's changing already. Something's changing already. I love that. You know, there's miracles that happen. We go from that picture of me. Can we show that next picture? I got I got eight kids, and uh man, I don't deserve having eight kids. And I and guess what? Six of them are girls. I used to say this a preacher introduced me one time. This is brother Jim, and he has eight kids, and they're all boys, and he would stop, and every mom in the place would go, oh man. And then he'd say, Except for six girls. They're all boys except for six girls, you know. That was his joke, as a preacher joke. But uh then go, my jokes aren't going over too well here. I didn't I don't know if this topic has got you guys nervous, or I'm just not, I don't know about Texas humor or something. Like, man, I'm trying hard, you know. I got the repentance on the barbecue, you know, don't mess with Texas, you know. I'm okay. So here's here's my so I got six daughters. I love having daughters, man. I mean, if you are a daughter, you're a blessing. I'm telling you, God sent you onto the earth to be a blessing from heaven. Whether your dad acknowledged that or not, I'm telling you right now, you're a blessing from heaven. I want to declare that over every daughter. You're important, you're beautiful, you're wonderful, there's treasure in you to heal the broken earth. You you you were designed to hear that every day of your life growing up. You were supposed to hear it. You were supposed to be so full of a sense that you were important to people in your life. I'm sorry if that didn't happen. I believe, men, it's our job to restore that. Because there's a very unfriendly culture right now toward the women in our lives. How many are aware there's a target on the back of every one of our daughters, wives, mothers, and sisters, that there's a sexual spirit that has targeted them to destroy them. There's a sexual spirit that wants to change their their identity from a person to an object. And an identity, there's there's there are lies in the culture that say to a daughter, the most important part of who you are is your sexuality. And they hear it from the time they're eleven years old or ten. From everywhere they look, everywhere they turn, every film they see, every internet internet set they go to, every advertisement they look at, they hear this message that the most important part of who you are is your sexuality. And I've had the unfortunate I don't even know what you'd call it, to see that when a daughter believes that, every dream she ever had would be destroyed. I remember I was in Spokane. I'm not a troublemaker. I mean I'm I got a little bit of don't mess with Texas in me, though, if I can use that phrase with you. So I'm down at Abercrombie and Fitz, you know, and sometimes you just have a bad day. And this is this is this is when they're and I just went in on a Monday night. You know, Monday night you got you know the third manager's working, it's Monday night, everybody's been shopping all weekend. So there's 20-year-old gals there, and I'm tired and dangerous. I don't know what I am. I'm just saying, I just said something like I don't know, I don't know. I said something like, if if my daughter lived the lifestyle of what these pictures are showing, would it mean all her dreams would come true or that every dream she ever had would be destroyed? That's probably not very friendly. That's not that's not that isn't bridge building evangelism. It's not like, wait a minute, I don't want to represent Christ the wrong way here. She said, Look, it I just work here, okay? I go, I understand. She goes, the division manager of 13 states is in town. Do you want an appointment with him? I go, yeah, absolutely. I'll take a I'll take an appointment with him. So I got to hang out with this division manager of Abercrombie and Fish for an hour and a half. And he's he's living with a gal, he's living with his girlfriend. But man, I talked about my daughters and how I am as a dad, and I asked him, man, if you're, you know, if you you're gonna have children and you're you're with this gal, and man, if you had a daughter, would you what if she lived the lifestyle of what these pictures are showing? Would it mean all her dreams had come true? And he just kept looking at me and said, No one's ever, I go, look, I don't hate you. I mean, you're an intelligent guy. You you're in a position to challenge the management of this company to say, why are we prostituting a generation to make a dollar? A generation in search of an identity. What are we doing? You can sit in that in that huddle with those leaders and say, are we gonna what kind of company are we gonna be? He goes, no one's ever talked to me like this. I go, look, I'll be the first one to buy shorts in your in your store, man. You call me up. When you're more when you're when you're advertising and marketing philosophy changes, I'll be the first one. Call me up. Well, you never call me up. But uh, you know, that sexual spirit is alive. How many, how many are aware of that sexual spirit? It's let me show that slide. Here's a here's a depiction of that sexual spirit. Can we show that little bathroom slide? Look at this bathroom slide. My friend was helping an elderly man. And this isn't like Adam, this is a literal picture he took when he was in there helping this guy, this older man, he's helping him. And this is like symbolic of kind of where we're at. And I think it's such a crazy snapshot. A kind of a this is where we're living. We have a spirit in our culture, and we're trying to do a little bit of daily bread to kind of like kind of the antidote, you know, for this monster that we're dealing with. And how many know we don't win this way, really? This isn't gonna, we're we need a little bit more than just a little taste of daily bread to fight this spirit. How many have felt that in your own life? It's like, what? This is this is a monster. This thing is strong. It is, it's been around for thousands of years. Matter of fact, God's people have always faced a spirit, a false God spirit that was worshiped with sexuality. Anybody ever heard of Baal in the Old Testament? Anybody heard of Asherah? Those are the Old Testament gods that Israel was always warned about. Like, stay away from those, those are false gods. You know, they'll they'll turn your son's hearts after the false gods, you know, these these Canaanite girls don't intermarry with them. I mean, all the warnings because there was so much power. Try to get this picture in my mind, it's kind of like like say there's uh Point Dexter and Bertha, you know, and they're like an older couple.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

And Bertha, Point Dexter is going, oh Bertha, it's like so bad now. So much sexuality everywhere. I I just everywhere I look, there's belly buttons, and now there's leggings everywhere, and I don't even know what to do. I just don't know what to do, Bertha. It's never been like this before.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

And Bertha kind of goes, point dexter, it's always been like this. There's always been a false God spirit that was worshiped with sexuality that was that was confronting God's people. It's always been like this. The Old Testament, tear down the high places, the false gods. This is the picture. They were worshiped with sexual immorality and temple prostitution and child sacrifice. Those are the three spirits, the three ways they were worshiped. Fast forward to the New Testament. It's the same thing with Diana, Artemis, Acts 19, two-hour worship service service. Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. You know, it's like, whoa. Paul birthed the church in the sex-saturated Greek and Roman world. It's where the church started. They had a day dedicated to the male sexual organ. We have Father's Day, Mother's Day, we got 4th of July. They had a day dedicated to that. There was you would you would wear that as an amulet around your neck. They were on doorposts. I mean, it was in your face. And the church had to confront it. It was birthed in that atmosphere. People were delivered out of that atmosphere into a place of holiness and purity, and they were delivered from the memories and the brokenness of their past. I often think about the little temple prostitutes that Paul must have ministered to in Ephesus. And he comes to one of their church meetings, and and he Paul is there, and they want to come up and see Papa Paul. Oh, Papa Paul, and they come up after he preaches and they maybe give him a holy hug. You know, they're the Jews are you know, they're they're they're touchy, feely men. They hug Paul, and those girls feel the scars on his back, and they recoil and they go, Oh my gosh, and it kind of connected to them. It's like it cost you a lot to come and bring me bring us our freedom, didn't it? Because remember, Paul, how many times was he whipped? Five times 39 lashes, five times what Jesus went through. The number of grace, five times where Paul was whipped, and those daughters touched Paul's back in a moment. Moment of time they think, oh my gosh, it cost you a lot to come and declare my freedom. I was one of the temple prostitutes in Ephesus. I was one of the daughters of the culture that were encouraged to cultivate my sexuality and connect with every young man is part of our worldview. And you came, and for the first time in my life, I'm a daughter of freedom now. For the first time in my life, I'm a person. That's what the gospel does. I believe the same spirit is alive today. It's exactly the same spirit. We have sexual immorality. Well, Pastor Jim, we don't have temple prostitution. I go, we've got the temple is everywhere. The temple is the internet, the movie house, the magazine rack. People watch it and then they go participate. In the child sacrifice or the abortion clinics all over the really all over the earth. Where children conceived in the worship of sexual pleasure are sacrificed. And the church has always faced that spirit. Let's look at a scripture that describes it. You know what we're doing? Let me just say this. This is the positive work of reformation. He said it was kind of negative, Pastor. And Pastor Jim, this is sort of a downer message. I go, it's real though, isn't it? You know what Paul or Jeremiah pleaded with, he pleaded with the rulers, is don't you dare heal the wound of the daughter of my people superficially. Don't you dare put a band-aid on cancer. Don't you dare let young people who have had negative sexual experiences think that they can just come into the church and they want to do it right, and we're gonna celebrate. Man, they want to get married. Man, they're they've they they're they're they're swearing off their old lifestyle, and they want to get married now. Man, we're so excited. You know, they're gonna do it right now. But walking down an aisle doesn't, there's no magic wand wedding day. That's what I'm trying to say. I wish there was. I wish there was a magic wand wedding day where the negative sexual experiences a young woman has had, the loss of her purity, young man discarding them like property after they've given themselves away. That they could she could walk down an aisle in a moment of time, all those things would disappear. That doesn't happen. Just because they're gonna do it right now. And we celebrate the fact they're gonna do it right. Or a young man is suddenly gonna be transformed into a caring, self-sacrificing, lay your life down kind of guy from a man who was indulging in his sexual appetite his whole life without ever any restriction, following the the blueprint of the of the beer ad. He won't be transformed in a moment of time. There is not a magic wand wedding day, there is a gospel of Jesus Christ, there is a sound barrier that needs to be broken, there's instruction from the Word of God and an extension of forgiveness and healing and restoration that will make them ready for that day. But for them to come in and for us to walk in silence and not break the sound barrier is probably the almost maybe the highest form of failure or cruelty we could do, we could extend to the next generation. And God wants to raise up some moms and dads who have some scars. You know, some of you have x-rated testimonies, but you've tried with all your heart to go with a PG. I'm gonna sanitize my testimony to a PG testimony because I'm still ashamed. But you don't understand that your x-rated testimony, and if we can get the shame off you, there are beautiful sons and daughters and moms on playgrounds and people in restaurants and school and workplaces who are living under the shame with no gospel at all. And they're waiting for someone to come to them and say, I know the way out of hell. Can I tell you about my life? And they think for the first time in their life there's some hope for them. Oh, and can I tell you about the God of restoration? Can I tell you about the God of restoration who broke all my shame? And they won't even have to use words, though. It's so interesting because their face is already saying it. Women are so intuitive. I mean, they know. Ladies know. Had a friend, Candace, worked at Trader Joe's, it's kind of a hip grocery store. Do they have them down here? You know, I mean, it's like, come on, Trader Joe's, like, you know. And uh Brittany Spears, it's just still in me, you know. But uh, she worked at Trader Joe's, and Candace had gone through hell. Wonderful gal, wonderful gal, but junior high passed, you know, on she was the junior high baseball girl, got passed from player to player on the team. That was her background. Then she got tired of being hurt by men, so she hung out with girls for a little while during high school. And I don't know, then she kind of did both for a while, and she's smoking pot all the time. And I ran into her in a discipleship school. Hey, Candace, good to see you. How are you going, girl? Oh, you know, and the message after hearing like a week of this, is uh this doesn't really apply to me. That's how thick her walls were, that's how much pain she had. But she ended up in the in the school for a second year because she had leadership ability. I said, well, let's second year, God just went, and man, she just and God started healing her and restoring her and breaking all the memories, and it's just so awesome what happened with Candace. And she's working at Trader Joe's, and she started a friendship with a young man. We call it court, yes, courtship. You got courtship, you got dating, and you got dorting. Dorting is the blending of dating and courting. Dorting. So you I'm well, I'm kind of dorting. Well, I'm sort of dating, but dorting, a little bit of courting, you know. It's just like it works out really nice, you know. It's kind of so anyway, whatever you want to call it. She started, I call it a special friendship, intentional relationship, you know, whatever you want to call it, you know. This guy was interested in Candace within kind of our community, and he, you know, wanted to have a friendship with her that might lead to marriage. And so she's involved in that in that process, and you know, and the word gets out. Isn't that crazy? The word gets out.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

I'm in, I'm in a relationship. Facebook. I'm in a relationship.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

And what happens? What if everybody wants to know what's going on? Like, is there intimacy there?

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Is there a little bit of a little bit of intimacy going on there?

SPEAKER_01 29:03

You know, it's just like, oh my gosh, you know. And the culture wants to know about sex, you know, they want the juicy details, you know. And so all the workers are talking to Candace about her relationship. Like, you guys, like Candace goes, why would I want to do that? I already did all that. Why would I want to wreck this relationship? And she starts talking about this young man who has pledged to treat her with honor and respect and not touch her before marriage, and they and about what they're doing, what they're talking about, the books they're reading, the time they're spending together. And girls who are living with guys are looking at her and they're saying, That's that's what I'm that's what I want. That's what I want. Like, like, and and and you could see she could see the longing in their faces, this deep longing in their hearts for the same thing. And then they start, and then they're thinking, well, can this like where do you go to church? Can I go to your church? Can I like if I go to your church, maybe some of that will rub off on me and this boyfriend I'm living with, he'll want to treat me the same way. Is this how can this work? You know, I gotta get this, I got I gotta get this to work somehow for me. Because I'm being taken, there's this haunting sense in those young ladies' lives that they're not being loved for who they are as a person, they're being taken advantage of. And the longing of their heart was for something completely different. Every daughter is her. I don't believe there's a daughter on the face of the earth that's designed to give herself to a young man without a commitment that is so permanent and so profound that she feels safe and secure and loved and cherished and valued and protected. And that's what God did when He created marriage. He said, I'm gonna create something for you to surround you, to protect you, to honor you. You know, we think it's just for the girl, man, it's for the men, too. It's for the men, because men, listen to me. Let me let you in on a secret. We are designed. We're designed to do what's right instead of what's easy. And when married, when we make a commitment to a woman and we say we're gonna walk in purity, and then we're gonna marry you, and then we're gonna honor you and serve you and lay our life down for you. When we do the Ephesians 5, husband, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave herself, gave himself up for her. When we do that, there's something about honor. There's an honor from heaven that starts coming to us. And our fuel is honor. We're we're not only designed to do what's right instead of what's easy, we're designed to look in a mirror and see someone we respect. Our fuel is honor. So God's got some identities for us. Even, you know, Candace, even the lady who was a very strong lesbian woman, a woman that God loves. I'm not trying to, I'm just talking about our culture. She would sit with Candace during her break times in the back room and weep. She'd say, Tell me about this young man. I hate my life. 50 years old, a lot of things, a lot of water under the bridge. And Candace would just talk to her and pray with her and remind her that it wasn't too late for her, that there's still hope for her, and that God can do He can do things in her life. He can heal some hurts. Amazing. Just because all that witness, just because a girl chose to have a relationship of purity in the midst of a public workplace and talk about it in a way. I believe we are so positioned by God right now in this culture that's worshiping this sexual spirit to be such a light. I mean, we are so positioned to be such a light by our relationships alone. That's why it's so important for us to heal a generation of young people who maybe been wounded so they can have the hope and the joy of having a relationship of purity that is screaming out loud to everyone, like, take a look at this. Every daughter should be saying, Look at my face. I remember my daughter Julie was, you know, courting Lee. And I just, and at the wedding, I just said to Lee, Lee, all I had to do was look at her face to see if you were doing what I asked you to do and what God asked you to do in terms of how you're treating Julie. Because there wasn't a shred of shame on her, there wasn't a shred of doubt, a shred of fear. There was nothing but this sense that Lee is cherishing me, protecting me, honoring. He's suffering. He would love to possess me now, but he's willing to wait because he doesn't want to sow one seed of doubt into my spirit. And I say, Lee, every day you walk with Julie that way, you are screaming at her. You are shouting from the rooftop, the reason I want to marry you, Julie, is because of who you are as a person, not because of some sexual experience you can give me. And I'm willing to wait and suffer. Call that husband training. Husband training. There's something beautiful about husbands being challenged to wait, future husbands to wait. For young men to wait. I get into discipleship schools and the young men, they go, they come up to me and go, Pastor Jim, I'm just, I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm hearing the message, I'm committed. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna, this table keeps going down, doesn't it? Anyway, you go, Pastor Jim, I'm committed. I'm I'm hearing the message, and I'm I'm just I'm just gonna I'm just gonna hang on. I'm just gonna I'm gonna hold them on. I'm just gonna just, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna just be a commitment, I'm going for purity. Gonna hang on, I'm gonna fight the fight. I'm gonna fight it. I'm gonna hang on until I get married. Just holding on. Because after I get married, it's gonna be free lunch. All the sex I want whenever I want it. They're dead serious. They're looking at me dead serious, like I'm proud. Like, man, am I proud of you? You know, like let me congratulate you with my sharp pen and pop that fantasy balloon real quick. You know. But that ain't the way it is, you know. I mean, it's like, and I then I tell them a story, kind of this might, it's not really a story, but it's sort of a story because I go on Russia, been to Russia 35 times. I come back from my mission trip. When I come back from a mission trip, I'm ready for big kiss from my wife. This is not a junior high crowd, right? Everybody understands what I'm talking about. I'm ready for intimacy with my wife. It's a blessing. The Lord ordained that. It's like I miss my wife. I want to talk to her, I want to see her, I want to hold her. You know, it's like that's life. God blesses that. It's not weird. But if something has happened when I'm gone, if something has happened when I'm gone, if my wife's mom has had a stroke and she's in the hospital dying, guess where my wife's mind and spirit and heart are gonna be? About 18 million metric miles away from giving her husband a big kiss when he gets home. That's for sure. So, what do I do when I get home? Kick the cat, kick the dog, punch a hole in the sheetrock, slam doors. Go down the basement and break things, go out in the garage and pouch, silent treatment, you know. Or do I go to the bank account of self-control where I've been making deposits ever since I entered puberty? Lord, I need to make a withdrawal. Okay, how much do you need a withdrawal? Well, I need a withdrawal. A couple thousand, probably at least, you know. I've been gone two weeks, you know. It's real, but it's but it's real because we want to honor the spirit of our wife. We this is the spirit of Jesus with our wives. We let husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. This is part of how we walk. My wife is my sister for a day or two or a week, and she becomes my wife later. I honor her. I also go to a mirror and I stand and I point and I say, You're not gonna die. Because I'm not gonna die, because men of God do not live for a feeling. They live for God. That's who we are. We're called to live for God. We are not called to live for a feeling. We're not bound to our lower nature, but God's releasing grace to us so that we can rule over that part of our life instead of that part of our life ruling over us. I never read that verse to you. This is the Bible church, so I'm gonna get a couple verses in here. I know you're here in my heart, in the Lord's heart, I believe. Ephesians 6, 11, it says, have nothing to do with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It's the positive work of reformation. We're we're bringing reformation by talking about what we need to talk about. Revelation 18 is this sexual spirit, a description of the sexual spirit. It says, After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined with his glory. And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. She's become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of or go down to verse 3 here. For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality. Isn't that that phrase is describing our culture? The merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality. That's pornography, that's sex trafficking, that's advertising with sexuality. That's where all the, I mean, that's where all this money and this stuff, the merchants of the earth have become rich, and and the nations have become drunk. America is drunk chasing this sexual spirit. We're out of control with it. We it's it's become a preoccupation. You know, it's interesting too. I love I love this. It's like the Lord saying, we've got to deal with this spirit. We have to deal with this spirit, this Babylon spirit. It was an actual nation, an enemy of Israel. And then in the New Testament paradigm, it becomes a spirit, you know, that has a very strong sexual nature. It's like an anti-God spirit that opposes God's people. It's the it's that Babylon spirit. And we understand that, but it there's the components of it are this sexuality, this strong sexuality, this spirit of sexuality in the culture. And I what I love about this is the Lord introduces this spirit of sexuality, kind of like church, we're gonna have to deal with this. We're gonna have to wrestle with this. This is a reality in our life. But did you see how he introduced it? I love this about the scripture in God. He says, fallen, fallen is Babylon. This spirit has been defeated at the cross. This spirit has been defeated by the blood of Jesus. No matter who you are, what you've done, how hopeless it's been, how dark it has been, how many wounds you have, the Lord's saying today, fallen, fallen is Babylon. Fallen, fallen is this spirit of darkness. Cast down by the power of the Lord, the work of the cross. Defeated, no matter what we've experienced. Those are the things we have the list of things in churches we don't talk about: sexual immorality, abortion, molestation, sexual assault, same-sex relationship, pornography. I mean, things that people are dealing with in their lives, those are the things that are the unmentionables, but not in this place because there's a spirit of reformation. There's a spirit of reformation in this church that's saying we are gonna talk about things, we're gonna see people healed and restored, we're gonna believe for full, whole healing in their lives. A lot of places, those are the unmentionables. Then there's another list in the churches of the things people never get healed from. It's the same list, isn't it? Could it be if we break the sound barrier? Could it be if we break the sound barrier, we're gonna begin to see people begin to be restored? They can bring the darkness of their life into the light. And John says this in John 1.5 the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome the light. That light breaks the power of the darkness, and freedom begins to come to sons and daughters. Let me close it with this story. I was in Canada and I did a little unmasked weekend, and uh, and then I was gonna preach on Sunday, Sunday morning, and it was Mother's Day, and this is like, so I'm thinking, okay, Mother's Day. You know, butterflies and corsages and grandmas standing up and oh, we love moms, you know, just you know, Mother's Day. I say, Lord, what do you want me to preach something appropriate, like a Mother's Day sermon, you know, something that's gonna really celebrate motherhood and just bless the moms. And he said, I want you to preach on 2 Samuel 13 on the rape of Tamar, where Amnon raped his stepsister, Amnon David's son. I go, Lord, that's a never come back to Canada message. I go, are you serious? He goes, Who's the boss and who's doing what? And what's this about? Because I'm about freedom and healing and restoration. I've got some daughters in this church. He didn't say it this way. I saw it later. I've got some daughters in this church. And my heart's breaking for them. So I just go, okay, Lord, I'm never coming back to here. I'll just do whatever you want. And I'm preaching the message, and in the second row, right where Matt and his wife are sitting, was a little girl, 17 years old, that three years before had been assaulted by two men. In the middle of my sermon, she starts sobbing. Her mom and dad are sitting behind her, and they reach, they're reaching forward and holding her. And her little brother is sitting next to her, holding her hand, saying, I hate what happened to my sister, and I'm gonna protect her, and I'm gonna fight that. And he's just like this little brother, so full of just Wants to protect her, wants to fight that evil. She came up, you know, and we just said, hey, anybody that wants to respond, new identity, you know, this war against your identity, this pressure, this maybe some past choices you made. She came up. We prayed for her and took some time. And, you know, at the end of that time, something had changed in her. I mean, she didn't look at me like, well, thanks, Pastor Jim. I feel just exactly the same. And I, but I have to pretend like everything's great now. And, you know, thank you very much. But she looked at me with that look like something has changed. And something changed that day. Something shifted in that day. There was a healing that came to her and a restoration. And yeah, she continued to grow. But I believe God, with the speaking of truth and light shining in the darkness, we can see that for people. And that day we've been in touch, and she's growing. She's in the young adult group. She has guy friends she's hanging out with in the young adult group. She wants to get married someday. She's not afraid of sexuality. It's not some ugly thing to her. God has restored her heart. He's broken the power of the memories and the shame, the sense that it was her fault. I believe God wants to do something similar this morning. So I'm just going to close. I'm going to hand it off to Pastor Nick here. Can you do that? I mean, just pray, Lord, thank you for your beloved people. Thank you for that you're the God of restoration. Thank you that you, the first step to freedom is taking anything in our darkness and stepping into the light. That you can shatter the power of memories and those film strips that keep revolving in our brain. You can break, you can qualify dads and husbands and young men. Lord, we need you here. And Lord, we we we most most of all we just say, Lord, thank you that your word to us was fallen, fallen as Babylon. That this spirit, when you introduced it, you said it's a defeated spirit. It is fallen, it is cast down, the blood, the cross, your sacrifice to defeat evil. Thank you, Lord. Fallen, fallen as Babylon. No matter where we've been, what we've done. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Amen. The um the desire that we have as a church leadership, and the desire I believe God has for us is to continue to see us walk in the freedom that Christ has purchased. And I believe that Jim has spoken God's word clearly, compellingly, and we've been praying for a while now, even as elders and staff, that God's spirit would continue to move among God's people here. I'm sure that some of you feel some discomfort today, feel a little unsettled, but I hope that you see that the Father's heart for you is a heart of love and grace and mercy, and that he wants to restore what is broken, what you have been robbed from, what the enemy has stolen from you. And we said this with us, the men this weekend, and we'll say it again today. The first step towards freedom is just to admit that there is an issue that you need to give to the Holy God, the living God, the loving God, and just acknowledge that it's there and then begin to bring that to Him. So this morning we want to do that in this place. Uh we want to give ourselves some time to do that. Um, every week we taught, we we stop at the end of our service and after our teaching, and we just take some time to reflect over what the Holy Spirit has said. And so these guys are going to sing a song, and for the next song, we'd ask that you don't move. You just stay where you are. Don't even necessarily listen to the lyrics of the song, but ask God through the power of the Holy Spirit, what is it, God, that you want me to give over to you this morning? What do I need to admit to acknowledge that it's there? I've been stuffing it, I've been blocking it out, I've been unwilling to really deal with the shame and the guilt and the fear of this issue. But I'm today, I'm coming clean. Today I am acknowledging it. Today I want to be free. And so as these guys sing, I just want you to sit there in the stillness of this moment and to reflect on that. And then after this song, we just ask that you move to obedience, whatever that is. Whatever God wants you to do, that in courage and in faith, you would just take that next step. So, Jim, myself, some of our other pastors and elders are be available for prayers. We are each week. And if you need prayer, if you need to just start that conversation, because this is not a quick fix, okay? There's not just a quick fix. You just can't get through this quickly. This is going to take some time, okay? And we've got some resources. We want to help you, we want to support you. Don't try to fight this in isolation. That's what the enemy wants you to do. Okay. But we'll be available for prayer, and we'll help you take that next step of being free and walking in the freeness and the wholeness that Christ offers us. There's also around the room our communion tables. And when I think about sexual purity and I think about, again, the price that Christ paid, when I take communion, I remember that Jesus' body was broken and beaten so he could bring freedom to us in every area of our life, including our sexuality. And so if you want to take communion this morning, you feel free to do that as well. If you're not a believer in Jesus, if you're if you're not, if you've never surrendered your life to Christ, you don't need to take communion. That doesn't make sense. The gift that we offer you today, if you're an unbeliever, if you're someone who's just still exploring faith, the gift is this: Jesus gave his life so that you could have life. And he offers that today. And those who confess Jesus as Lord, believe in their heart, God raised him from the dead, you can be saved today. You can receive the gift of salvation by faith. So as these guys lead, you sit, you reflect, and then let's move. And let's not walk out the door with the same secrets and the baggage that we walked in with. Okay? Can we do that? Let's take that step towards freedom and wholeness in Christ today.