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[0:00] Genesis 2, verse 7. And the Lord God formed the man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living soul.

[0:13] Amen. And my title today is just Signs of Life. Signs of Life. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I thank you so much for your word. God, I thank you for what I feel in this place.

[0:24] I thank you, God, for what you've put in my heart for this service today. God, I pray you help me convey it. Lord, give us spiritual ears to hear your word today, God, and that would be applied to our lives, God.

[0:36] In Jesus' name, touch us today. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. There are several things we need to have in order to be alive.

[0:49] When it comes to threaten your life, they teach the rule of three. Maybe some of you have heard this before. But three minutes without oxygen.

[1:00] Three hours without controlled body temperature. Three days without water. Three months without food. So you got the rules of three. Oxygen, three minutes.

[1:12] No oxygen for three minutes and things can go bad. You can't control your body temperature for three hours. That can be bad. Three days without water.

[1:23] Three months without food. And things get bad. There are several indicators of the signs of life. There are just certain things you need in order to live.

[1:34] And there are certain ways to tell how healthy you are. One of the easiest ways to tell that we are alive is if we get hungry and thirsty.

[1:45] It's just part of the human condition. It's just hunger and thirst. It's just a fact of life. It's part of being human. It's part of being flesh and blood.

[1:57] Even Jesus, after he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, the Bible says, and he was hungered. I guess so, right? And the last few moments on the cross, after realizing that all he had come to do was being accomplished, God himself robed in flesh, after realizing it was all being accomplished on the cross, he said, I thirst.

[2:25] And he felt, he was able to feel what it was to be hungry. He was able to feel what it was to have thirst. Amen. He was fully God and fully man. Even Jesus.

[2:36] I mean, he, on another occasion, he was hungry and he went to a fig tree and there's no figs on the tree and he cursed it. Amen. Jesus, God in flesh, felt physical needs such as hunger and thirst while in the flesh on this earth.

[2:51] It's a real part of humanity. It's something that we can't escape. It's a sign of life. It's a sign that you're alive. It's a sign of life. It's a sign of life when we feel hunger and when our body needs, it needs food and nutrients and thirst kicks in when we need water to keep blood flowing, the body working and for us to cool down.

[3:14] Amen. Staying hydrated is important. Amen. First, get a headache, the first thing they ask you, did you drink enough water today? You might be hydrated, right? Everyone's different, but most people start to get hungry after about three to six hours.

[3:27] Don't look at me or your neighbor. Just think about yourself today. But everyone usually starts to get a little hungry around three to six hours. According to research, on average, most adults feel hungry around the typical meal times of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which is about every four to five hours during the day.

[3:47] Most people, under normal conditions, feel thirsty about four to six times a day. I need some water right now. That's good.

[4:01] Everyone experiences hunger differently. But when we get hungry, we usually get a mix of physical and mental signals. We can feel it in our stomachs.

[4:14] Maybe there's a gnawing. I get like a burning right here in my sternum. I'm hungry. Maybe your stomach growls or rumbles. We can begin to feel tired because we're low on fuel.

[4:28] Our minds all of a sudden get into the marketing industry, and our minds can start advertising food to us. Amen. It just comes in images, and we may get a craving.

[4:40] Yo quiero taco bell. we may get hangry, right? Hunger can affect our mood. If we go too long skipping meals, we could feel lightheaded or shaky, get dizzy because our bodies are craving energy.

[4:59] And so it ranges from feeling a gentle nudge to eat to really starting to get hungry and uncomfortable. And I would say that there's a range of hunger.

[5:12] And we may come home from work from a long day at work, maybe didn't get lunch and dinner's running late, and we say that we're starving, right? But we're really not starving, and likely you have never actually been actually starving.

[5:29] It would be hard for me to believe that anybody in here has experienced real starvation. I don't think any of us look malnourished today. The University of Minnesota did a starvation experiment.

[5:43] The study showed that humans can survive one to two months without food, and if they have water, if they have water, but the body begins to deteriorate significantly.

[5:54] Accounts from real survivors of great and real famines, or that those test subjects involved in the Minnesota starvation experiment, they described starvation as a consuming, all-encompassing agony that dominates every thought and sensation with the body and mind screaming for relief.

[6:14] Unlike normal hunger, which is relieved by eating, starvation persists and worsens, pushing the body towards collapse. My kids, growing up, they act like it's the end of the world, that they were starving.

[6:30] They were going through starvation when really it was just hunger. And you all have known or maybe exaggerated yourself a little bit and said how starving you are when really it's a little dramatized, right?

[6:46] Our hunger sometimes. But truly, being hungry and hunger, it's a fundamental part of just being alive. It's never going to go away.

[6:57] It's always going to be a thing that we're going to have to deal with. It's your body's way of ensuring that you get what you need to keep going. And as long as you're alive, you're going to experience hunger and you're going to experience thirst.

[7:09] It's a sign of life because it's a natural signal that your body needs those things to function and survive. It would be unnatural for you to not get hungry.

[7:20] It would be unnatural for you to not get thirsty. And if we get to that place where we don't get hungry or we don't get thirsty, we should be concerned about that if we never get hungry.

[7:32] Because if we never get hungry or thirsty, then there's something wrong with us medically, possibly, or we're actually dead. I mean, that's the only time I could think I would not get hungry is when I'm dead.

[7:44] And so as long as you're alive and your body is functioning like it's supposed to be, it will need food and water to sustain itself. So hunger and thirst will remain with us as a recurring reality for as long as there is life in us.

[7:59] Because there's this constant real need for nourishment that will never go away. Okay? And I'm talking about the signs of life today. Hunger can cause us to do some crazy things.

[8:11] Hunger can cause us to do some crazy things. I remember me and my dad used to go hunting quite a bit when I was about 12 years old. Got a new shotgun. Got my hunting license. Very excited to go hunting with my dad.

[8:23] And never gone dove hunting before. We went dove hunting. And my dad got the bright idea that if we would, leading up to the couple days before, that we would go dove hunting.

[8:38] If we had good trained labs that were good at, there were good bird dogs, good at pheasant. We mostly did pheasant and duck hunting before. This was the first time going dove hunting.

[8:48] But he got the bright idea that if we didn't feed our dogs for about two days before we go hunting, that they would hunt better. That they would retrieve better. And so my dad didn't feed our dogs for about two days leading up to the hunt.

[9:02] And Deanna's giving me an evil eye. It wasn't me. It was my dad. She's an animal lover, right? But, you know, thinking that they would hunt better if they were hungry, which kind of makes sense if you think about it.

[9:13] But the first dove my dad shot, his chocolate lab also ran up to the dove. And instead of returning it, swallowed it whole. And my dad's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[9:26] And the dog just swallowed the whole anyways. It didn't go as planned for him, my dad. Okay. The other thing about hunting with my dad is that he thought it would be wise or a good idea just to take a bag of rolls.

[9:42] Like you'd get on the bread aisle from a grocery store. And that was our food we had for a 12 or 14 hour hunt. Going through all the grasslands and all these different areas.

[9:53] Out hunting, burning calories for all these hours. Hunting 12, 14 hours. And all we had was a bag of sourdough rolls. And when I get hungry, we were out of those rolls by like 9 in the morning, I think.

[10:06] We were starving. Oh, wait. We were just hungry. We were hungry. We were hungry. We were hungry. And hunger leads us to make some crazy decisions.

[10:17] Hunger can cause us to do some crazy things. We got home from that dove hunt that day. And we were, it was, by this time it's 8.30, 9 o'clock at night. And there's no plan for dinner. You guys can tell I'm traumatized by this whole thing.

[10:31] And my dad gets the bright idea, well, we don't got nothing for dinner. But we got all these dove. But it's, again, it's 8.30 at night. So what does he do? We clean the dove. And he thinks it would be a good idea to put one in the microwave.

[10:44] In a microwave-safe dish. Put a little butter and seasoning on a raw, fresh dove. And cook it in the microwave. Not very appetizing, to say the least.

[10:56] And I never went dove hunting again. It was, hunger can cause us to do some crazy things. Even worse than hunger, starvation. And it leads to a lot of terrible things.

[11:09] In my research, I learned that in stages of starvation, there becomes a numbness to pain. Hunger sensations fade. And are replaced by what is described as the surreal detachment.

[11:22] As the body shuts down non-essential functions to survive. One of the many other descriptions of starvation is around the organ failures.

[11:34] And what happens to the brain. But desperation and delirium sets in. Some in the studies describe feeling desperate or hopeless.

[11:45] And many experience hallucinations or delirium as the brain is literally starving. In other words, you lose hope. You start imagining things that aren't real.

[11:57] You lose your grip on reality. And you make really bad decisions that ultimately leads to your death. In the real survival situation of this type of thing.

[12:08] Hunger unchecked leads to starvation. Starvation unchecked leads to death. That's the bottom line. In 2 Kings 6, verse 25. It says, And there was a great famine in Samaria.

[12:21] And behold, they besieged it. The enemy surrounded the city. It says, Until a donkey's head was sold for 80 pieces of silver.

[12:32] And a quarter of a quart of dove's dung. Sold for five pieces of silver. They were so, in such a state of starvation, The famine caused some great dilemmas for them.

[12:47] That they would be willing to eat something or do something that they wouldn't normally want to do. Because people were starving, they paid crazy expensive prices for food that, If they were in their right minds, they would say, This isn't food.

[13:03] I would never eat this. It's not edible. It's repulsive to even think to eat something like this. Amen. Starvation drives people to the extreme. And starvation causes people to take desperate and degrading measures.

[13:18] Paying 80 pieces of silver for a donkey's head to eat. Or paying five pieces of silver for a fourth of a quart of bird poop. That's literally what they were taken down to do in desperation because of starvation.

[13:34] The famine was so extreme that starvation was real. And the people were resorted to desperate measures at that point. And the story continues. And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him.

[13:49] Saying, Help my lord, O king. And he said, If the lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? Out of the barn floor or out of the wine press?

[14:00] Basically, if God's not helping you right now, how can I help you? We got nothing. And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? What's wrong with you? And she answered and said, This woman said unto me, Give thy son that we may eat him today.

[14:16] And we will eat my son tomorrow. And so we boiled my son and did eat him. And I said unto her the next day, Give thy son that we may eat him.

[14:29] And she hath hid her son. She didn't keep her end of the bargain. She tricked me. She said if we would eat my son today, that we would be able to eat her son tomorrow.

[14:40] But now she's hiding her son from me. My God! The famine. The famine got so bad that families would resort to eating their own children.

[14:52] That's what happens when we, as humans, get to this point that not only did people get to the point they'd pay anything to eat something that was not even really edible and was repulsive.

[15:07] But now the starvation is so real that they're out of their minds. And we see the spiritual and moral decline that they fall into. What kind of moral and spiritual state would you have to be in to be able to eat another human, let alone be willing to let your son be boiled and eaten?

[15:25] I would promise that I'd get your son tomorrow. It's disgusting. But they were desperate because they were still alive. But they were literally starving.

[15:36] And now I want to bring us to the spiritual application that the Lord wants us to understand today. I say it a lot here. We are both natural and spiritual.

[15:47] We have a natural side and a spiritual side. We have a body of flesh, but also a spiritual body. And so we need to look at how God formed a human. Dust of the ground.

[15:58] That is natural. Then he blew life into the dust. And the Bible says that man became a living soul. That's spiritual. Job 33 and 4 says, The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.

[16:13] And Ecclesiastes 12 and 7 says, Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it. We've got to understand today that we were formed out of dust, and then life was blown into us by God Almighty.

[16:28] Amen. We are both natural and we are both spiritual. There's a physical flesh and there's a spiritual. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, 44, it literally says, There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.

[16:43] Amen. We have to understand that today because we perceive so well in the flesh. Everything I've been talking about up to this point is all about the implications of being hungry or starving in the flesh.

[16:54] Amen. But we've got to realize that there's a spiritual realm about us, and there's a spiritual side to us that is just as relevant as we spend all of our time and focus on in the natural.

[17:07] And so far I've only talked about the natural body and the body of the flesh and to the extreme point of starvation and what it drives us if we don't eat in the flesh. And just like there's a natural body that needs to be nourished, we have a spiritual body that needs to be nourished and not starved.

[17:24] Amen. I'm talking about the signs of life today. I'm talking about the signs of spiritual life. Yes, we have a physical body, but we are too a living soul. Amen. But just like there are strong consequences to the suffering from natural starvation, there are equally strong consequences if we are suffering from spiritual starvation.

[17:44] Amen. And sometimes we don't understand why we feel a certain way or why we act a certain way. Amen. That's not something that I would normally think. Amen. That's not something that I would normally do.

[17:54] In fact, I don't like that very much. And am I questioning even my salvation sometimes? Why did that thought even cross my mind? Why am I okay thinking like that or partaking in those things?

[18:05] Amen. Because we're starving spiritually and our minds, our spiritual minds become delirious in a sense. Amen. We need spiritual nourishment. Amen. To make sound decisions.

[18:16] Amen. Amen. Yesterday, you know, I was good, but today something's wrong that I can't really explain. Everything was fine yesterday. But all of a sudden, today, things aren't right with me and it doesn't make sense to me.

[18:29] And let me just tell you, it might be because there's spiritual hunger. Amen. There's spiritual famine that's taking place in your life and inside your home. Amen. That we need to address today as disciples of Jesus Christ.

[18:41] Amen. Amen. We need to face it and address the real issues of life today. Amen. I'm not afraid to talk about them. Are you? I'm not afraid to talk about the real issues of life. We're all humans.

[18:52] We're all going to struggle with things. Amen. Amen. But just as well as we take care of our physical bodies and making sure that the nourishment is provided for us, that we would be healthy and strong and have the energy we need to get through life.

[19:05] We have to do the same for the spiritual body. Amen. We can't take for granted this word of God. Amen. We can't take for granted the body of Christ that God's called us to serve with. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[19:16] Amen. Amen. Amen.

[19:47] Amen. There's a spiritual hunger in every single one of us that has to be fed constantly. And if we don't understand that, we'll start to try to feed it the wrong things. Amen. We'll start getting down the wrong path that God doesn't want us to go down.

[19:59] Amen. We'll get off on some side road of doctrines, believing in false doctrine and not believing truth. Amen. We might get crossed ways and sideways with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

[20:11] Amen. We may be cross ways with our spouse because we don't understand what is that that's constantly needing something that's not getting what it needs.

[20:21] I'm telling you right now, it's a spiritual hunger and starvation. Amen. That we need to address as disciples of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. You can try to satisfy that spiritual hunger with more things, with more friends, with more partying, or with more money and possessions.

[20:38] But it's not going to ever fill that void that you have in your soul. Amen. And let me tell you, the only thing that's going to fill that void that's in your soul. Amen. It's only Jesus. Amen. Only Jesus can satisfy your soul.

[20:50] Amen. And that's why you see Jesus talking about that. He is the bread of life. Amen. There's a lot of scripture in the Old Testament and the New Testament that shows us only God can satisfy the spiritual needs.

[21:03] Amen. The spiritual bodies and the hunger that comes there. Amen. In Psalms 107, verses 1 through 9, it says, Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever.

[21:19] Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy. Amen. I was in the hands of the enemy one day. Amen. I remember where I was at an altar in Kerman, California in 1995.

[21:32] Amen. I had scars on my arm where I was cutting myself because I was in a dark place. I can't explain cutting to you, but it's something that people go through when they're in deep, dark depressions and things like that.

[21:45] It's one thing where you just want to feel something. I just got to feel something. And I used to cut myself. But I remember where I was. If it was in this church in Kerman, it would have been about right here on this side of the church at the altar.

[21:57] And I made a decision that I wasn't going to leave the altar until God touched me. Amen. Because there was something missing inside of me, something that I was hungry for that I didn't understand in that moment.

[22:09] Amen. And I was trying to fill it with other things. But then I realized it's God that I need. Amen. God's the only thing that can satisfy my soul. Amen. And I had to make a decision that I wasn't going to leave the altar until my soul was satisfied and I got what I needed from the Lord.

[22:25] Amen. And God delivered me that day and filled me with his Holy Spirit. Amen. And I thank God for that. I was in the hand of the enemy, but he redeemed me from the hand of the enemy.

[22:36] Amen. And gathered them unto the lands from the east and from the west and from the north and from the south. They wandered in the wilderness in solitary ways. They found no city to dwell in.

[22:48] The Bible says hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them out of their distress. In verse 7. And he led them forth by the right way.

[23:01] And that they might go into the city of habitation. Verse 8. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men.

[23:12] Verse 9. For he satisfieth the longing of the soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. Amen. Amen. My God, we need you, Jesus.

[23:24] My God, we need you, Jesus. God, satisfy our souls today. Amen. If you're hungry and thirsty and your soul is famished, cry out unto the Lord today.

[23:35] Amen. And he will deliver you. Amen. Out of your distress, the Bible says. It's a promise. Amen. If we would call upon his name today. Oh, that we would praise the Lord for his goodness.

[23:47] Amen. For he satisfies the longing soul and he fills the hungry soul with goodness. Amen. I wonder if we can reach towards heaven right now. Just cry out, Lord, satisfy our souls today.

[24:00] God. Come on, let's pray. Lord Jesus, we need you today, God. God, feed us, God. God, feed our souls today, Lord, with your truth.

[24:11] God. Jesus, thank you. Jesus, thank you. Amen. Amen. I don't want to just get by spiritually weak. I mean, we wouldn't be okay with just getting by.

[24:24] Amen. In the physical, just barely enough, you know, to eat. Amen. We just eat once, every once in a while. And amen. And be all in some kind of famine.

[24:35] Amen. But we eat well, don't we? Amen. We wouldn't allow that kind of thing to happen in the flesh. Why do we let that thing happen in the spirit? Amen. I don't want to just get by spiritually weak.

[24:46] I, with just enough energy and nutrients spiritually. But I want to have strong signs of spiritual life inside of me. Amen. That indicates that I'm spiritually healthy.

[24:57] And not on the edge of starvation and malnourishment spiritually. I don't want to be driven to the point of spiritual starvation. That I become numb to the things of the spirit.

[25:08] And that I start becoming spiritually delirious. Amen. We're formed from the dust and the spirit. And we're a living soul. Just like we nourish our physical bodies.

[25:21] We have to nourish the spiritual body. There has to be signs of life in the spiritual. Amen. We have to feed the spiritual. We need to sustain our spiritual bodies with nourishment.

[25:34] To have spiritual energy in life. And as long as you're alive spiritually. You will experience spiritual hunger and thirst. Amen.

[25:44] I hope you're getting what I'm delivering today. Jesus said, Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. For they shall be filled.

[25:55] Amen. Amen. We need to recognize that missing piece. That thing that escapes us on a day in and day out basis. Where we don't fully understand.

[26:05] We don't fully perceive. I mean it's coming from the spiritual realm. And it's a spiritual hunger. Amen. That we all have. If you're alive spiritually. You have spiritual hunger and thirst.

[26:16] Amen. That needs to be quenched. Amen. And filled. Amen. Jesus said, Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness. For they shall be filled. Amen. We should hunger after righteousness.

[26:28] If you don't feel spiritually hungry. Every once in a while. If you can't recognize that. Then you should be concerned. Like I mentioned in the physical.

[26:40] If you never get hungry. You never got thirsty. That would be a problem. Because it's the body's way of letting you know you need something. Amen. We have to be sensitive to the spirit.

[26:51] Amen. And to know and discern the difference between flesh and spirit. And know that this is God calling me to. It's been too long since I picked up his word. Amen.

[27:02] It's been so too long since I got on my knees next to my bed. Amen. And just got in touch with the Lord. It's been too long since I locked myself in my closet. Amen. And got a hold of God.

[27:13] And it's been too long since I've went on a fast. It's been too long to fill in the blanks. Whatever. But we need to have spiritual disciplines. Amen. So we can maintain our spiritual bodies.

[27:25] Amen. Amen. Amen. If you don't hunger for spiritual nourishment on a regular basis. You could already be spiritually dead. Or having a spiritual medical crisis.

[27:36] Amen. Let's all stand. I don't think that we're spiritually dead. We get fed at least once or twice a week.

[27:47] By going to a spiritual fast food joint. Amen. At DOJC. Right. We get Sundays. A little bit of word from this whatever fill in the blank kind of preacher.

[28:03] Not the best. I try to deliver God's word as best I can. And then you get 15, 20 minutes of our check-in on Thursday nights just to get a little more nourishment.

[28:18] But if you're solely depending on just that, that's not enough. It's not enough. You have to have your own spiritual disciplines. You have to have your own relationship with God.

[28:29] It's not a relationship with DOJC. It's not a relationship with me and Sister Eccles. It's not a relationship with just each other. But it's got to be a relationship with God. Amen. He's the source of the nourishment that we need.

[28:41] It's Him that's going to nourish our souls. Amen. Amen. But we can't just depend just on service by service. But we have to have, amen, a commitment to God.

[28:52] Amen. This word of God is the bread of life that we must consume and become. Amen. What's in this book. We need to conform to this word. We need to love. Get a love for truth.

[29:02] Amen. Amen. And always be willing to recognize the need that we have in the spiritual for nourishment. Amen. Amen. So what I'm asking us to do today is just let's begin to reach out to the Lord.

[29:18] I'm going to put on a song. Amen. And if you want to find a place to pray, let's pray. Let's get a hold of God today before we leave. Amen. Let's wait on the Lord today. Let's renew our strength today.

[29:29]  Amen. Come on. We need some nourishment today. Let's not leave here hungry spiritually. Amen.