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[0:00] Okay, you all, I'm not real good at doing no preaching or nothing, but I don't even know if that's what we're going to call this. But I do know that I am about to bring forth to you a word.

[0:16] A word, and I prayed to God. I said, Lord, I have been called on. And you told me to be ready in season and to be ready out of season.

[0:31] And God, I'm in a season right now. It's a dry bed place, and I don't know how I'm going to bring forth a word from you. When I'm in a dry and dead place, Lord.

[0:43] So I said, God, you need to help me because if you don't help me, Lord, I won't be able to do what you're calling me to do, Lord, today.

[0:54] So he said, I have anointed you to speak the word. I have anointed you to bring forth the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[1:05] And I will bring it forth for you. You need no man to teach you, but I will give you no need to rehearse because I will fill your mouth with words to say.

[1:17] And this is what I heard of the Lord. And he told me, he said, he said, draw nigh unto me. And I will draw nigh unto you.

[1:30] I said, Lord, I'm sorry. I said, because let me tell you, I got in this word and I began to study what it said to be drawing nigh to God.

[1:45] Because, you know, sometimes we forget. We forget when we go on down the old dirty road, old worms road. We start to forget about things. And God will call it back to your remembrance through and by the Holy Spirit.

[1:59] And that's the only way that it's coming back to your remembrance. You better believe it. So, I got in this word and I looked up, you know, because everybody likes to know, you know, where did it come from?

[2:15] James was written in 45 A.D. in Jerusalem. And he was the first Christian council of 51 A.D. James was also the half-brother of Jesus Christ, which I didn't know.

[2:29] You know, I didn't know. I just knew it was James, you know. But he was the half-brother of Jesus Christ, according to Matthew 13, 55 and Mark 63 and Galatians 1 and 9, if you'd like to look it up.

[2:43] His singing for his book was pure religion for the Christian Jews of the dispersion who began the world church. There was no inclination of Jesus Christ.

[2:55] No suggestion to the Messiah having come or the redemption through him. There was no trace of Christian controversy. James adhered to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

[3:06] And that's what we're going to adhere to tonight. The teachings of Jesus Christ. He said in James 4, 6-10, He gives more grace.

[3:20] Therefore, He says, God, resist the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. Therefore, submit to God.

[3:31] Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. But there is a condition. I want you to know there's a condition almost to everything in God's Word.

[3:45] He says, Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and weep.

[3:57] The King James Version says to be afflicted. Are we not afflicted today? There's lots in the church going on. All kinds of people are afflicted. And I'm going to tell you why here in just a little bit, okay?

[4:09] Because God showed it to me in my spirit. He showed me why we're afflicted, and why things are happening to us. And it's all because of an act of disobedience.

[4:21] And we're going to get to that in a little bit, okay? He said, Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and then He will lift you up.

[4:33] He will. Not you will. He will. He will lift you up. When I got studying in the Dakes Bible, in the Dakes Bible, I don't know if any of y'all have a Dakes Bible, but if you've got a Dakes Bible, it's a pretty good study little Bible.

[4:52] And I study out of that a lot. But there's ten commands for the backslider. They're written in James 4, 7-10. Then, one, it says for us to cement ourselves to God, then to resist the devil, then to draw nigh, cleanse your hands, sinners, purify your hearts, you doubters, be afflicted and mourn, let your laughter be turned to mourning, which we just read all this.

[5:20] So I'm going to speak to you about some of that. And then it says, then it says that, you know, thank God that He's married to the black slider.

[5:30] I just want to tell y'all that. Thank God He is married to the back slider, okay? Because sometimes we fall, and we all fall short of glory of God. We all do it. Every one of us fall short.

[5:43] Sister Ravonna was just telling about how she fell short so many times, but she got herself right back up, shook the dust off of herself, and remembered where she came from. God knows where you come from.

[5:55] He knows that you're just from the dust of the ground. He made you. He created you in His image, in His likeness. It's not for us to judge one another or, you know, bite, back, you know, whatever that word is.

[6:09] Back bite. Back bite, whatever. We don't oppose to talk about our brothers and sisters, especially those of the faith. We don't oppose to talk about anybody. Judge not lest you be judged, right?

[6:21] Amen. That's it. Anyways, there's ten commands to that backslider, and those conditions, we have to meet them. And there's three laws of that.

[6:34] The first one is in Matthew 5, 7. It says, Blessed are all the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. And then Matthew 6, 14 through 15, it says, Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

[6:48] Amen. Amen. Galatians 6, 7 through 8 says, Be not deceived, for God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

[7:00] And he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the spirit of the spirit shall of the spirit reap everlasting life.

[7:14] So we have to sow to our spirit more than to our flesh, you all. In Galatians 6, 1, it says, Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you, which are spiritual, those of us who are saved and call ourselves spiritual, are supposed to restore such a one in the spirit of meekness.

[7:44] Considering yourself. Listen to that. It says, Consider yourself. Consider thyself. Before you go talking about somebody else, before you go putting your finger in somebody else's business, about their business, think about your own.

[7:59] Theirs is out in the open where everybody can see it. What does God say about that? He says that He will cover those things that are in the open and He will reveal those things that are not.

[8:11] So we have to be careful as saints. We have to consider ourselves unless we are also tempted in that same thing that we're talking about.

[8:25] Because then you're going to know how it felt to walk in their shoes. Meekness is a dispensation.

[8:36] It's a soft and gentle word spoken and even-tempered and passions and patient and suffering without feeling of revenge.

[8:49] That's what meekness is. I wrote down I wrote down you know probably more than once I probably wrote down the scripture but I did it because I have some some reasonings for it.

[9:09] Okay. It says resist the proud God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

[9:20] So what does it mean to be humble? I'm going to tell you what that means. In the strong it means to to bring low or a base.

[9:31] Okay. It means that you're not arrogant or conceited. You're not haughty and lifted up. You're not superior or presumptuous. You know. It means that you're the sentiments of it is modest and unassuming unaffected shy simple submissive.

[9:52] It means you give your will over to someone else's. That's what it means to submit to something when you give your will over to something. So by submitting to God we are surrendering our will to His.

[10:06] We are yielding ourselves to Him. If you're yielding yourself to anything other than Jesus Christ you're yielding to the wrong people. That's right. Come on. You know the Bible also talks about us being drawn away and enticed by our own lust.

[10:28] You know and I looked up that word lust and it's called a strong craving or a desire. That's what the Hebrew says in Hebrew 5, 6, 89 agab to have inordinate affection lust.

[10:50] I skipped over something here y'all. Hang on a minute. It's okay. Just John. Huh? The rest of that verse in John that talks about the rest of God.

[11:04] In James? Yes. That one. Okay. It says to the humble and we submit to God.

[11:15] So we have to resist. Resisting means just push away from. Okay. It's push back against the devil and he will flee from you. Because see when we have God's word down in us that's what we use to push back.

[11:28] What did Jesus use? Bruce was preached about it before too so as Brother Jeff I've heard it several times here in this church before about pushing you know resisting the devil and he will flee from you.

[11:42] It says draw near to God and he will draw near to you. That's just getting a relationship with him. That's just saying that he is who he is and having faith and who he is and what he says that he's going to do.

[11:56] If he tells you that you can do something then that means that you can do this. And it seems like it's really hard but that's just a thought. That's a thought that comes in your mind to torment you.

[12:09] That's not your own thought by the way. That's not your own thought. Your own thought is when you're enticed by that thing and it draws you away to your own lust.

[12:21] That's your own thought. Yeah. When we're drawn away and that's where we get in trouble folks when we're drawn away and enticed our own lust.

[12:32] It looks good. Feels good. I can see it. I can touch it. I can taste it. I want it. And I want it now. Just like a little kid having a pouty fit.

[12:42] I want it now. It don't happen that way. It does not happen that way. You do not get the things of God. You do not get the things of God by having pouty fits.

[12:56] You get the things of God by standing on His Word and waiting upon the Lord. God will give you strength. He will cause a thing to come on you and you will be able to stand there against the wiles of the devil as long as you resist or push back against the thing that's trying to come against you.

[13:20] It says to cleanse your hand. See, when we draw near to God, this is where we mess up.

[13:33] We think we can just say, oh Lord, forgive us. No, you better do some weeping. You better get on your face before the Lord and really repent about what you're doing.

[13:45] really turn. Repentance means to turn away from. It means to go away from that thing. Don't chase it down.

[13:56] Don't chase it down and get in bed with it. Run from it because it's trying to kill you. God's trying to give you a word to save your life and that thing's trying to kill you.

[14:09] But you're running to it and running away from God. But how many times does the Satan get into your ear and cause you to feel ashamed, unworthy, no count.

[14:21] If God thought you were unworthy, He wouldn't have sent His only Son to die on the cross for you. He loves you that much. If He thought you were unworthy and not worth nothing, He would have never sent His Son to die for you.

[14:35] And if you were the only one, I've heard that He told. If you were the only one, He would have done it for you. He would have done it for you.

[14:52] He says, Come to Me, all that you are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.

[15:04] I am humble in heart. You will find rest for your souls, for My yoke is easy and My burdens are light. So many times we think that the worldly stuff is the easier way, but really it's not.

[15:18] Satan just tries to trick you into believing that what you already knew was the right way, when that was the wrong way. Everything in heaven is an image here on earth.

[15:30] It's just backwards. So if you find yourself out here in a wilderness or a place lost and lonely and despair, it's because of your own self being drawn away and enticed by those things.

[15:46] And it causes you to what Brother Van used to say, drift down the road. It causes you to drift afar. God says we have not because we ask not.

[15:59] You know, we hit it amiss. That's what it says. And we miss it while there's that lust thing we're drawn away and we ask it upon our own lust.

[16:10] What? The lust? Ask in the wrong way. In James. I'm getting, I'm getting, I'm getting far.

[16:22] It says, in order to draw nigh to God though, you guys, we have to, I put, I put, God, God's invitation to us is to draw near to Him.

[16:35] And He will draw near to us. He says to seek me and you will find me. Ask and you should receive me. Knock and it will be open to you. And that's in Matthew 7.

[16:49] I wrote down, to this you were called because Christ suffered for you and He left you an example. 1 Peter 2.21 says that.

[17:02] He left us an example. Jesus Christ was the example to follow. If He could do it through Him by the Holy Spirit, then so can we.

[17:13] Because He died so that He could send back that Comforter, that One that would lead you, guide you, teach you, cause you to do right and live godly and holy in this world.

[17:25] In a world full of evil. He gave you His Spirit. He poured out His Spirit on you. When we was born from the time of conception, Psalms 51.5 says, Surely I was sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

[17:51] Because we were born into a sinful nature. Oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of sin and death.

[18:18] I thank God through the Lord Jesus Christ. So with my mom, I serve the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin.

[18:31] We have sin in our lives, you all, but God gives us that grace, that grace to seize us through. Okay? He gives us His truth to help us fight back against the very thing that's trying to kill us.

[18:48] trying to find out. In Jeremiah 29, everybody knows Jeremiah 29.11? But God put 13.14 on my heart.

[19:03] He said, You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back from captivity.

[19:14] I will gather you from all the nations and all places where I have banished you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back from the place that I carried you.

[19:26] Who carried you? He said, He carried us there into exile. He said in Proverbs 8.17, He said, I love those who love me, and those who seek me will find me.

[19:41] God wants us to have faith because, you know, the Bible does teach us that it's impossible to please God without it.

[19:59] He don't want us to just have that faith that says God exists. God don't just merely exist you all. He is your very being that you have. He is your heart, your soul, your mind, your body.

[20:13] He causes you to get up in the morning. He causes you to sleep at night. He causes you to move and have your being. Everything about you is because He created you to do that.

[20:25] Your body works in perfect harmony. It will heal itself. It will do everything that He commanded it to do in the beginning. We are sick, walking around lame and broken down because we have allowed disobedience to come into our lives.

[20:42] It's through our own lust and desires that we went and chose a different path. But ain't He so good that He brings us back. He brings us back.

[20:54] That's why I asked you to sing this song. Take me back, dear Lord. Take me back to where I first believed. The place where you showed me that you loved me.

[21:06] And I remember years and years ago cutting the grass, coming over here to pick my kids up from Sunday school on the very back row right there where that gentleman is sitting at. The very same spot.

[21:17] I remember it as well as I can remember people came praying around me, putting their hands on me. I didn't know what was going on. Saying things that I just didn't understand. But I said, man, Lord, I felt you.

[21:32] God, I want what they got. And from there I took a road that I chose to take. You got a choice, you know. You get to choose which road you choose to go on.

[21:45] And you get to choose your own journey and how you want to live in that journey. God gave you a free will and He wants you to use that free will to serve Him.

[21:56] But you can't serve both. You have to make a choice. You have to make a choice. But I promise you when you choose Him like she said, taste and see that the Lord is good because He is.

[22:13] God is good. He will bring you through brain surgeries like Miss Judy's had. He will bring you through look at Bobby sitting on that row.

[22:25] It might have took him a minute to get here but praise the Lord He's here. He's here and He's still breathing y'all. Because He's holding on to the one He knows that's going to heal him.

[22:43] David, he felt cut off. And I'm going to read this psalm to y'all. Okay? I had a bunch of stuff marked in there but I didn't read to you a bunch of stuff that I've heard of him.

[22:59] David, in Psalms 143, if y'all want to read along with me, you can. And I'm going to read this to you in the most heartfelt way should the Lord allow me to.

[23:16] Because I want you to be able to feel what David felt. hear me to hear me.

[23:31] Hear my prayer, O Lord. Is everybody there that wants to be there? Okay. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Give her to my supplications.

[23:41] in thy faithfulness answer me and in thy righteousness. And enter not into judgment with thy servant. For in thy sight shall no man living be justified.

[23:53] for enemy has persecuted my soul and has smitten my life down to the ground. And he has made me to dwell in darkness as those who have been long dead.

[24:05] You ever felt dead? I was feeling dead not too long ago. There is my spirit overwhelmed within me.

[24:16] My heart within me is desolate. I remember the days of old. I meditate on all thy works. I muse on the work of thy hands. I stretch forth my hand to thee because my soul thirsts after thee as a thirsty land.

[24:34] Selah. Hear me speedily, O Lord. My heart, my spirit failed. Hide not thy face from me unless I be likened to them.

[24:48] They go down into the pit. I've been in the pit before y'all. It ain't a fun place to be. It's hard when you're down there and you're trying to dig your way out of it.

[25:00] And it seems like not nobody cares in this world but He does. And He will help you. He said, look into the hills and what your help comes from. And let me tell you, I go there a lot.

[25:12] I look to Him because I know that He will see me through it. He said, cause me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning for in thee do I trust.

[25:25] Cause me to know thy way wherein I should walk for I lift my soul unto thee. Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies. I flee into thee to hide me.

[25:38] Teach me to do thy will for thou art my God. Thy spirit is good. Lead me into the land of the uprightness. Quicken me, O Lord, for thy name's sake, for thy righteousness' sake.

[25:52] Bring my soul out of trouble and thy mercy cut off mine enemies and destroy all of them that afflict my soul. For I am thy servant.

[26:02] I choose to be His servant. And I know that my children, my family, they often say, well, why are you going to do that?

[26:18] Well, I'm going to tell you why I did it. Not because of you or her or him. I did it because He told me to in my heart. And my heart's going to stand clear because I don't want to stand shame-facing before my Lord.

[26:31] I don't want to go hiding myself as to be clothed because He's already clothed me. And therefore, I can come boldly before His throne of grace that I might obtain mercy.

[26:46] I can come there because the Lord shall give and the Lord can take away. Just like He gave it, He can take it away from you that quick. It is a very fearful thing you guys to fall into the hands of the living God.

[27:01] whoo! Very fearful. It is, it is. People have no fear no more. There's a rare fear and then there's a fearful.

[27:13] You better be fearful because God whom can save your soul can also send it to hell. To where you will stay there forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

[27:25] And that ain't just to sinners out here in this world because I got another scripture for you. that's to all of us.

[27:35] To the Jews first and then to the Gentiles. You know what that tells me? Because we're Jews inward, y'all. If you're saved in this church right here, right now and you say that you are a Christian, then you are a Jew.

[27:50] Jew. You are a Jew. So to the Jew first because you know what? The Jews are held to a higher standard. Do you know why?

[28:01] Because they know God. They know Him. They've been learning Him from the birth up. They know better to even just say His name in vain.

[28:13] And just speaking His name out of turn is in vain just so you know. So He wants you to have faith in Him.

[28:26] Because without it it is impossible to please God. For he that comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

[28:38] You have to diligently, that means to get in there. Search it out. See what the Scriptures say. See what He says to do. He says if you don't do what He tells you to do then guess what?

[28:49] You don't have no part with Him. I know one day when I get there I want to look and I want Him to say welcome in my good and faithful servant. I don't want Him looking at me telling me turn from me you worker for iniquity.

[29:02] I never knew you. Say it now. Say it now. Yeah. So He says to come to Him.

[29:18] You know? Cleanse your hands your sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded. Double-minded is just to where you have a divided loyalty or conflicting desires.

[29:40] It makes you unstable. So the Scripture says I can't think of the Scripture but it does say that it makes you unstable.

[29:51]  You're like a wind tossed to and fro. I know you've heard it. I know you're a leader Thank you.