Being A Good Soldier

Get your Bibles, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Let's say this together say Heavenly Father, I'm a Sunday night fanatic.

I love the Holy Ghost and I love the Word.

The Word of God and the Spirit of God are putting me over in every circumstance.

I have the victory in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You can be seated.

Turn your Bibles, please to 2 Timothy, chapter 2.

2 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

And this fits right along the same thing that everything's been going the night.

2 Timothy, chapter 2, verse 1.

2 Timothy 2:1

Thou, therefore, my son, it's good to have a father-son relationship in the ministry.

I had a very strong one with Brother Ovestain.

He was my daddy and we had a very strong relationship for over many, many years, and it's a strength lacking a lot right now.

Therefore, my son, be strong in yourself, be strong in your personality, be strong-willed.

Argue the point no, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and the things that you've heard of me among many witnesses the same.

Commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.

Thou therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

No man that wareth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life.

That he may please him, who hath chosen him to be a soldier, and so tonight I wanted to share a message entitled being a Good Soldier.

Being a Good Soldier.

You know, recently, on the 26th of September, I taught on the Apostolic Lifestyle.

This message would dovetail in perfectly if you were here for that.

If you weren't, it's on the website.

There's a podcast.

But I suggest to you that the Church of Jesus Christ is an apostolic, it's a sent one.

We were sent into the world and all of our anointing is based on going.

You know, all of it is we have to go.

We have to go into our world.

This is what James is talking about.

Our world is coming to us.

We're sponsoring these things now for Harris County, precinct 4.

Where, you know, different political figures know about us.

I mean, the governor knows us, lieutenant Governor, I mean, we're known in Austin.

We're known.

How is that possible?

Well, god is shining a light through us and so we're in combat.

I mean, I don't know if you know it or not, but you know it's time for us to destroy the enemy and not to make peace with him.

And I don't say that he's gonna cease to exist, I'm just saying destroy his works.

And you know, jesus won the war.

But we have to enforce the terms of his surrender.

You know they talked about Afghanistan.

Oh, we gotta get out of Afghanistan.

Well, we were in Japan for 20 years.

We defeated Japan, we completely annihilated Japan as a nation and rebuilt the whole thing and we gave them a whole new system of government, changed their culture and we had to have soldiers there until the 60s.

And you know, those people didn't like it.

They it made them embarrassed, made them feel like and we didn't get anything for it cost us money.

And then, you know, we gave them all this technology.

They beat our brains out with it Toyota, honda, you know you just where do you think they got the idea to make all that stuff?

America did.

America just gave them the technology.

Are you with me now?

So we're here to enforce the terms of the devil's surrender and we're soldiers occupying what Jesus until Jesus returned.

He said occupy until I come.

So it says here that we have to endure hardness.

That's hardship, trouble and affliction.

You know it's not all peachy king rose petals falling out of the trees on our head, it's we're living in the last of the last days and there's difficulty.

I'm not saying we ought to act like that.

I think the joy of the Lord is our strength.

He said be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

So that tells me right there.

We've got to be strong in joy.

We've got to learn how to laugh at the devil without being blind to what he's doing.

Amen.

Thank you for two old me's and three grunts.

A good soldier's duty is to please the commanding officer.

You know we're not.

We're not here to please ourselves, we're not here to do our bidding.

You know Lord, jesus is Lord.

I think we need to get out of the idea of savior into Lord.

See, savior is one level, that's the babyhood Christianity.

But once we get that established and we know that we're saved, then there gets into the place of Lordship where we do in what pleases Him.

I said we're doing what pleases Him.

I hadn't planned on telling this testimony, but you know, back in years ago I've been 20 plus years ago now we were leaving the church down the street which back then was championed for us Baptist church.

We'd leased part of it and they had sold the building literally out from under us, and so we had to move in 90 days.

You ought to try moving a church in 90 days and that task fell to us to do it find another place, and in the process people lost confidence.

Some people lost confidence in me.

They started meeting in someone's house that I trusted and lying about me and my family and just making up tales.

And they got a group together of 20, 25 people that I really loved and depended on as leaders and looked at a certain way.

And when it all came to light what happened?

You know I was just taking back.

I just couldn't believe it.

You know, I just got up at three o'clock in the morning, laid on my face and my in my den with my nose on my wood floor, and it's weeping.

And I wasn't weeping for them, I was weeping because I didn't know it.

See the spirit of God tonight.

I see things, I know things.

I've had that operating in my ministry for quite a while and yet God didn't see fit to show me one bit of it.

It was all a surprise and so I took it as a personal defect on my part.

You know, if I was really the pastor I should be, I should know what's.

I should know the state of my flock, I should know what's going on.

God, how is it that I didn't know.

I wasn't blaming God, I was blaming myself, I was taking on the care and the and the, the sorrow on myself.

I said I had no idea I might have been able to prevent the wreckage of what's happened.

And I just, I just don't understand how.

How did I not know this?

And so the Lordy, so sweet, he's, so patient, you know, and of course I know that it's not the Lord, it's the Holy Spirit on the inside.

But he said well, he said, let me ask you a question, did you give me your life?

I'm talking about one thing and he's talking about me giving him my life.

I said well, of course I did.

He said so, so I'm your Lord.

Yes, sir, you sure are?

He said so then I can use your life any way I choose.

He's leading me down the Primrose path.

You can live.

You know, can I use your life?

Anyway, I choose.

And I?

I said well, yes, lord, you certainly can, even to prove other people out, whoo?

I said, yes, lord, you certainly can.

So my question, lord, is what do I do now?

He said, well, forgive him.

Well, you know, it's like talking to a first grader.

You know, yeah, lord, yeah, yeah, I haven't gotten around to doing that just yet.

But yeah, forgive him, pray my mercy on him.

Yeah, yes, lord, take your pastoral covering off of them.

That's the first time I'd ever heard of that term.

I was, I was.

I didn't even know I had one of those to take off of somebody, but it's a supernatural protection that comes from being a member of a church.

Now, office I stand in is a gift of God to the body, and that group didn't honor it.

They didn't.

They dishonored him, they dishonored me.

I'm just the messenger boy, I'm the FedEx man.

So what Do you blame the FedEx man when the coffee maker doesn't perform right?

I mean, you know, unless he dropped it on the front porch or something.

No, the manufacturer is the one you blame.

So who am I?

Why blame me?

I'm just giving the message.

I'm doing what I believe God told me to do, and so anyway.

So endure hardness.

I had to learn how that.

Not everything is peachy keen, not everything is wonderful.

Of course I had a few hints before that.

You start pastoring a church, you find out it's not that easy.

You better not do it unless you're called.

You better not do it unless there's an anointing on your life to be a pastor.

A lot of them are just businessmen that are frustrated preachers that want to hear themselves talk.

Sorry I'm so harsh, but it's the truth.

That's why the church is in such a mess, and so many churches have pulpit committees that go around hiring these people and interviewing them as if they know what to say.

How would you know as a, as a sheep?

How would you know what questions to even ask?

The whole premise is stupid.

Are you with me now?

Well, I thought we were talking about good soldiers.

Well, it starts at the top.

I've got to be a good soldier to my commanding officer.

I've got to please him.

He is looking down my throat and he does not want to hear excuses.

He does not want to hear a reason why I can't take that hill over there, why I can't get the devil out of that situation over there.

He said I'll fire you and get somebody that can.

I just watched Pat in the other night, so it's fresh on my mind.

When you didn't please him, you started looking for another job, and I didn't want God to fire me.

I wanted to work for the King of Kings, I wanted to stay in my position, and so I did exactly that, and so we must not get sidetracked in priorities and pursuits that lead us away from our kingdom duties.

That's right, I said duties, we have duties.

You know, the problem with Americans, the American church, is that in America, the country, the nation, we have a government of the people, by the people far the people.

We have a representative of the republic, but in the church, that's not how it is.

We have a king and he's Lord, he's master, and he expects people, once they get acquainted with the fact that they are saved, he expects them now to get through boot camp and take up a weapon and begin their duties.

Are you with me now?

Some people think this is some kind of volunteer army.

No, you got chosen, you got drafted.

I got news for you there's no volunteers in this army.

You got drafted, chosen.

Oh, he chose you to live now.

Do you think it surprises God what's going on right now?

He wrote all about it.

He knows what he marked you down for and you didn't get to choose it.

You didn't get to choose it, but you do have your own will.

In other words, you can decide not to serve him and not to do your duty.

That's a shortcut to get out of the earth quick.

That's a shortcut to get fired and have him replace you with somebody that's willing to do their duty.

Isn't that the way it is in the army?

Brother Peter ought to teach this part right here.

Alright, so since we're in combat, where are the battlefields?

That's what Patton said one day.

He got out there, took command and they were driving him around, showed him what was going on.

He said well, I won't take you to the battlefield, he's driving in this vehicle.

He says no, it's over here.

So no, general, we were just here yesterday down this road.

No, the battlefield is this way.

Well, you don't argue with the four-star general.

And so they took off with no road, through the trees, and they broke out into this ancient battlefield where the Phoenicians fought the Carthaginians.

You know and you know, 2,000 years ago this battle occurred on this battlefield.

And he just had a nose for the battlefield.

He knew where the battlefield was.

It wasn't the current one, but it was a historic one.

He knew all about what happened, he knew how they defeated them, and so forth.

So we need to know where the battlefields are that we're involved with, and so I've got three of them.

Let's look at verse 15.

In fact, just back up to verse 14.

Of these things, put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord, see, commanding them.

Charging them, not asking them, begging them.

Charging them, that's what commanders do, charging them before the Lord.

That they strive, not about words to no prophet, but to the subverting of the heroes.

Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

So the first battlefield is truth, the war over the truth, the battlefield concerning the truth.

We see it raging all over the world.

It's not just in America, it's global.

I read where scientists in Israel discovered, on the introduction of the so-called vaccine, that people, they didn't know this until just the other day.

An introduction of the vaccine, I remember which one it was, but whichever one it was, it took out the immune system, completely, zeroed the person's immune system and rendered it non-existent.

Is that what you want?

Is that what anybody should have?

I've known this for months.

This is what they want to do.

They want to zero out your immune system that God gave you and put one in that they've manufactured, that they can tweak.

Now are you gonna do what you're told?

Because if you don't, they might infect you with something.

I'll tell you, this is the most evil thing we've ever faced.

Yet we faced some pretty evil things.

But let me tell you something the church ought to be on the forefront of warning and ringing the bell and saying no, no, no, standing against this thing.

He said study, you know.

He says here in verse 14, subverting subversion.

We could say apostasy, overthrow.

How is this happening?

The church is filled with churches that have not rightly divided the word of truth, churches that have sold out to their 501c3 and their tax-exempt status.

I said this 20 years ago I don't care if we have a tax-exempt status.

If they ever mess with us, we'll just start a for-profit corporation.

People will still give anyway.

We have a product that's worth investing in.

It's called the gospel.

It's the most powerful thing there is on the planet.

Glory to God.

These billionaires can't buy health.

They can't buy it.

They can't buy happiness.

Bill Gates and his wife getting divorced, all their highfalutin charity work and all this kind of stuff, all that's just a bunch of baloney.

It was all a means to an end to get them involved in the UN.

Anyway, all right.

So he said study to show yourself approved.

So if you can be approved, what else can happen?

You can be disapproved.

You know again we're here not to do our own thing, we're here to fulfill the wishes of our commander-in-chief.

He's the head of the church, he's not just a suggestor-in-chief, he's not the beggar-in-chief.

Amen, when you start growing up in the Lord, you start studying your Bible, you find out hey, you know what this is warfare.

That's what we were talking about.

Apostolic, the apostolic lifestyle is all about warfare.

He uses the word warfare there in verse four no man that warth.

What does the word warth mean?

Having an apostolic lifestyle?

It means contending with wrong thoughts, stronghold, pulling down strongholds and imaginations.

That's what this whole green energy, all this other LGBTQ, every bit of this stuff is the God of this age and we have got to combat it, not agree with it, not give in to it, not cooperate with it, not try to play nice with it.

There's no way to play nice with these people.

If you figured that out.

The one I want to play nice with is him.

I want to play nice with it, the one that approval that I want.

I want his approval because he said you can either be approved or disapproved.

I'm talking about being a good soldier, and my contention is, if we're going to be good soldiers, we've got to obey the commander.

He's got a mission for each one of us individually and one for us collectively.

You know, if the word can be rightly divided, it can be wrongly divided.

What do I mean by divided?

Where you take the word and you exposit it and you preach it.

You've got seminaries that are preaching that the Old Testament is fables, that they're not real, that Adam and Eve did not exist.

Now, when you go and you teach your seminary cemetery class that you turn these jokers out and some pulpit committee somewhere hires one of these Neanderthals that believe that Adam and Eve were not historic creatures, that they didn't exist, then where is this Bible?

Then, see this Bible, you might as well just throw it away, right?

Well, that's what they're after.

That's what they're after.

They want to get rid of the standard so they can make their own standard.

It's called religion Man's vain attempt to reach God with his own works.

Their religion is worshiping the creation more than the Creator.

Their sin is their carbon footprint.

Now they want to limit the copulation.

Now they're saying that again.

They said that 30, 40 years ago, now they're saying it again.

Why?

Because there's a generation of children that have been raised up to believe this garbage.

It's about time parents got mad and go down to the school board and demand some changes.

Amen, amen.

And so in Luke 21, jesus said about the days we're living in.

He said take heed that you be not deceived.

So part of being a good soldier is to buy the truth and sell it Not.

Don't you dare back off of Bible truth.

Don't you give in to this spirit of this age.

Don't let your children, as long as they're living with you you've got power Quit listening to their.

If you pay their bills, they've got to do your bidding.

Quit being so such an enabler I don't know who that's for, maybe somebody Don't be an enabler of your adult children after you.

Let them live with you and they want to serve the devil.

Tell them to get out or shape up, come to church or leave.

Well, I can't do that.

They're adults.

Well then, why don't they live like adults?

See, you're already compromising with the spirit of this age.

I don't know who this is for.

Kind of hard.

I hope I don't hurt your feelings.

I pray for your toes and so stepped on them so hard.

Listen, we're.

You know what God told me a few years ago.

He said you know, I want you to shift your mission's budget away from India and put it in America, because your nation is on fire.

Your hair.

He said literally this to me.

He said their hair is on fire.

Wouldn't you want to do something if your hair caught fire?

First of all, it stinks.

Don't look at me like you've never had your hair on fire.

I'm not a jam.

You sprayed the Pam into an open flame and it was Take heed.

Jesus said that.

He said take heed that you're beating out to say he, he wasn't just kissing on him, he wasn't giving him a hug.

Come here, brother, Give me a hug.

You know, jesus didn't hug them, he commanded them.

You have to be lovers of the truth.

You have to buy the truth and sell it, not.

You have to love the truth so much that you hate lies, you hate deception.

The fear of the Lord is to hate evil pride, arrogance in every evil way.

That's the fear of the Lord.

That's what we're lacking in this nation.

And so this idea that the Bible is not the Word of God is in our seminaries.

It's in denominational churches and even some non-denominational churches.

Really, there's a lot of non-denominational churches that are denominational in everything but the name.

They lie to people.

They say they're non-denominational, when they really are denominational.

Say, how do you know the difference?

Well, you have to just dig and dig.

And I tell you, I just feel sorry for people trying to find a church.

So we try to get the word out about this church.

Help us get the word out about this church.

We need to have all these red chairs filled with people on a Sunday night and we have to have multiple services on Sunday morning.

That's what ought to be happening in this building right now.

Amen, all right.

So all the news is not news, it's narratives.

It's made up, made up facts.

You can't make up facts.

Facts are facts, but they're making them up.

They're lying daily, and so let's realize that one of the battlefields is the truth.

The next one in verse 19,.

Let's look at it.

Nevertheless, the foundation of God stand assure having this seal.

The Lord knoweth them that are his, and let everyone that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

So we have the war of the flesh, or we could say the war of emotion.

Emotion.

Everything is emotional now.

Everything appeals to the emotion.

The LGBTQ know how to push the button and they say well, it's not fair, I want to just be the one I love.

You shouldn't be able to get involved with love.

Well, that's not love, it's lust, it's perversion, it's ungodly.

God will never approve of it.

He loves the people.

He hates what they're doing, and there's gonna come a day when that behavior is judged period.

So do we love these people enough to tell them the truth, or are we gonna pat them on the head and bring them in the church so they can finish polluting our young people?

I say no, they're not gonna come in this church and pollute the young people.

When I find out somebody's living like that, I confront them.

I had a couple of men come in I don't spend 10 years ago at least and I left them alone for one month and I waited.

I had some altercalls.

I just knew they'd get saved.

Well, they didn't, and they just were participating like you and you participated not.

They were back there just whoo, whoo, you know.

And so I confronted them.

I said, hey, are y'all living together?

Yeah, I said well, you can't be in this church.

It's sin.

If you wanna stay in this church, move out.

I'll pray for you to get delivered, but in any case, you can't practice that behavior.

You cannot send that message and stay in this church.

I knew you were.

I left you alone for a month to give you a chance, but now it's either fish or cut bait.

See, I have to say these things.

Who else is gonna say it?

A committee?

I like what Brother Osteen used to say God so loved the world that he didn't send a committee Anyway, anyway, well, they left and, oh, one of them had a daughter.

She came up, chewed me out.

Oh, she was so mad I said well, lady, all I can say is my boss is the Lord Jesus Christ.

I report to him.

If you don't like it, I'm just so sorry.

I do what the Bible says.

Your dad is in sin and if he stays the way he's doing, doing what he's doing right now, he will go to hell.

You need to understand that he's going to hell.

If he dies in the state he's in right now.

He's got to repent and get out of the world into the church.

And you know, there's a place where you have that tendency and you don't act on it.

You can have tendencies.

You can have tendencies to be an alcoholic, you can have tendencies to be any kind of an addiction you can take care of, but you are fighting it, you are saying no to it, you are doing everything to resist it and you can do that and be a born again, spirit filled Christian, as a matter of fact, but you can't give into it and be a member of the Christian bank robbers association.

That's not going to work.

Are you with me now?

The war, the flesh.

We have to depart from iniquity.

Depart means to make a definite stand or break from unrighteousness.

Has the church done it?

Not entirely.

Big churches don't have a thing to say about LGBTQ.

They have nothing to say about this gender craziness, nothing.

We send them to Austin and they don't have anything to say.

They can't even protect our children from this mutilation.

And I read where one of the gender scientists that is on the forefront of sex change operations been in the movement for decades 30 years Looks like an old woman, but she ain't, he ain't, that's what you got.

And she's outraged that they're doing that to children because she knows that it's going to be disastrous for them.

So here's one of their own trying to tell them not to do that and they're doing it anyway.

Why?

Because they don't care about children.

They don't care what happens to them.

So he said here, after studying to show yourself, approved verse 16, but shun profane and vain babblings.

They will increase under more ungodliness.

And then he says their word will eat his death.

The canker whom is hymenaeus and felida?

So he names names in the Bible.

These two jokers were saying things that weren't true.

They were spreading deceit, deception.

They were spreading deception.

Who, concerning the truth of heir, saying the resurrection is passed already and they overthrow the faith of some.

This is Paul writing to Timothy saying do something about these two guys, get rid of them.

We haven't gotten rid of them.

We put them in the pulpit, we put them in the seminaries, we put them in places of great authority, we buy their books and put them in the Christian bookstore.

People read them not knowing what they're.

Oh wow, look at here Verse 20,.

But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earth, some to honor and some to dishonor.

See, that's what you have in the church right now.

That's what's going on.

It's being exposed the vessels of wood and earth, which.

What does that mean?

Carnal vessels that are emotional vessels that are lust filled, physical lust, versus people that are have been tried in the fire, people that are obeying their master, the Lord and savior Jesus Christ.

He said so.

If a man or a woman or a person therefore purge himself from these, from these what?

From these unrighteous vessels, if you separate yourself from them.

Notice, he didn't say try to reason with him, he didn't say try to help him.

He said separate.

If a man purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the master's use and prepared unto every good work.

See, I think we've got too many ministers trying to minister to these people when God said separate yourself from them.

I know many of us have relatives, many of us have loved ones that have chosen this alternative lifestyle.

We love them.

We're believing God with you for them.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't pray for them.

I'm just saying, like the church itself, to have them come in to the church as church members.

That's what I'm talking about.

That's what I'm talking about.

I'm not talking about disowning them.

I'm not talking about just writing them off.

Don't miss here what I am saying.

But I am saying if you're associated with somebody like that, you're in close friendship with people like that you're gonna have to make a stand at some point in time and that stand could cause them to repent.

As long as you're able to just look the other way at their sin and just think and forget about the LGBT, whatever it is, alcoholism, drug addict, whatever it is, whatever it is, abusers, child abusers, domestic violence practices I mean, look, it's time to face these people down and require better of them and if you don't, you separate yourself.

You don't have to do that.

Verse 23.

But foolish and unlearned questions avoid knowing that they do gender strife.

You know it's a good thing.

You know, just to walk in unity by minding your own business.

You know, a lot of times that'll go a long way.

You know, sometimes we get involved in our brothers and sisters right here in this room and we get too close to them, maybe Too quick to form an opinion about themselves.

Let's just mind our own business unless we're invited in.

Amen, let's not try to pick the little sticker out of somebody's eye when we've got a big old two by four stuck in ours the War of the Flesh, the War of Truth and the last one.

It mentions this battlefield War of the Mind or the Emotions.

Verse 24, already kind of covered that.

And the servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men apt to teach, patient and meetness, instructing those that oppose themselves if God, per venture, will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at their will.

Again, that's talking about your church body.

Sometimes we need to restore Another verse in Corinthians Galatians.

Restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, lest the worst thing happen to you.

There's a time to get involved with each other when we have deep personal friendships, deep relationships, and sometimes we can help people, but meekness, not weakness, but humility, gentleness, a loving concern for people, because if they're headed down the wrong road they need somebody to help them.

Years and years ago I was.

I was give you an example in my own life.

I moved to Corpus, we were involved at Lakewood.

I was not a baby Christian anymore, I was mature enough and we moved.

I was offered a job.

My own business had gone down the tubes.

During the mid 80s we had a depression in Houston, not a recession, especially in my business home building Anybody remember 14, 3 quarter percent mortgage rates.

Pretty well sunk my business and so I moved to Corpus and we started going to a church that was recommended by Brother Deerman.

You know Brother Deerman's, his stepson, dean and Renee, and they're wonderful people.

But I mean it was hard to get adjusted and when we got in there I mean it was just so different than Lakewood.

I mean I was expecting Lakewood South, I was expecting Lakewood Corpus Christi, but Dean and Renee were both had kind of the same personality and that was kind of a personality and it was word of faith.

But no, holy God, they did not welcome prophecy, they didn't welcome the gifts.

It was just word of faith.

And you know, brother Osteen would preach and he had his stories and he would preach 30 minutes and that's it.

Well, brother Garner was just getting wound up.

In 30 minutes He'd preach a whole hour.

So you know, I had an adjustment to make.

I had to adjust my expectations.

My flesh was giving me trouble.

I was thinking why did we get sent here?

This is just not a church that.

I would be frank with you.

It wouldn't be a church I'd choose if I just visited a couple of Sundays, I think I'd keep looking, but we were sent there by Brother Deerman.

I mean, how can you leave?

You know there was no way to leave.

And so I had a.

My boss at the time was a friend of mine and a mature Christian and I don't know I was griping about something and he said you know, garner, what you need to do is you need to either get in or get out.

He said all you've done this morning is murmuring and complaining about your church.

You either need to commit yourself or get out of there.

You're not doing yourself any good.

Bam hit me right in the face and see, that wasn't really meek and it wasn't.

You know, it wasn't real sweet or anything.

But you know what?

I got the message and we glad it's not both.

We talked about it and we just made an adjustment and we were a blessing to that church and that church was a blessing to us and we didn't wind up staying there but a year and a half, but we were blessing while the year and a half was there.

We were a blessing and we helped them mightily.

But I had to make an adjustment.

So the war of the mind, the war of your emotion.

See, don't fight in quarrel.

Be patient, be gentle James 119,.

Be swift to hear, slow to speak and slow to wrath.

Keep your own thought life clean and you'll be able to relate to others and be a blessing Cause.

We're in this all together.

You know, think about a soldier as you're watching each other's back.

You gotta be willing to watch each other's back.

That's why and saving privacy, it's a private rhyme and it's got a lot of cussing in it.

I find it very difficult to watch it, unless it's the version that's edited and they're hard to find and anyway.

But it's World War II and I love World War II movies.

I've seen the movies several times and in the movie, you know, you've got these guys that went through boot camp together.

They lived and ate and fought together as a unit.

They knew each other, they watched each other's back.

They got out there on the beaches of Normandy and that's what they did.

They executed that.

They helped each other when they were shot.

They helped each other when they were hurt.

Some of them died, but they were involved.

And then, after D-Day, one of the generals got the idea to give Tom Hanks his character in the movie.

He's a lieutenant first lieutenant, the leader of the company a different mission, and that was to go find Private Ryan, because his three brothers had died in battle and now they wanted to send the fourth one back.

They didn't want to have the mother have to bury all four of her sons, and so they went through and tried to find Private Ryan.

That's the whole movie.

So what did they have to do?

They had to get a guy into the unit and they got rid of most of the unit and they only kept just a handful of guys.

They kept the sergeant, him and a few of the guys, corporals and stuff, guys that could shoot, guys they could depend on.

They thought they could.

But then they had a guy that did not fit in with it.

He was the interpreter.

They had to have somebody that could speak all kinds of French and German.

They're going across Normandy and they're going across to try to find this young man and bring him home.

And so the whole story was that finally, I mean, he was not accepted.

He did not have the same care for his mates.

Now, he hadn't fired a weapon since boot camp.

He was a greenhorn.

The only thing he had going for him was his language skills.

He was not fit to be in that outfit period in the story.

They made an error and it came to fact that later in the story he's supposed to be the one distributing the ammo at the place where the rubber meets the road.

The Germans discovered him in this town and he gets so afraid.

All the rest of them are fighting and he's hiding.

And the same German that he got released had come back to fight on the side of another outfit against that same outfit and that German went up and stabbed one of his mates and he didn't do anything about it.

He hid.

He hid on the.

Anybody ever see that movie?

So that see, that guy didn't watch out.

He had no idea to watch out after his fellow soldiers.

See, we can't afford that kind of a situation.

We've got to have the people that belong here and once they get here they've got to be good soldiers.

They've got to be able to watch out for themselves, watch out for you and walk in love, amen.

So as we grow in the word and the spirit, we win the confrontations on these three battlefields.

Let's be a good soldier for Jesus, amen.