Lusting to Envy

Hello everybody and welcome to Wednesday Night Live. This is Ron Crawford coming to you from a very warm Dallas, Texas here in the middle time in the month of August. You know, when I came here to Texas many many years ago, in fact forty six years ago, can you believe that? It was so hot that summer. It was the heat wave of nineteen eighty, which is historic.

And we used to have Wednesday night service here. And, after I became pastor, I would say, that having a Wednesday night church service in the month of August in Texas was one of the greatest sacrifices that churches could make because it was just hot. You know? But the nice thing is that you adjust. We have air conditioning.

And wherever you are right now, God bless you. Everybody always thinks that their weather is the worst of anywhere. I was talking to one of the young girls that comes to our church on Sunday, and her family is she's Scottish. Her family is from Scotland, and they had just gone over to visit grandparents, a few weeks ago. And I said, well, how was the weather?

Oh, it was cold and rainy. And I thought, ah. But wherever you are, God bless you. Today, we wanna talk from the word of the Lord, and we're gonna consider some really dynamic aspects of what it is that we are and what we're called to be as saints and as sons. And so I invite you to turn in your bible.

Do you have one of those? To James chapter four, and keep an eye on the last verse of chapter three. We're gonna read this, then we're gonna talk about some things that are rhema for us right now, but it's gonna explain some perhaps confusing things that are written on surface in the King James version. So let let's just read this. This is the old timey prayer and bible study.

Some of you have already been praying. Are you ready for the broadcast? The old days where we actually just had the bible. We didn't have illustrated sermons. We didn't have movie clips.

You know, we just had the bible. And essentially, that's all we need. But problem was back then that the bible, we always heard the same the same sermon over and over again. You know? And there's so much in the living word, and I hope we can discover some great things today, and I know we will.

So James chapter three verse 18. Again, said keep an eye on that last verse in chapter three. The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. Now what is peace? We've talked about this from the Old Testament Shalom or even into the New.

Peace is not the absence of conflict, it's the triumph. Peace is the accomplishment of the mission God gives us. The prince of peace is not sitting there with you in his easy chair yelling, serenity, no. He's leading us forward in the head of his army. And, peace is what God wants his people to know because it is an ongoing triumph through faith.

So if you are wanting the fruit of righteous vision, you sow it in peace. And and it's done by people who commit themselves to peace. The peace of God passes understanding. In other words, you come up with a plan, you come up with a strategy. It may or may not be good because some people are better at logistics than others.

But if you really wanna move in the peace of God, it's gonna be obedience. It's gonna be divine initiative and direction. And, there's a way that seems right to humans, but the end thereof is often destruction. Bible says is destruction, but we both know the onus of that statement. And the point is is that you're either gonna do things God's way or you're gonna do it man's way.

And man's way can be successful for a while, but it really doesn't accomplish anything lasting. So, peace. You sow peace, fruits of righteousness come. So let's get into the meat of the matter here. That's the preface to this fourth chapter.

Where do wars and fightings come among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members. You lust and have not, you kill and desire to have, you cannot obtain, you fight and war, you have not because you ask not. Let's clarify these things. We're gonna find three different words that are translated in the good old King James as lust.

Two of them are in the verse we just read. The first one is where we get our word hedonism and it's hidom. It it means whatever is pleasant to you. Whatever is self serving. The second word for lust here has to do with the thymos.

It has to do with, some kind of physical drive that wants to to achieve or to grasp or to take. And, that's probably the word that is most reflective of our English word, lust. We'll talk about the third word in just a few minutes. But, you can't just paint with the same brush every one of these lust words, and you can't just interpret it on the basis of what you think lust is. That is a common fallacy principle in studying the word where you where you just figure out what you think a word means or what you heard your aunt Selma say or what some wacko preacher said, and then you think that's the truth.

What does the original say? So what does James say here? You need to be a people of peace. You need to be sowing in righteous vision, partnering with God because that's what righteousness is. Why do you have conflicts?

Because you're self serving. And then you in your self serving, your carnal nature comes and you you drive. You have a passionate drive to get something, and then you'll do it at any cost. You kill. You fight.

You war. And the end of verse two, you're not living in Aiteo. You ask not. And then there's a double issuance there because verse three begins by saying you ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your hedonistic desires. Let's see here.

Verse two, Aiteo. Verse three, Aiteo. Boom. Boom. Boom.

And we've studied about what Aiteo means. It's not a Swedish furniture shop. That would be IKEA. But it's that type of asking that I believe is equated to the Sha'al of the Old Testament. It is an intimacy of partnership with God.

It is when you're asking God for something in accordance with what you're doing in him. And the the the onus of this is that you're partnering with God, and he's going to allow his spirit to direct you if you're sensitive to what should be happening. And he's putting the authority in your hands to ask him. And, this is this is so important. You know, we've studied this in the past.

We've written about it, the Ask of Me book. There's gonna be a teaching coming up very soon on the teaching plat on the Hagau's platform about this word as well as other words. Petitions, is a derivative of Vital. This is not saying, well, whatever you want, you ask for it. You got it.

That's the fallacy that was introduced in the sixties in what has colloquially been known as the faith movement. You know, when I was a young boy growing up in a Pentecostal church or at least we spoke in tongues. Not really sure how Pentecostal we were. We spoke in tongues. And I was, through no design of my own or my parents, brought light in a forest Gumpian kind of a way into contact with many well known Pentecostal preachers, evangelists, going to their meetings, being acquainted with them.

I remember a lot of those things. But by the time I came into the 1970s, the faith movement was just getting off the ground. And for once, was hearing somebody teach something that was different than the Roman road. And it's essential. But if you're born again, you don't shouldn't have to keep hearing a thousand sermons on how to become born again.

Well somebody might straggle in who needs the gospel. That's true, but there's a vehicle for that. The church should keep growing And Hebrews five and six says, you have to move forward from those elemental things into being sons, but we never really did that. So here we started hearing people talk about faith and what the meaning of words in an elemental way actually entailed in the scripture. And I love to listen to Kenneth Hagin who's since passed on because he was funny and he had that southern kind of a Oklahoma accent.

And he talked from an assemblies of God base into the faith movement. He's been called the father of the faith movement, but it took off from what he started and it became something that, in my opinion, was antithetical to what he was really saying. In fact, when I came here to Dallas and I interned at, Oak Cliff Assembly with pastor Noah, who was really my mentor. I loved that man. He was a great blessing.

In fact, when I became pastor here in our church, I would ask him to come over and speak to our senior adults to preach for me. I would go down to Red Oak and pick him up and bring him here. What a blessing he was. But he had the great Oak Cliff Assembly of God Church. He hosted in the fifties and the sixties William Brann and Catherine Coleman.

He would bring in all these people because he wanted what God was doing. It wasn't to grow a church. He already had a big church. And when he would go away on vacation, Kenneth Hagan would come and pastor his church for him. And that is really interesting.

And I learned a lot more about brother Hagan from talking to pastor Noah. But the point is though that from those initial and I think I had remember cassette tapes in the seventies? I would mow lawns, I had a job, believe it or not, being a janitor in the mall for a women's high level clothing store. Can you imagine me being in charge electronics and stuff of that nature, climbing high ladders, changing out bulbs? Oh, man.

Oh, Jesus. But I bought, I think, every cassette tape that was available, and I'd listen to them over and over again. And the challenge with faith is that faith, as we have learned, is what God's wanting to do at the right hand of the throne. It's not a weapon that you use indiscriminately. It's not name it and claim it.

It's not, well, what does your heart desire? They pluck scriptures out. It's faith should serve the plan of God, and God's plan is not just to make you happy. What's God's will? To bless you.

Well, greatest blessing is to partner with God at the right hand of the throne. When we travel into Africa, we haven't been there a while. There are a lot of faith movement churches in the African communities because everybody likes the get rich quick thing. And it's it's really sad in a way because faith has been prostituted. So when I talk about asking, it has to be from the framework of what Aiteo really means.

Are you partnering with the peace of God? Are you partnering at the right hand of the throne? Are you obeying what he wants? And then are you partnering with God to ask him for the seeking first of the kingdom and his righteousness? Because then if you're doing that, you fulfill what Jesus said in John 16.

You can look it up. We're not gonna go there right now. John sixteen twenty three in the middle of those red verses. He says, you know what? You're not gonna be eroteeoing me anything from this point.

You're not gonna ask me as a colleague. You're not gonna ask me as somebody that's just walking with you, but I'm going to the father. And whatever you I tell him in my name, he'll give it to you. The famous ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find.

Knock and it shall be opened. Is ask, and it's gotta be directed by the partnership with God. It's not just asking. Anybody can ask. And if you ask it hard enough and passionate enough and get enough people asking for what you want, And you've got a bunch of scriptures that you're arguing with God about.

You're boldly confronting him because you don't think he's doing what you want him to do. And if you believe what some people say, there's some little courtroom in heaven where you're debating with the enemy about whether you have a right for God to bless you, which is nonsense. Why would we do that when we have our Lord, we have the right hand of the throne, we're with our father in the secret place of thunder. We're partnering with him and he says, you ask, I tell in the name of Jesus as a son. It's yours.

You don't have to debate it. You don't have to argue it. You don't have to plead your case. It's that divine harmony. So the question then is, what is the ask?

Well, this is precipitated by you really being a person of prayer, recognizing you are a son, recognizing the placement at the right hand of the throne, what Aman, the right hand, really means and believing God, seeking first the kingdom and his righteousness and all these things added to you. If you really not only just believe that, but you are that, then these things come to pass. But I'm very, very concerned in my own life, and I'm processing this right now. There are many needs. There are many circumstances we face in various parts of the world.

And I just don't go willy nilly saying, well, bless God, I have power. All things belong to my father. You know, you're not like doing drive by deliverances or flinging mountains into the sea. You have to be tactically driven by the mission of righteousness in partnership with the Prince of Peace in accordance with the divine will of God. Write those things down.

That's essential. And you know what? You listen to certain ministries and they all have their own take on what the will of God is. For some, it's to bless Israel. For some, it's to give you whatever your little old pea picking heart desires.

Well, you gotta be careful about that heart desire business because there's another verse, and I think I'm quoting it right, that says, the heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it? And the tongue is a deadly poison. Life and death are in that power. So you gotta be really, really careful with doing what God asks you to do and making sure he's asking you to do it.

So I'm really trying to process as we go forward in our mission as saints to carefully deduce what do you want me to do about this, father? How do you want to handle this? And at what point do you want me to ask you in Itayo fashion for something? At what point in your timing do you want this? Because God is always God, and we ain't him.

So, yes, I know we're joint heirs with Jesus. I know all those verses I preached on them, but there's only one sitting on the throne, and that's the heavenly father. And there are just some things that the son has to relinquish into the hands of the father. Even Jesus did that. He suffered obedience.

He came to do the will of the one who sent him. He came to be about his father's business. And if he just did whatever he wanted to do, we don't see that in the word at all, do we? No. So you're ask you're not living a life of partnership.

You're seeking this is what James says. I'm not talking about you, sister. Might be, but I'm not. This is what James said. You're you're not partnering in peace.

You're not seeing the fruits of righteousness through that course of action. You maybe are seeking, hedonistic pleasure driven or you got your eyes fixed on something and you are a you're a pining for it, mighty, mighty pining for it, and you're gonna go after it. And it causes strife. It causes wars. It causes killings, and it just creates havoc.

And the reason you're doing that is because you're not living a life of. You're not asking. And this is what the scripture says. This is absolutely what James is talking about. But wait, there's more.

Now, you know, I remember one time I was in I must have been about 16 years old. And in our little AG church, we had about 200 people, and I knew that because we always plastered the attendance up on the board right below the three hymns that we sang so fastidiously. And there was always some rogue prophetess that everybody was kind of spooked by. Some of these went one of the girls I dated, her mom was one of these, but she was a kind hearted woman. I trusted her.

But then there'd be these rogue people that would come in, and they'd either give a message in tongues and a yay, my people. Nobody knew who they were. But I remember sitting there one time in church, and the pastor just finished his message. And this woman that nobody knew stood up and said, I'm gonna quote the next verse, verse four, you adulterers and adulteresses. And everybody's looking around thinking, who?

Me? Or you're pointing, well, I I always suspected that guy up there, and she, you know, I don't know about her. And I don't even know what that woman was driving at. It was almost like it was almost like old faithful. Every now and then, these people that are just frustrated prophets in those days, they had to have a vent.

So they think they were doing God a service by going into unsuspected churches and blurting out something that nobody understood. Well, what is this business here in verse four? He goes on to explain it. Don't you know that friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

And in the Old Testament, over and over again, you find God wanting a covenant partnership with his people. He said he was married to Israel, and then he divorced them. And, you know, and any abridging of that, particularly to worship Baal or Ashtoreth or Dagon or any of the others, was an adultery facet in regard to him. So this is speaking about either serving the world or serving the demonic or both. But then we come to verse five and six.

Let's read it then we'll come back because this is really the essence of what we're talking about today. You still with me? As brother Hagan would say, are you out there? You gone home? Some of you were already home.

I should say, are you out there? Have you gone to make popcorn? Are you out there? Have you gone down the hallway to get a break and go to the potty and then come back in and say what I miss? Verse five, no, verse yeah, verse five, Do you think that the scripture says in vain, the spirit that dwells in us lusts to envy.

I bet you didn't underline that first, did you? Let's read it again just so your old aunt Nelly can hear it in the back. Do you think that the scripture says in vain the spirit that dwells in us, where? In us. Lust to Envy.

We're gonna talk about that in a second. But verse six, he gives more grace wherein he says, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. And then submit yourself to God, resist the devil, he will flee from you, draw nigh to God, he will draw nigh to you. What what in the wide wide world of sports is he talking about here in verse five? Because we know that the born again spirit within us is God.

So how can, in the good old King Jim, how can God be lusting to Envy? That ends our broadcast for the day. Now I'm not telling you this so you can figure out how to do this. I'm trying to explain it as prophet Ricky Ricardo used to say. Oh, I've got a search for him.

Is he on extreme Christianity website? The spirit dwelling within us. We know that's where the friend is. That's where we pray in the spirit. At least the Bible says we do.

That's where our index of God's divine calling is. That's where the Ma'a is. All the things we study. So how can that holy and potential place lust to envy? Well, the first thing is let's talk about lust.

Let's talk about lust. This is the third word utilized to describe what King James translates as lust. Remember the first one, hedonism? Second one having to do with the thymos, to burn. I just yearn and burn.

And this is the third one. This is Epipotheo, and this is used primarily for good things. One of our famous and most cherished passages when we go out of ministry is Romans one eleven. I long to see you to impart some mnemonicos gift. That is epipotheo.

It is it is the desire for a good thing. It is a desire, very deep seeded drive, a passion as it were. Almost sounded like snagglepuss from the old cartoon. A passion. Epipitheo.

So the first thing is that the spirit dwelling within us wants something good. Tell me something good. What is envy there? Okay. Here we come.

This is in the Greek phonos. You have to almost have a lisp. Phonos. Phonos. It starts off with psi.

Phonos. Some of these Greek letters, they merge together and they they lisps you out. But this is a word that was characterized in Greek culture. And all the people again knew what this was. Do you know that in Greek mythology, thonos was a demon who was responsible for crimes of passion and jealous pursuits?

In fact, this word, phonos, was used, to describe base jealousy. But in mythology, it also described what they believed was a demonic force or a one of the gods who dealt with jealousy. And it ran around with kind of its I won't say it's his wife, but so many of these demonic beings, whether it's Baal and Ashtoreth, they have a a male and a feminine that go together. And that's probably the perversion of the hierarchy system in scripture where you have a fallen principality or whatever that then has exousias that serve and under serve that. Instead of getting it for God, they're a really homosexual flu flow.

So but nemesis was the one that partnered with Thonos. And nemesis was when you when you did a retributive attack or you actually put muscle to the jealousy or payback. And we use nemesis in our in our English derivative from the Latin that took from the Greek. Don't lose me here. You've heard the word nemesis before.

This is his nemesis, which means somebody's coming after him. They've got a score to settle. So the spirit within us has a drive to do something that is equated with jealousy. So what's the theme that James has been hitting on here? Oh, good old pastor James.

Can you imagine some of his sermons? I wonder if people left says it's too hard. It's just too deep. Can't understand it using all those Greek words. He he even mentioned a demonic god when he was preaching.

I'm leaving. I'm gonna go across the street. I'm gonna find Philip somewhere, hang out with his prophetic daughters. Maybe they'll say some good prophetic words to me. Now this is James, brother of the Lord, pastor, the wise one.

What's he saying here? We know what jealousy is in the Old Testament. The kana, the reed, the jealousy of God where God wants his purpose fulfilled. God is a jealous God, not picayuneish. He's not carnal.

He wants his purpose fulfilled. And James has been doing thesis and antithesis over and over again. You know, you should be sowing in peace but you're seeking after your own pleasure. You should be asking, asking, asking in partnership with God, but instead you're warring and you're fighting and you're lusting. See the the tob and the ra here.

Boom, boom, boom, boom. So here he comes and he says, does not the scripture say that the spirit that dwells in you, if the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwell in you? Yeah. That's a verse, and it's an old timey Welsh revival song. It lusts to envy.

It desires with great passion. Agape, as it were. I'm just putting that in there. That word's not here. But it's the passionate pursuit of God's purpose.

Three p's. PPP, p three, to bring about a correction, to bring about restoration, which is the mission of holiness in the saints. The spirit dwelling in you, lust to envy. Now here's another thing. Some of you of you studiers, you're gonna be looking in fact, you haven't been listening to what I've said.

Where is that found in the Bible? Well, here's a news flash. It's not a direct quote from anywhere in the Bible. So what's James saying? Has he forgotten his scripture?

Is he just making stuff up as he goes along? No. He's giving a synopsis. The scripture in general from the Old Testament that says the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord. You know, we're gonna give an account for what we do in our spirit.

It's going back to God when we're in the dust. He's giving a synopsis of what God wants to do when he breathed his spirit into us. And he also knows that his brother gave himself a ransom, rose again, is in heaven. So he knows about the born again spirit. So he's saying in summation from the old covenant up into the advent of the new covenant in grace and truth that the scripture says there's a spirit within you, and it should be applying the passionate pursuit of God's purpose to fulfill the jealousy of God.

That makes a whole lot more sense than saying the spirit within you is lusting to envy. And then what it says then then what it says? He gives more grace. Grace is pursuing further in the spirit of grace and supplication. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

I like this word humble, because it's tapenos. And one of the blessings that we've had in traveling throughout the Mediterranean is especially being down on the coast in the Cote D'Izu. What is that you said? Oh, you mean D'Izu. The the coastline of France in the Mediterranean down in Nice and Antibes, Cannes.

You know, they one time, we were at a restaurant with our brethren, and they served tapenade, which was made of olives all squished up. And we ate that with bread, and I thought this is delightful. This is really great. Olives. Now they make it with capers too, but olives is the main thing.

Humble as an olive is that you're not only pressed out, but you're so amalgam into the purpose of God that you become like this tapenos. You are not just pressed. You are mulched. God gives grace to that kind of people. He does.

So look look at this. Let's just refresh it. We're gonna go into verse seven because some of you really are liking that verse. You're you're warriors. You're sowing in peace.

You're investing in peace. You go into a city, you go into a house, if they don't accept the peace, which is what scripture says, you leave that place, shake the dust off your feet. And you you have to be committed to the peace of God, his mission. And you're going after pleasure. You're married to the world.

You're doing things according to the demonic stratagem. And you are finding instead of agape, you're you're seeking after soulish pursuits, and you're killing. You're destroying. And you really ought to be. You should be asking.

And the scripture, all of the scriptures we have, including the teachings of Jesus, tell us that, you have a spirit within you that's born again through Christ, and it is a passionate pursuit of the jealousy of God as opposed to using your strengths and your abilities and your divine giftings to go after demonic things. And if you don't believe it's a demonic thing, well then reconsider the Hellenistic language that this was the name of a demon that was devoted to lust. Some people on a I shouldn't even say this, but some people have even extenuated that some of the demonic beings that actually are welcomed by wicked people for sexual things are are personified by this thonos and nemesis. But I'm not going there. I'm just saying this is what God is saying.

So there's Tob and Ra. You're Tob and Ra. Tob and Ra. What should you be? And he's gonna lead you into grace as you become dead to self, not just pressed out, but made into a tapanois as an olive paste.

I suspect that burns really well in the lamps of the seven spirits. Verse seven. So as you submit yourself to God, you're gonna resist the the devil. This is anthistema, the hastema where God has planted you. You're gonna stand against how the enemy has perverted and polluted that place.

And when you really are serious with God, you're moving in peace, you're devoted to him, you're asking, your spirit is functioning in conjunction with the mysteries of God, and you're standing in the gap through the power of the cross, you're doing all those things, the enemy's gonna flee. He cannot defeat that. So draw nigh to God, he'll draw near to you. How do you like that? So it comes back to all these principles.

I pray that we're doing them. But it comes back to how do you know when it's time for an, And I'm I'm struggling with this, not in a doubtful way. I I I believe in the power of God. We've seen the power of God, and I believe God is trying to sharpen our assessment of what God's really saying and what our soul might be requiring or what our human compassion might be wanting. What is God's timing?

What is he entrusting to you to ask? You know, our saints in France have been ensconced with fires all over the place. Well, we're people that believe for the rain, aren't we? Do we just jump on our prayer pedestal and start declaring rain? I haven't felt led to do that.

I felt like God is working his miracle power in our Saints there. As much as I want to do that, I haven't felt the witness to do it. I could say, God. This is anointing we have. We've seen it all over the world and we have.

I'm just gonna go up there and I'm gonna boldly declare even into the courtroom where the accuser is holding court right now. Send a rain. Isn't the Sha'al latter rain? Well, this does not this has nothing to do with the former and latter rain. It has to do with authority through the power of the cross and taking dominion in your land.

It's an establishment of the kingdom. And if you don't establish the kingdom, what good is it gonna do for you to start planting a harvest? It's the Parets Parats principle. It's true. Oh, California suffering with fires.

Why? Because the people that live in Sacramento won't deforest. They're just smoking weed and eating nuts and berries. Let's just be Yule Gibbons and live off the land. Well, good luck with that.

We don't fill the the water reservoir. So when the Pacific Palisades are burning, we're somewhere else. Why why would God ask us to pray for that when the essence is the core of the spiritual environment and the people. You know, there are other places in Texas that have suffered drought. Do we just willy nilly wield the scepter and start declaring like Tim the Enchanter, rain here, rain there.

I'm the rain man. No. But what is our responsibility? There are needs in a lot of the churches that God is raising up in Brazil. I see the needs.

I wanna help them. Sometimes I've gone beyond what would be wise to help these people because we love them, and we don't want them to suffer. But then again, what is God wanting? This cascades down through all of our existence. I used to really I know my daughters probably didn't think I felt this way, but I would feel badly for them when they were struggling with a homework assignment.

If there was a concept, I'd try to explain it. Their teacher, I don't know how well they did in explaining it, but my kids sure didn't get it when they came home. And I'd feel badly for them, and I wanted to do their homework for them. Part of it was because it was getting late, and I wanted to go to bed, and I wanted them to get to bed. But you don't learn anything if somebody's doing it all for you.

That's the way churches would have people wouldn't pray themselves. They'd get into a peck of trouble, and they'd either pester the pastor or old aunt Esther who was a prayer warrior. I don't know how to call upon the Lord for myself, so I'm gonna get a prayer chain going. I'm gonna get all these people musculine thing, you know, we're gonna get our muscles going. We're gonna have a petition.

We're taking itame as a petition, and we're twisting it. You know what means? Your petitions? That's the things that God has put on your heart to declare in, and you're hanging on to them. You're declaring them forward prophetically based not on wishful thinking, but what God has said.

I'm really stepping on a lot of toes today. Those of you flip flop people, sorry. Should be willing should get some steel toed flip flops when I'm preaching this way. I wanna know when God says, yeah, help them. I wanna know when God says, pray for them like Jesus prayed for Peter, that their faith fail not.

Their faith fail not. And I wanna know when God says, you need to ask me in this field of faith and peace. I am wanting to partner with you. I could do it on my own. God can do anything.

But I want you to stand with me and ask. I wanna know when that happens. And maybe a way to know that is to eliminate other factors. Let's just go down this this pathway of lust words, even in this passage. If you see a situation that's challenging and you just wish and hope that it would be better.

That's kind of a perversion of the hedonism. Or is there something that you have invested in and you believe so strongly in it and you're right there fighting tooth and nail and you wanna ask in regard to that? No. We all wanna overcome. We just don't wanna overcome anything.

Battle's getting rough. Why don't you just ask? We'll get out of this mess. Convenient, wouldn't it be? But then there are times where in prayer before the throne of grace, you're in that Selah moment or you're leading others into a Selah moment in a place that God has called you to.

And God, not because of your own passions, not because you believe so strongly will bless God. I don't know whether God wants this or not, but I'm declaring it. I've actually heard people say that. I won't say I've ever said it, but the point is that I think there's a still small voice that will indicate you need to declare this. And sometimes when you walk that kind of a walk, that efficacy just accompanies you.

It's true. It's just true. How weird is it that when we speak on prayer and the changing of atmospheres and we speak about voices thunders, and we speak about the the rainforest in the beginning of seasons, in the former rain. We teach on those principles, encouraging people to move, and then we come into a place and suddenly it just happens. You go to the beautiful Rio Coast in Brazil and 14 inches of rain dropped down in twenty four hours.

You didn't ask for it, but it just was there. Creation awaits the manifestation of the suns. Trees of the fields clap their hands. The seasons ignite. We testified a week and a half ago being in a very hot and humid part of the beginnings of the rainforest in Manaus, Brazil.

All of a sudden in a bright sunny hot humid day, big old drops of rain come out of nowhere and last for the duration of our prayer. Sometimes creation is awaiting and it just preemptively moves. Nature proclaims the glory of God. But you don't want to take any of that for granted. And right now I'm asking that God would fine hone our sensitivity to him and to do what he says.

This is the principle that God invoked and taught Moses. What he said at the right hand, that believe in God. For Samuel, a teaching priest at the right hand of God. Moses comes right before they're entering the promised land. God has told him at the Imam, the right hand, what to do, to sanctify him in the eyes of the people and to teach them.

You speak to the rock. Moses gets there. He's got the rod. He's got the mouth. He's fed up with these knuckleheads.

Is that in scripture? Well, in fairness, those of you who think I should not call them that, God wiped out the whole generation of the ones that were their forebears. So I can either call them a knucklehead or you can get after God for seeing to it that all those people died. You choose. Moses does not do what God said to do at the right hand.

To me, that's an Aiteo type of directive. To speak into the rock is a Sha'al Iteo principle in the old covenant. And you gotta know and you gotta obey. I'm asking God to clarify that for us and to give us the wisdom to know the difference between the impulses in us. So if you've got this spirit within you, which we do, born again through Christ, which we do, thank God, forevermore, And it has this strong, agape like passion for good things to happen.

And you then want the jealousy of God to be fulfilled, you gotta be really, really, succinctly careful that you don't go into the other things that James said. You could believe so passionately for the true jealousy of God with that spirit within you that your heart, which is desperately wicked that needs to align with the spirit, and your mind, which thinks that's a right way, but it does not bring productivity and sometimes engenders destruction, will take the wheel of what that spirit within you is wanting to do. And you want an immediate fix because it feels good to you, or bless God, you believe so strongly that you wanna push that thing through. Ain't that true? There's a lot that this living word is saying to us today, isn't there?

This is the idea. This is what Jesus said. Ask and you'll receive. But you better ask in faith according to the right hand. Nothing wavering.

Seems James said something else about that, didn't he? Not be driven by the winds and the waves of the sea, the carnal church, the world. You're married to God. Act like it. Use his power definitively as he directs.

Will you at this time call down fire to destroy those so and so's? You don't know what you're asking for. David, let me go cut the head off this dog that's cursed you. How long do I have to be with you sons of Zoraya? Joseph, you did this for evil, but God turned it for good.

We have to be wise, and we have to recognize the time when God says, this is what I want you to do. This is what you ask. This is what you declare. And if you do those things, you then go on to the zetel, the seeking, and you're going to make discoveries as the spirit of truth is guiding you. Then you come to the point where you knock.

You've arrived at the destination, and you're going to gain the fruit. You're gonna gain the harvest. That's I tell you. It's not just asking whatever you want. That acronym.

It's really simple. Ask, seek, not, a s k. What do you want, brother? What is the desire of your heart? Do you want a beamer?

Do you want a billion dollars? God wants to bless you. You're the head and not the tail. Oh my Lord, what would your life be? Do you ever see these people that win these massive lotteries?

And I bless them. It would be great to have one, but I gotta be careful because a lot of times you see what that money did to them. The love of money is the root of all evil. Money can corrupt. You gotta know.

You gotta keep your bearing. So what does faith really do? Is it a vehicle where you get whatever you want from God? Is faith some kind of blank check that gets you whatever your little old heart wants? No.

Faith is what God is indicating at the right hand of the Lord, right hand of his throne, where Jesus sits, where the secret place of thunder is, where sons are empowered to go forward on behalf of the will of God. That's faith. That's belief. That's amen. And that's what a teaching priest does in the high places as Samuel did.

That's what Moses was sent to personify, to demonstrate holiness to the people. And that's what James is talking about. So the spirit that dwells in us is not lusting and envious. It's seeking hard after the purpose of God, and it is wanting the jealousy of God's purpose to be fulfilled. Maybe that's a litmus for us.

Maybe you say, Lord, I think I'm supposed to be asking this. I really feel it. If I know anything, is this self serving? Is this something that I'm just so hyped up about that bless God, I'd do anything to get it? Reminds me of David when the Philistines were coming the second time into the valley.

And God said, you go over there under that bucka tree, and you wait. But God, we just put a whooping on them not very long ago. And here these dummies are coming back. We can just go down there and make quick work of them. That's faith.

You've made me the head and not the tail. In fact, I'm gonna have tabernacles named after me. I can do what I wanna do. Where'd that get David when he was up on the roof when he should have been out in Itaia at war alongside his troops? That's another story.

So, David, you get over there, and I'll let you know when you should move. We need that kind of an Aiteo direction. Since we've been back from Brazil, I spent an hour writing kind of a thesis to one of the pastors, providing prayerfully what I believe was wise counsel for situations in his church. Man, I I wanna do so many things in the natural to help them because I I love their people. I want them to move forward.

But if they don't overcome, where will the growth be? I can ask God that their faith fail not, but I can't do it for them. Faith grows as does relationship. And so this problematic on the surface passage in James with all those lusty words and some wacky woman standing up, you adulterers and adulteresses. I guess they feel good after they do that.

We've had rogue prophets come into our church before. Bless God. They're they're they're we're gonna reject them, so I'm gonna get my word in. Well, we don't know you. Why would I let you stand up and speak into my people?

That's not the way you work if you're really being driven by God. And certainly James didn't fling that in there to wake him up, lest the eudicrous kind of falling out the window happened while he was preaching. No. It has to do with partnering with the world, partnering with the demonic. The worst enemy is partnering with your own carnal desires or your self seeking motives.

You should be an Iteo people going after the Prince of Peace, partnering with the Lord, asking in that divine partnership of kings, letting the spirit within you commune with God, breathe with God, fulfill your purpose and lead you in seeing that the jealousy of God is accomplished through the pathway of spiritual blessing, pneumatikos blessing. Which is it gonna be? Because if you choose the spiritual route, you'll establish the kingdom. The enemy will check, check, check, look down over your life and see you're doing all of these good things and he'll flee because he doesn't wanna mess with you. It's a losing argument.

He cannot defeat that. So what's his strategy? Well, I'm just gonna cause them to stop walking in peace. They're going to have success, and I'm gonna convince them that they've got all the gospel. They've got everything.

There's nothing new. The word is not breathing anything new. God is not doing a new thing regardless of whether the Lord says he is. They don't need to pray. Let them go after other things.

Let them listen to the voice of the people instead of the voice of God. Let's make things easier for everybody. Lighten up, Francis. The only way he can defeat you is take you out of these things that James so eloquently portray. So I'm grateful that the Lord showed us this.

Let's all become olive trees, serving the will of the ways of the spirit of God. And let's become so humble that we'll become a tapenade of olives, not just pressed, but made into a paste that God can't resist because that's where grace comes. Well, thanks for joining today. I hope this message has been somewhat of a blessing for you, but I think all in all, we just need to learn more and more what we should ask, how we should ask, when we should ask, and that what what we do after we ask. Almost dead of Jimmy Stewart.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Oh, I never listened to Jimmy Stewart. Good.

Because he's dead. The man from Indiana, Pennsylvania. Bless him. I'm sure he's with the Lord. But if you don't know who Jimmy Stewart is, we're gonna ask that that you'll you'll come you'll come into knowledge of a great American icon, brigadier general in the air force, and, a guy who prayed.

Alright. Enough of that. See, you didn't know I was gonna talk about Jimmy Stewart there at the end, did you? I better stop before I bring up John Wayne. God bless you.

Have a great day, and let's keep seeking the Lord. Goodbye.