(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you on the first we read about a place that's called the the you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you on the third your waters of blood there are flowing behold the drink will be free rare jewels of splendor are glowing how beautiful heaven must be how beautiful heaven must be behold the happy and free where hate of rest is weary how beautiful heaven must be on the last the angels so sweetly are shining up there by the beautiful sea sweet colors purple hearts ringing how beautiful heaven must be how beautiful heaven must be and free where hate of rest for the weary how beautiful heaven must be Amen. We'll probably get it on the next one, all right? Let's allow our heads in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for this church, Lord. Thank you so much for gathering us here together, Lord, and thank you so much for using us as vessels to go out and preach your gospel, Father, and thank you for those that were saved today, Lord. Lord, I just want to pray that we stay focused here in the Bible saying, Preach, Lord, that you can fill past your versions with your spirit, Lord, and that the singing gives you glory, Father, and that everything here gives you glory, Father. Lord, we love you and do these things with you. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. Amen. All right, let's turn to our next song, song 187. Song 187, Jesus loves me. Song 187. All right, on the first. Jesus loves me, his I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong. They are weak, but he is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so. Jesus loves me, he who died. Heaven's gate to open wide. He will wash away my sin. Let his little child come in. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so. Jesus loves me, he will stay. Those beside me all the way. Thou has for me. I will ask for them for me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so. Amen. All right. Good to see everyone back here this evening how nice it is to be able to fellowship and that everyone loves being here. But let's remember church is important we get started 4 pm and we're here. It's good to have everyone here this afternoon. We had a good day out soul winning today. If you don't have a bulletin up here real quick just slip your hand up and brother Lindsey will get one out to you. I believe we should all probably have one from this morning. And you open up to the first page you see the service times listed. There's always Sunday morning at 1030 Sunday afternoon at 4. Wednesday night 7 is our Bible study. We got the soul winning opportunities listed there. As well as the salvation and baptisms. Let's go ahead and count up any salvations from today. Anyone saved just slip up your hand real quick. We got one over here. Okay, one, one, one. One and one. Make sure we're not double counting here. Just pay attention to who else has their hand up there. So if you see I got yours. I got yours. What about this side of the room? Man, you guys are just the spiritual deadness crowd over here. We have all our salvations on this side. I'm just teasing. You know, you're probably partnered up with the people raising their hands, right? These are the guys wanting to get all the glory over here. I'm just teasing. Well, amen. Six people saved. That's good. I wasn't sure how I was going to go. It started off kind of weird. You never know what you're going to get. But praise the Lord. How did it go with those guys, Brother Jesse? Did any of those guys get saved? I saw you on the tennis court, or on the soccer court. It got kind of derailed around the middle, but one got saved. A bunch of listeners. Spanish women had to play. Yeah, good. And for those of you guys who didn't see that, you know, it's a really good example of sowing to go up. There were some guys just kind of hanging out on the court. They weren't really doing a whole lot. It's not like they were in the middle of some big official game with a referee. And Brother Jesse just opens up the gate, goes out there, and he got a whole group of people to listen to him give the gospel. That's a good example that everyone should remember. If you see people, just because they might be hanging out, playing basketball, or doing something, just boldly go up to them and approach them. Because you never know who's going to listen. I mean, the worst they're going to do is say, no, man, we're busy. Okay, well, then you move on. But in this situation, there was four or five guys or something that kind of stopped. Not everyone did. There were other guys that were hanging out on whatever. They didn't care. But the guys that were interested stopped and listened to him, and he was able to give a full presentation of the gospel, and one guy got saved from that group. So praise the Lord. But my point is, you may walk past things like that thinking, oh, they're busy. Oh, they don't want to listen. Oh, they're just going to say no anyways. Don't have that attitude. You never know what's going to happen. So people just appear busy or whatever. Let them tell you that they're busy. Don't tell them for them that they're busy. Give them the opportunity to say it, and then, you know what, at that point, don't badger people either. Don't harass them and try to make them and force them to listen to you. Say, okay. Well, have a good day. Thanks. And maybe another day they'll get reached. You know, it is what it is. If people don't want to hear it, they don't want to hear it. So, anyways, good job out there, and we saw a lot of people out knocking on those doors. We finished that complex, so next week we'll be going somewhere new on Sunday. And let's see, we got the offering totals down there at the bottom of the page. Now, real quickly, I know we got an update from the Saturday Sowing Group. Is there anyone else that did any sowing earlier in the week that I missed this morning, I didn't get any numbers from? Any other salvations report? Good. So that Saturday Sowing Group, you know, had 10 people saved yesterday. They went out for three hours and had, what was it, eight people out sowing or six or eight? Like eight people. So it was great. So the Saturday Sowing Group seems to be growing a little bit, and there's kind of more people being able to make it out there. So if you have Saturdays open, Brother Mark's doing a good job out on the west side of town. And just talk to him, and he'll be able to get you hooked up. You want to go out on a Saturday. And then Brother Carter, of course, is doing our Monday night sowinging. So we're back to the evening schedule. Holidays is the only thing that kind of changes that, but normally it's about 5.30, right? Okay. It's about the time we get started, so you'll have to contact him, because both of those groups do not meet here. So if you want to join those up, don't come here expecting to see everybody. You have to talk to them, because those are just meeting up at different areas outside of this location. Very good. Keep up the good work sowinging prayer requests. Continue to pray for everyone on our list. Please bring these home with you, and honestly, sincerely, pray for the people on this list. This isn't just to make everyone feel good, but it's something that we should be doing in our time is actually investing time in praying for people. That's why they're on here. They need prayers. So please pray for people there. On the next page, of course, we've got that picture of Brother Denzel and Sister Kristin after their wedding, and then we had a really nice spread. I told you it was going to be good eating. Like I said, I don't know how the spiritual meeting was for you, but that food was so good. Appreciate that. The Miller family bringing that here, and then congratulations to the Rogers family. There's a picture of little baby Levi, who was born safely, thank God, 8.44 a.m. All the information is there, and appreciate everyone who has brought food for the Rogers family. And if anyone still wanted to bring food, just at this point, I think it might be best to talk to Brother Devon on how you want to arrange getting the food to them because they got some food last week, and now I know there's a bunch of people who brought some food today for him to bring home, and very much appreciated. So if anyone else was planning on doing something, you didn't bring food, just talk to him, and you guys can figure out what would work out best for them to receive that food. It's not always easy because they live in South Carolina, so that's why we kind of do things here. We drop stuff off, but appreciate everyone who helped out with that. On the back of the bulletin there, we've got the September challenge, is the church attendance challenge, so trying to make it church services, all three church services for the entire month, and hopefully can get you fired up to just want to be coming to church, three to thrive, and challenge yourself to make it when you wouldn't maybe normally attend church to make it here for all the services. Upcoming events, we just had that reception this afternoon for Brother Denzel and Kristen, and then we've got everything else listed here. Pay attention because I am updating this. I added the chili cook-off on October 31st, the watch night service on New Year's Eve, and then we've got the Bible memory passage, so if you are able to memorize this passage and be able to quote it out loud, without making any mistakes you'll earn a prize for being able to do that. Upcoming anniversaries in the month of September are listed down there, and then homeschool field trips at the bottom of the page are the last two homeschool field trips scheduled, and the one at the Telescience Museum in October is B-Y-O-L, means bring your own lunch. Alright, so we provide the last one for you. This one is you brown bag it, do whatever you want to do, bring it, bring your own food yourself, take care of that for your family, and but, but everything else is free of charge, I mean you just gotta, we'll pay the admission or whatever activities are being done with that group. Church pays for that, and enjoy the homeschool field trip, and of course anyone is welcome, anyone, any, families with children homeschooled are welcome to attend those, and sometimes we also allow for helpers to come as well for, you know, larger families that want to bring some help along to just help be kind of chaperones, then that's also acceptable, so that is about it for our announcements this afternoon. Brother Peter, please lead us in our next song. Alright church, we can open up the song number 325 Him for 325, trust and obey Him 325 On the first, when we walk with the Lord in the light of His word, for the glory He sheds on our way on to His good will, He abides with us still and with all who will trust and obey trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but we trust and obey, not a shadow can rise not a cloud in the skies but His smile quickly drives it away not a doubt or a fear not a sign or a tear can abide while we trust and obey trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but we trust and obey, not a burden we bear not a sorrow we share, but our holy coverage we remain not a grief or a loss, not a frown or a cross but it's blessed if we trust and obey trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey trust and obey trust and obey trust and obey trust and obey trust and obey trust and obey trust and obey trust and obey trust and obey trust and obey trust and obey trust and obey trust and obey trust and obey there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey We'll be back here to sing at this time and reflect our Sunday afternoon offering. All right, church, while the offering play is being passed around, if you could open to the book of James chapter 4. Chapter 4. All right, church, as we do custom error here at Stronghold Baptist Church, we're going to read the entire chapter and I'm going to ask brother Carter if he can please do that for us. I stand as James chapter four. From whence comes wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lust at war and your members? Ye lust and have not, ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. Ye fight and war, yet ye have not because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lust. Ye adulterous and adulterous, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusted to envy? But he giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resisted the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Seek not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law. But if thou judgeth the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. Who art thou that judgeth another? Go to now, ye that say, today or tomorrow, we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy, and sell, and get gain, whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appearance for a little time, and then vanishes away. For that, ye ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings. All such rejoicing is evil. Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." Let's have a word of prayer. Lord God, we thank you for allowing us to gather once more this evening. Lord, we ask, Lord, that you would bless the preaching hour right now, and that your word will come forth with power, and bless us with understanding. In Jesus' name, we ask and pray. Amen. All right, so my sermon for this afternoon, I want to preach on a subject of worldliness, worldliness, meaning pertaining the things of this world, and people that are characterized by being worldly, and what the Bible teaches about that. The Bible teaches against being worldly, about being wrapped up and caught up in the things of this world. And in fact, this is a type of sermon that we need to be mindful of, just on a regular basis. This is actually, worldliness in general, it's a pretty broad topic we're going to dig into a little bit more as we get into this. But it's one of those things, becoming worldly is one of the things that happens very gradually and very slowly. And it's something that if you're not careful about it, you can catch yourself just backsliding more and more and more the more worldly things you just allow to be part of your life. And this is something that you need to be on the lookout for, and especially, you know, parents within the home. There's a tendency to back off a little bit, and not be strict, and not have the rules in place, and to kind of just mellow out, oh, chill out, it's OK. Because you get these influences from the world, right? They're going to make you think, well, it's not that big of a deal, it's really not that bad, and things like that. They're going to allow you to start kind of slacking a little bit on areas where you really ought to have some hard line rules against. And this is common just in general among people, it's common among parents, especially the older you have kids, the more kids you have, it seems like a lot of the rules you might have once had in place seem to be going by the wayside. And in some cases, maybe there's things that you were a little too tight on, and it's really not that big of a deal. If you've grown, you're understanding, it's like, OK, well, I understand that this isn't that big of a problem. Just make sure that the reasoning is sound when you're making these decisions, as opposed to you just maybe just being a little more tolerant and accepting of things that are simple, right? And that is a problem, and it can become more and more of a problem if you just start allowing more things. And here's the thing, it kind of builds off each other. So if you start allowing one area of your life to just become more worldly, a real great example is just you start allowing more television programming or videos. These days, it's not the same anymore. Things have gotten a little bit more complicated, in some ways good, some ways bad. But it used to just be television, right? It's kind of the media. And a real easy fix for that is this one doesn't watch TV anymore. And we're just not going to watch the programming, we're not going to watch the garbage, the commercials, everything else. But now with all the streaming services and there's video all over the place, you kind of got a mixed bag where you could have access to some things where you don't have the garbage anymore, right? And here's the thing that I've seen just in general within my house, within other people's houses, just in general, you know, we had a hard-line sense. We haven't had cable TV, we haven't had anything like that ever for my whole marriage and then even prior to that because of my conviction on being against worldliness and the things of the world and I just don't want to be polluted and corrupted with the things of this world. But as things have changed now, you start opening the doors and say, oh, okay, well, cool, we could do this streaming thing over here and we're not going to see any commercials, we're not going to do all this other stuff. And this is benign, this is harmless, there's nothing wrong with this, I know what this is all about, no problem, right? But then you can catch yourself as you start to open up the door to these things, it becomes very easy to say, okay, well, let's see what this is all about. You start checking out new things, you start adding more before you know it, you've opened up this door and all the things that you never would have done before, now it's like, well, what in the world are we doing? What's going on here? Now, I'm going to get back to that, to the specifics. Let's first get into scripture to give you a better understanding of where I'm coming from. I'm talking about, what are you talking about? TV shows and music, things like that. First, let's just get biblical truth, what is the Bible talking about, what does worldliness mean, how is it defined in scripture, and then we'll start making those applications. But I just kind of wanted to give you a heads up that this is an area where it's really easy to slip and slide on and kind of get into more than you really are going to want to, and it's going to affect, ultimately, when you start backsliding and get into even some small sins, it kind of can have a snowball effect and just get worse and worse, and before you know it, you're going to be reading your Bible last, you're going to be seeing Sims last, or whatever you've normally been doing, soul winning might start slacking, church attendance might start slacking, Bible reading might start slacking, it just sort of builds, and then before you know it, you're like, how did I get here? And we need to do a big reset and go back and say, okay, no, look, we're done with this stuff, let's go back. And that's kind of the way the Christian life goes, just the way life goes, right? There's going to be times we're not paying attention to certain areas, and we need to refocus and get the focus back on this, and this is one of the reasons why we also do the challenges every month, because there's some areas you may be slipping and sliding on, and we want to say, no, we're going to focus on this this month because this is important, we want to make sure that this doesn't go by the wayside, that we're doing this. And every month we're kind of focusing on different areas, and we're going to cycle through that every year as we keep on going back to make sure that we don't ever let some of the basic fundamental things that we should be doing, that we don't ever let those things slide, because, let's face it, it's not always easy to live a godly Christian life. We're surrounded by all kinds of temptation and all kinds of other things to do, worldly things, that's going to draw you away from serving the Lord. But let's look at the scripture, James chapter 4, we're going to start rereading this in verse number 1, the Bible reads, from whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts, that war in your members. So your fleshly lusts that you have is pretty much the source of fighting, strivings, wars, you know, all these things that are not peaceful are going to be coming from lust. Bible says in verse 2, ye lust and have not, ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain, ye fight in war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. See all these things he's talking about, you're killing, you fight, you war, you have all this stuff, it's like, why don't you just ask? If you had a Heavenly Father, why don't you just ask, instead of going and trying to take things and say, no, this is my, I want that and I'm just going to go and take it, how about you ask the Lord, how about you ask God? And then it says in verse 3, you ask and receive not. So God's not just going to give you every single thing that you ever ask for, you know, the Bible does say ask and you shall receive, but here's the thing, as a loving father, God's not just going, he's not a genie in a bottle that just says, okay, well, your wish is my command, anything that you say, I'm just going to do for you. And no loving parent is going to do that for their children. Now a loving parent can listen to their obedient children and consider when they ask you for something and they want something and you consider, well, they've been doing really good and this is something that's good for them and this is something that's not going to harm them and be hurtful for them, yes, we'll do that for them. But it's not just anything in the world that you want. And that's what the Bible is saying here, you ask and receive not because you ask a mess, you're asking for the wrong thing, that you may consume it upon your lusts. The Bible is saying, look, if you're just asking God, God, man, can you just give me the best heroin ever? I mean, I just want the cleanest best stuff so I can just get super high. Of course, guys, obviously it's a silly example, but just to demonstrate the point, guys are just going to give you everything. When Jesus said, ask and you shall receive, that's not what he's talking about. But when you're asking for good, God, can you open up my wisdom? God, can you help give me more boldness? God, can you help me do this and do that? All these good things, you're going to the Lord to ask him for things, absolutely he's going to hear you. Now I'm not going to get into prayer and all that because that's outside the scope, but there's so many ways that you can get God to answer your prayers. And this is just telling you, hey, you're asking to miss when you're asking for things to consume on your lusts. But look at verse number four, the Bible says ye adulterers and adulteresses. Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Enmity means you're like an enemy, right? It means you're at odds. Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Now this is very strong language. I don't know about you, but I don't ever want to be considered someone that's called an enemy of God. So this is something our ears should perk up a little bit. Our mind should be paying attention and going, well, hold on a second. What is it that someone has to do to be considered an enemy of God? Well, it says right here, therefore whosoever will be a friend of the world. OK, so I guess we don't want to be a friend of the world because if we are a friend of the world, we're going to be an enemy of God. But you say, well, doesn't the Bible say for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life? Absolutely. God loved the world. God loved you. God loved me. God loved everyone enough for Jesus Christ to pay for their sins. Yes. But that's not the same as just being in friendship with the world. We go out and we love people by preaching them the gospel, by showing people how easy it is to be saved, showing them how they could avoid eternal damnation. But does that mean that you're just friends with every single person that you go out and talk to and preach the gospel to? No, of course not. And what the Bible is teaching here is that we don't want to be yoking up and becoming friends just with the world in general. And the reason why is because the world is like the antithesis to God. The world is the exact opposite of God. So the things that come from the world are things that are against the things that come from God, which means that if you're on God's side, then you can't be a friend of the world. You're actually an enemy of the world. But if you're on the world side and you're buddy-buddy with the world, oh, man, all the things that the world does, man, it's so cool. I want to be so worldly. I want to be so popular. And that's what it means. Worldly is like being popular, popular amongst the world. So you want to be real popular. Another word for popular is famous. You want everybody to love you. Everyone out in the world, that's different. In a setting like church, it's a different environment. It's a different group of people. So if you want to be well-loved and admired and respected in church, the way you're going to go about doing that is different than it's going to be out in the world. So among God's people, well, hey, if you want to be well-loved and respected, well, you're going to need to be a minister and a servant. You want to be greatest of all in God's eyes and in people who love God's word. Then that's how you accomplish that. But that's not how you do it in the world's eyes, right? It isn't in the world's eyes. It's me, me, me. It's a dog-eat-dog world. You've got to go out there and take what you want. And if you listen to motivational speakers and stuff, they're going to tell you that that's how you do it. You want to succeed in the world. You want to become popular in the world. And that's the way I do. You've got to look out for number one. You don't have an attitude of looking out for everybody else. You look out for yourself. You make decisions on what's going to better my career. What am I going to do? And that's why people who get famous many times, and you hear about this, the abuse that goes on of people who want to become famous and want to be in the spotlight and attention, they have to sell out. They have to do things that they wouldn't normally want to do. But because they want just to be famous so bad that they end up doing terribly wicked things in order to achieve that. And they'll do it because that's what they want, and they're putting themselves first instead of saying, no, I can't do those things because God would never want me to do those things. The Bible says the friendship of the world is enmity with God. Whosoever there will be a friend of the world is enemy of God. Let's keep reading here, verse number five. And before we continue on verse five, he starts off the adulterers and adulteresses. Now, I mentioned this this morning, but the adultery doesn't necessarily have to be some physical adultery of you actually physically cheating on your wife here. I think this is more referring to them just not respecting and not obeying the Lord as their God and just going after and kind of making up their own gods and just deciding they're going to do whatever they want to do and having their own sense of spirituality but going off and doing whatever. And they're essentially committing adultery on the Lord by just creating up their own set of rules and following whatever path they want to and still having some level of spiritualness to it. But verse number five says, Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy, but he giveth more grace? Wherefore, he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. We need to have humility in the sight of God and not have this pride that's going to drive us to be bold into doing what we want to do as opposed to having a humble approach that's more concerned with what God wants us to do. Flip over to 1 John chapter 2. 1 John chapter 2, you see one more primary passage that I'm going to be deriving the teaching from on worldliness because one, you got that really strong message in James 4 that whosoever therefore will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God. That's a strong statement. So like I said, nobody wants to be considered, no one in their right mind would want to be considered an enemy of God. The last thing I want to be considered is God's enemy because who's going to want to fight against the Lord? See, if God be for us, who could be against us? But if God's against us, who could be for us, right? 1 John chapter 2, look down on verse number 15. This is going to give us maybe a little bit more insight into the worldliness. The Bible says, love not the world. So before it said not to be a friend of the world, right? It says love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. So I'm saying if you love this world, you love everything. And I mean, look, don't over complicate these things, right? Oftentimes people may just really try to nail it. I'm like, well, what does this actually mean, what's in the world? Just look at everything that's popular. Whatever the world is putting out, whatever the cool stuff is, that's what the world is putting out. And if you just love everything about, and what does it all boil down to? It's all going to boil down to things and money or just philosophies of man and vanity. And the Bible says if you love those things, if you love the things of this world, the love of the Father, you loving Father, that's not in you. You don't really love God. Verse 16, for all that is in the world. And now this is really going to help narrow it down a little bit. All is in the world. What is all that is in the world? The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. So there it gives us a little bit more of, OK, well, what are we talking about here when it's talking about the world? The lust of the flesh, now that's pretty broad. The lust of the flesh, the desires, the cravings of your flesh is of the world. There's a lot of cravings of the flesh. Anything that your flesh is going to want to desire. Now, we went over this. Keep your place here real quick, because we'll come back to 1 John 2 and flip over to Galatians chapter 5. We went over this last week when we looked at the fruit of the Spirit. But I highlighted more on the fruits of the Spirit than I did on the lust of the flesh or the works of the flesh. But the first part of loving the world and what the world brings forth is the lust of the flesh. Galatians 5 expands on that even more to tell you, OK, these are all the lust of the flesh. Or at least some of them. I'm not going to say it's all of them, it's some of them. To give you an idea of what we're talking about with the lust of the flesh, look at verse number 16 of Galatians 5. The Bible says, This I say, and walk in the Spirit, you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. And we read that verse just so you could see. Here it's talking about the lust of the flesh. Verse 17 also mentions the lust of the flesh, which is what 1 John's talking about. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary, the one to the other, so you cannot do the things that you would. Again, pretty easy to see. Well, if you're a friend of the world, you're the enemy of God, right? Because they're exact opposites. Just like your spirit is the exact opposite of your flesh. Well, if you love the things of the world, the love of the Father is not in you. Why? Because they're exact opposites. And then it says in verse number 19, Now the works of the flesh. So it just says the lust of the flesh, the lust of the flesh, then the works of the flesh. Look, the works of the flesh, the same thing as the lust of the flesh. We're talking about the same thing here. We didn't just jump subjects to something else. The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these? In verse 19, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. Now, these are all things, and I mentioned this this morning, the only adultery is pretty common in the world today. Fornication, pretty common, pretty accepted in the world today. And if that's just acceptable and fine and good with you, you could be buddy-buddy with the world. Yeah, adultery, no big deal. Fornication, no problem. You got a problem with God. The world may promote this stuff. That's a work of the flesh. That's of the world. That is not of the Father. But let's keep reading here. Uncleanness, lasciviousness, verse 20, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, the list goes on. Verse 21, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. These are the things that are considered lusts of the flesh. And like I said, it's not an exhaustive list because there isn't anything else like that. This is what the world puts out. And if you really wanted to just briefly summarize it, it's sin. Sinful lusts, things that you are going to be doing. I mean, it brings up heresies. It brings up other things. These are all considered lusts of the flesh. And this is what the world is all about. The world's not all about following the Lord at all. And if you love the world and you love these things that are put out by the world, then the love of the Father is not in you. And when you look at the list, aren't a lot of these things being glorified and glamorized by the world? And when I'm talking about the world, I'm talking about people who are popular and famous in the world. If you were to look at famous musicians, or rock stars, or pop stars, or whatever genre you want to look at, just recently, I think the last one I saw any clips from was maybe a couple years ago. But any time I see these clips, I don't watch this stuff, but sometimes you see news feeds or whatever where popular artists are playing at Super Bowl half times, or some big event, or something like that. Any time I catch a glimpse of that, I'm always seeing people with Baphomet masks. If you don't know what that is, it's like the satanic goat's head and horns. And oh, it's just artistic, right? Or they're having these weird rituals on stage, and they're doing really perverted acts just in front of everybody. It's just this debauchery and weird wickedness. But this is what's popular, and this is what people like. And you look at how people are dressing like whores and whoremongers, and it's just little kids are being brought up in this and shown, hey, this is real cool, this is real popular. We went to the fair yesterday, and it's like, I guess the fad of the ripped jeans is back in again? Sometimes I feel like I live in a bubble because I go to work, and I go home, and I go to church, and that's my life, and I'm real busy. And thank God my work is very, I would say, pretty conservative in general. People are dressed business-like, and it's just a more appropriate environment. So I'm not always just exposed to every fashion and fad and everything that's going on in this world, but I'm just going like, I mean, I saw like an older lady, like maybe 50s or 60s, with like all these holes in the jeans and stuff, and then of course the young ones have much bigger holes in their jeans, and it's just like, what is going on? There's got to be some famous people. And I was like, I thought this ended like with the 80s. That was a fad that when I was a kid, that's what people were doing, except it was mostly just holes in your knees. And then it was more like, you had holes in your knees, because you didn't have the new pants, because you had holes in the knees, and you had holes in your pants, and you know, but now they're making them that way. Like you buy, I want those pants right there that have all the holes in them. Oh man. What's wrong? But this is that wildliness of just exalting, and it's because it's worn by people who are supposed to be real cool and trendy and fashionable. You don't want to look like those people. You want to be separate from those people. As a child of God, the Bible says that God has called us to be peculiar people. We're different. We're supposed to be not the same and just look and act and talk and do everything like the world. Because the things of the world are not the things of the Father. We ought to be different. Back in 1 John chapter 2, that was just the first part of all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh. That encompasses a lot. It's not just the fleshly desires, but it's also, how about the lust of the eyes? Another term for this might be eye candy. Things that you like to behold with your eyes. For some people, you might want to look at just a lot of money. Other people look at men or women or whatever, you know, and this ties in, obviously, with having a lust of the flesh. But specifically, it's talking about the lust of the eyes and just whatever is appealing to your eyes that you just want to take in of the world. It's not of the Father, it's of the world. And then the pride of life. People are just really proud in themselves and proud in all that they do and all the pride that goes along with that, whatever your achievements are, and the self-exaltation and lifting up of yourself. Hey, that's not of the Father. That's of the world. And like I said before, those are people who are really famous. They like to blow their own horn and tout their own accomplishments and tell you how great they are. Like every politician. It was kind of fun poking at Donald Trump, you know, during all that stuff because, you know, so many Christians went, oh, Donald Trump does this and Donald Trump does that. You're not talking about a proud guy. But look, just because I poke fun at him doesn't mean that I'm some socialist communist that's, you know, like not at all on the other side of things. I don't like either side. It's all wicked. I think it was Pastor Jimenez. Someone put like, you know, God's not a Republican, but the devil is a Democrat, right? I thought that was a pretty good analogy there because obviously the left is just way wrong as far as just things of God at all. But you know what? The right's getting, you know, everything's just shifting towards wickedness. You're supposed to have left and right, and it's all just going towards wickedness. And we're trying to stay, no, right here. Like this is our standard. This is what we're looking to as our guidance, as our truth, as our rule setting, as everything. I mean, we should be looking to this word, not just continuing the slide, because what's happening today? All of the laws are just getting worse and worse and worse. And all the people who are supposed to be standing up for the conservative-minded people, whatever, they're all waiting. Like, if they would have been saying things they're saying now, you know, 30 years ago, they'd be in the Democrat party. And they would be more extreme back then, too. It just, why? Because everything's shifting that way. And that's why the more we scream and shout and stand on the word of God, the more crazy we look and appear to people, even though it's not crazy at all. The times change, the Bible doesn't. Politics change, the Bible doesn't. The word of God stays the same. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, it's not of the Father, it's of the world. The world passeth away and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. This world's passing away. Don't worry about being popular in this world. You know, the Bible says that the preachers that are popular, you know, when everybody loves you and everyone speaks well of you, Jesus said that's what they did to the false prophets. So, being popular as a preacher is not something you want to be. That's not, that's not like, oh man, I finally made it. Like, pastor persons, when are you going to be like Joel Osteen or Billy Graham or any of these guys that everyone loves and you're going to be invited, you know, to hold the Bible at the swearing in for the president? Yeah, right. I hope I would never fall into consideration for that, because if I do, then something's wrong with me. If that even ever would become an option, because too many people then would be loving me in the world for that to become an option. Turn, if you would, to John chapter 19. Right. Which, by the way, that's also a sign of a false prophet, is when you know when everyone's just speaking well of someone, they're of the world. The world hears their own, the world loves their own, and the world's going to accept their own. And it's because, you know, these false prophets, they only care about themselves, just like the world. They care about the love of money. They view people as merchandise. They don't care, that's why they don't teach the actual word of God, because they only care about their own belly. They only care about making money. That's why they only tell people what they want to hear. That's why they're just hired, just like hired people to tell them that they're good with God, and that it doesn't matter how they live, and everything's just fine. Well, they have no interest in the truth. They have no interest in the word of God, which is why there's so many people like that. When you actually stand for the truth, you're going to be hated by the world. And again, there doesn't get to be a better example of this than Jesus Christ. People have this false concept that if Jesus Christ were walking around the earth today, that everyone would love him, and, you know, oh, you understand, Jesus was, you know. Look, you don't understand, because Jesus did all the things that is written in the Bible that are great things and wonderful things, and he had a good message, and it was a message of love. Of God so loved the world, and it was a message of righteousness, but he also did call out sin and wickedness, and he did all of that, and it was great, and you know what? He was murdered for it. The world rejected him. Not everybody, but the world did, because everything that he taught and stood for was against the world, because he stood for the things of the Father. And the two do not mesh at all. They're contrary to one to the other, just as much as our flesh is to the Spirit of God. John chapter 19, this portrays how the world, this is going to show you how the world portrays Jesus, right? So the world may give lip service to Jesus. The world does give lip service. Oh, yeah, Jesus, Jesus, this, Jesus, that. People who are real worldly can, oh, yeah, you know, I love Jesus and everything else, but this is going to, John chapter 19 is when Jesus was being mocked and ridiculed by the Roman soldiers, this is how they view Jesus Christ. It's just a big joke to them. They don't view him as the Son of God. They don't view him as anyone that ought to be revered and respected and listened to and humble themselves before because they're in the presence of the Son of God. That's not how they view him at all. Look at verse number one of John 19. The Bible says, Then Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged him. Scourged means he whipped him with a whip, and the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe. So instead of an actual crown, because he's supposed to be King of the Jews, or he's King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but what are they doing? They're mocking him. They're making fun of him. So what they do is they take some thorns and say, oh, yeah, here's your crown, buddy, and smash that on his head, and then they put this purple, supposed to be a color of royalty. What are they doing? They're mocking him. He just got whipped and beaten up, and he's bloodied, and they put this crown of thorns on him and say, yeah, here's your crown, and then they put this robe on him, and verse three says, and said, Hail, King of the Jews, and they smote him with their hands. Like, oh, yeah, Hail, King of the Jews, and smacking him. This is how the world views Jesus Christ. This is how the world's going to portray Jesus Christ. No respect, completely against the things of God, and all the while thinking that they're doing God's service. Verse four, Pilate therefore went forth again and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you that ye may know that I find no fault in him. That's an interesting way to show people you found no fault in him, bring him forth, being whipped and beaten with a crown of thorns on his head and a robe. Then came Jesus forth, wearing a crown of thorns and purple robe, Pilate said unto them, Behold the man. Again, just putting him forth in front of everybody as a big mockery. That's how the world portrays Jesus Christ. We don't want to be friends with the world. Oh, but I got a buddy-buddy up to Pilate so I could get my position in the government and be able to do this and do that. Look, you don't want to do that. Don't make friends with the world. We have to worry about worldliness creeping in. We're constantly exposed to the things of the world. We live in the world. You see, like the Bible says, we live in the world, we're not supposed to be of the world. We're supposed to be separate and different from the world. There's the influences of the world. They're going to try to influence you to bring you out of the will of God to keep you from doing the things that God wants you to do. There are things of God to do things of the world, but it's easy to be influenced by what the world's putting out if you're not guarding yourself against it and making rules for yourself. It's one of the ways you're going to guard yourself, protect yourself is by making rules, establishing something that you've already thought about, you predetermined so you know what, we are not going to do this. And the best place to start is in your house and say there are certain things that are not allowed in my household. It could be pieces of idolatry, things that people would worship, things that are false gods. And I've seen people have these things. They've got the little Buddha statues and this other stuff that people literally worship and they're in their house. Oh, but I don't worship it. Don't have the false god in your house. Don't have the idolatry in your house. Don't allow that stuff in. Whether you're bowing down to it or not, one of the Ten Commandments says not to even make it. Don't have it. Don't possess it. But not just that. I mean, that's just one thing. There's so many levels to which you need to be going. Are you going to have booze in your house? Are you going to allow the media to be pumped in and that's just promoting the adultery and the fornication and desensitizing you into thinking that all of this stuff is just fine and normal and OK? Because the television programming is just that. They program people. This is nothing new. Propaganda is nothing new. You ought to know about this by now. Hopefully you know about the way it works. And the way that the world has been pushing and pushing and getting more and more extreme to get you to tolerate more, which is why that the things that could be aired today, the things that are shown today, the things that people don't freak out about today is not nearly what it was 20, 30, 40 years ago, because back then, some of the things are going on now. People just freak out about and actually protest against and not tolerate and not accept. But the way to get you to accept it today is that it's just slowly, it's the frog in the boiling water, right? You don't just throw them straight into a pot of boiling water. Just keep turning up the heat, turning up the heat, turning up the heat slowly, and you just tolerate it, get used to it, get used to it, get used to it to the point where obviously with that, the frogs boiled and dead. And we need to watch out for that slow, gradual push. It used to be just the biggest thing when some sodomite was on a TV show at all. Like any character just portrayed other than one that's just being mocked and made fun of. But that's where they started was by mocking and making fun of them just to get the foot in the door. Just introduce them, and then they could start manipulating you going, okay, well, here's this character that you accept because, you know, 50 years ago, it was taboo. It was something that no one would want to talk about, and people were more normal and knew, yeah, these people are weird. They're mentally screwed up, and that was the way that the world even thought about them. Back then. So they could bring them in by saying, okay, yeah, we'll make jokes about them. We'll make fun of them. We'll bring in these people that you can just have comedic relief at them. You laugh at them. But what they do is they take these characters, though, and while, yeah, they're making fun of them, they start introducing you to things to start to have a connection to them and start to love them and feel sorry for them and pity and everything else. So when then they can start manipulating you to start introducing these characters to where, hey, it's not that cool to be making fun of them. Now we need, you know, now, oh, yeah, maybe we should accept them. They're just a little bit different, you know, and the progression continues, but you would never want to see any displays of affection between them because that's just revolting. Well, then they start putting that in front of your eyes. So it gets to the point where, yeah, they're doing it again. I don't really like when they do that, but there they are, and you're just sitting there and just letting this stuff come in your eyeballs, and even though it bothers you, the choice is yours to say, you know, we're not going to do this. I'm not going to derive my entertainment from this at all. This is garbage and abomination, and I'm not going to allow this. Turn it off. And there's always a draw, but if you're finding yourself being exposed to things that you normally wouldn't put in front of your eyes, it's time to cut it out. It's time to cut it out. And I noticed even on social media, they're starting to do this, too, where they're starting to just play all these clips of all these movies and things that you might never watch, but all of a sudden, they're just playing automatically. You scroll through it. How long are you going to allow them to do that? And you know what? They're going to do it. The world's going to do what it's going to do. Try to get in and defile your mind, and here's the problem with things that come into your mind. They don't go out, and it's a temptation to get you to just keep looking, keep looking, keep looking. You have to make decisions. So you know what? I'm done with this. I'm done. Or have some other guard or measure to not see that stuff. I mean, whatever it is, you know, there may be some good things out there. I know that there's some good things that I use with ad blockers and things where you can't just see advertisements, but you know, they're always trying to get around that stuff, and the more that you're allowing in, the more influence it will have on you. Guaranteed. And not just that influence of, just pure wicked things. Even when it comes to things in the news or whatever, there's a mechanism to control the way that you think and to get you talking about the things that they want you talking about and focus on the things that they want you focused on and making everything about, you know, the homos getting married or something as opposed to, well, why aren't we talking about doing things biblically? Talk about those marriages. Let's talk about the, you know, how about we institute Leviticus 2013? That's the real debate. I mean, that's the real topic. Let's go straight to that. I have some information here that I want to read to you. One of the things that prompted this was I saw that they're coming out with a new movie. And nothing's ever new anymore these days, it seems. I don't know. Like, I don't watch movies. I don't go to the movies. But, you know, I used to watch movies all the time. Huge movie collection. Huge music collection. Extremely worldly. So you're talking about worldliness. Man, I loved all the world's music, all the world's movies. Everything that the world is pumping out, I consumed that. There was a movie that came out in the 90s called The Matrix. Real popular film. Maybe a lot of people saw it. If you didn't see it, don't see it. Okay, not recommended at all. But you know what? Even a lot of Christians would say, oh man, but it's so cool. Look, that was one of my favorite movies. I love that movie. I love the series. I love the trilogy. I love the games. Everything that went along with it. I thought it was just a really cool movie. Man, it's so unique. It's different from all this other stuff. And you can see all this different symbolism and stuff. Well, first of all, that whole movie series, like so many others, like Star Wars, like all the others, they all have philosophies and religious aspects to them, but they're always flawed and not like scriptural. They're going to have a savior-like person in it, like in The Matrix. It was Neo. He's the one who ultimately sacrificed himself and the imagery in the last movie was like him on a cross being, you know, giving himself. But it's not godly at all. And everything that was going on in there. And I'm going to share this with you in case you didn't already know this. The people who wrote and produced that movie, the Wachowskis, they used to be called the Wachowski brothers. Now they're known as the Wachowski sisters. Now, this is old news, but it was not heavily publicized at all for very good reason, because back when the movie came out, back in that era, like when the other parts came out, it was in the early 2000s, it still wasn't just that widely acceptable, like it is in 2021, right? With the transgender trans garbage movement that's going on now, where now it's not as big of a deal. Back then, it would have seriously hurt sales and would have hurt the image and with people watching these movies. Now, first of all, their main hit that came out right before The Matrix was a movie called Bound. And it was a movie about a couple of dykes that, you know, that wasn't the primary focus of the movie, but it was in that series of movies that was trying to desensitize the public into watching and accepting this stuff and being hit with a little dose of this stuff to where, yeah, I'm watching it for this other aspect, I'm watching about the gangster movie type aspect of it, but then there's also this other side that it's, whatever, sodomites, you know, falling in love with each other, whatever. Garbage. And the whole point is just to desensitize you, to bring you to the point. Now, that was their first movie, which I didn't know that at the time. People were like, well, but I just like the science fiction, I just like The Matrix, but it's coming from the same source. It's coming from the same people. And when you understand, when I read this for you, you're going to hopefully understand and maybe take a look back and say, well, what am I really allowing to come into my house? What is it that I'm allowing myself to be entertained with and maybe not just be so easy to just say, well, I don't think there's anything wrong with this movie and this movie and this movie and this movie and I'm just going to watch all this stuff. Because if you know anything about this one that I'm talking about that is real popular, I think most people probably have at least heard about it or have not seen it, this may or may not blow you away. Maybe you already heard about this, maybe not. But I'm going to read for you. First of all, I have a source from Wikipedia and then I have a BBC article I'm going to read for you. Just to give you a little bit of information, just on this one Hollywood movie, just one out of however many are out there. Lana Wachowski and Lily Wachowski are American film and television directors, writers and producers. The sisters are both trans women. And notice how like even just the world just talks about this. Oh yeah, they're women. They're sisters, they're women. It's Lana, it's Lily. They're born men. Oh, but they're sisters. They need to be called sisters. Look, they're not sisters. They're not. They're brothers who had an operation done. A perverted, disgusting operation performed. But they're not sisters. In any sense of the word. Collectively known as Wachowskis. The sisters have worked as a writing and directing team through most of their careers. They made their directing debut in 1996 with Bound and achieved fame with their second film, The Matrix, a major box office success for which they won the Saturn Award for Best Director. They wrote and directed its two sequels and were involved in the writing production of other works and Matrix franchise. Following, oh yeah, I forgot about this too. Following the commercial success of The Matrix, the Wachowskis wrote and produced the 2005 film, V for Vendetta. Now, I don't know if any of you saw that movie or not. I actually saw it. It was probably one of the last movies just in general that I saw because I stopped watching movies in 2006, 2007, somewhere around that time when I actually started getting right with God and got into a good church and realized it's all garbage. But this movie, this is a movie that popularized the Guy Fawkes mask, which is what, you know, Anonymous ended up picking up and using as kind of their symbol. But in that movie, it's, you know, it's supposed to be all about Guy Fawkes, which, by the way, when he was trying to blow up the parliament was also, at the time, the King James Bible being written and was designed to destroy that work. But that's a whole, that's a part of the, never made it into the movie. But they have a side story in this movie of some other sodomite women as just part of that movie. And it's just thrown in there. Again, it's like, what does that have to do with the whole plot? Nothing. You know what it has to do with? It has to do with programming your mind. It has to do with getting you to accept this stuff. And these are the things that, again, this is back in 2005 when we weren't quite as far down that steep slope to hell as we are right now. But it's just a continual progression. And it was placed in there intentionally just to keep on messing with your mind. Because people know, oh, but I really like this movie. I like this aspect of the movie. I like that aspect. I want to watch this movie. It's been pumped up. It's been advertised. I want to go see this movie. I like this actor. I like that actor. It's really brilliant. They have this really great storyline. Oh, yeah, but there happens to be this sodomite character. Well, let's just ignore that. You keep ignoring that. And then you keep on seeing that and starting to think that it becomes more and more normal for you. And I brought up this example before. I'm going to stop reading this for a second. But there's a movie called American Beauty with Kevin Spacey, who's another sodomite, actor, pervert, pedophile, that in the movie itself, I remember seeing this movie in the theaters and just being sick to my stomach. Because in it, there was this scene where he was lusting after a teenage girl. And he's like this grown man who's supposed to be in his 40s or 50s or whatever. He has a teenage daughter. And he's having these perverted fantasies on some other teenage little girl. And I mean, it's revolting. And I remember the impact it had on me the first time I saw it. But you know what? And again, back when I was worldly, because this was an old movie, I remember walking out of that theater just going like, I was messed up. Like, that was weird. I ended up owning that movie a couple years later. Why? Got desensitized. What I thought was shocking and revolting wasn't that bad anymore. And look, this is the conditioning. Every human is subject to this and capable of just going down that. It works, which is why it's being used against us, which is how satanic forces, the forces of evil, are getting people to tolerate and accept them and become more and more wicked. It's just this continual putting it in your face, which is why you need to be careful of what you allow voluntarily in front of you. You already have to be subject to things involuntarily, let alone the stuff that you're choosing to put in front of your eyes and choosing to put in front of your kids' eyes, which, by the way, I don't want to forget about this. I know what it's like as a parent. Kids want to play games and stuff, and you may not want to spend money on games because it's a lot of money or whatever, but anything that's free, you know what they add to that? Advertisements, marketing, or you're giving up this privacy information and all kinds, like, look, don't just blow past, oh, it's not that big of a deal, oh, it's just some little stupid game, whatever. Look, they got your kids' attention and then they're pumping them full with whatever advertisements they want to put in front of them. And are you watching all those advertisements? Do you know everything that's going in front of their eyes? And I'm not saying that I'm perfect, but I just had to go through and do a full clear and wipe on some of my own kids' devices because it's like, where did this even come from? You got to get rid of this stuff. You got to purge, you got to go back and check your own household and your own family and make sure that you get rid of the garbage and the stuff that could defile because it's not worth it. Because like I said, once things go in, you can't unsee stuff. Be very, very careful about this. I'm going to keep reading now. Again, back to the Wachowski weirdos, freaks. It says, Lana was born Lawrence in Chicago in 1965. Lily was born Andrew two and a half years later in 1967. Their mother was a nurse and painter. Their father, Ron, was a businessman of Polish descent. Their uncle is this actor, prime time Emmy award-winning producer, Lawrence Luckenbill. Now, I don't know this, but that's probably where they ended up getting defiled with some other actor in their family, right? Uncle so-and-so, probably, I don't know, but probably some other pervert, you know? Ron and Lynn died five weeks apart in late 2010s. They have two other sisters, which one of the sisters was also an assistant coordinator in their first film, Bound. So in that homo propaganda film, she was involved in that too. And then it, let's see, it talks about where they went to school. Former classmates recall them playing Dungeons and Dragons and working in the school's theater and TV program, which Dungeons and Dragons are extremely wicked, satanic game, by the way. And then it says here, beginning in 1993, they wrote several issues of Ectokid, I don't know what that is, for Marvel Comics. Imprint created by horror novelist Clive Barker, which were credited to Lana. They also wrote for the series Clive Barker's Hellraiser and Clive Barker's Nightbreed for Marvel's Epic Comics. Now, if you know anything about it, Clive Barker is a really perverted individual. You say, but I love those, you know, he's the one that came out with the Hellraiser series, all these horror films. And I'll tell you what, I've seen a lot of this stuff too, because this is all old. So going back to this old stuff, I've seen all this old stuff. It is stuff that no normal sane mind would ever conjure up or even dream up. It is so perverted and weird. It has to come from just the mind of a reprobate. That just even can think about these bizarre, horrible, torturous things that like you just, a normal person would never even think about the things that have come out of this guy's perverted mind. And the reason why I even included this to read out loud is because this is, again, the same influence from these same people that are involved in this nonsense. It says, after Lily came out as transgender, she encouraged, she encouraged, and get this, looking back on her and Lana's works through the lens of our transness, saying that the themes of identity, self-image, and transformation are apparent in the matrix. So it's basically what they're saying is that their transness was just poured into the matrix, and that all these concepts were put in there symbolically into this movie that you think, oh, it's just some science fiction film, right? No, you're being programmed to become more accepting and tolerating of this trans agenda, because that's what they're putting in there. And I didn't even know this, and I was a big fan. There's a quote here that says, we had the character of Switch, who was a character who would be a man in the real world and then a woman in the matrix. See, they put that in there because you think, is it supposed to be about computers or computer programming stuff? And the term a switch is a computer hardware device, so you're not going to give it that much thought. But they're talking about Switch as switching from a man to a woman in their real world versus their fantasy world. I never caught that. I didn't know that. That's a quote from one of these weirdos. Here's what the BBC article said. Here's some more quotes from them. It says, the Matrix films are about being transgender, the trilogy's co-director says. The person who directed and wrote the film says this is about transgenderism. This isn't somebody else saying, oh, yeah, I can see how this is. This is the person who made it. Saying, this is what it's about. Now, how much do you want to go home and pop in The Matrix and watch it? How much do you love the movie now, now that you know what's being done to try to program you? Is that still one of your favorite movies? I sure hope not. Here's a quote. That was the original intention, but the world wasn't quite ready, said Lily Wieckowski, who came out as trans along with her sister, Lana, after the films came out. Fans have speculated about potential meanings behind the iconic films, and Lily confirmed the theory to Netflix. I'm glad that it has gotten out, she said. The Matrix first hit screens in 1999 when Lily says the corporate world wasn't ready. For an allegory, a story that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning about transgender people. Now, maybe you ought to take a closer look. Maybe you ought to just decide the things of the world, which is what Hollywood puts out, it's what the music industry puts out, it's what all the popular things put out. Maybe you ought to decide, that's not for me. Because even if you don't know exactly what the agenda is behind what they're trying to put out, maybe you ought to make that decision and say, you know what? I don't even want to have that influence come into my mind. Now after learning some truth like this, hopefully you're going to say, you know what? There's no way in hell I'm going to go and watch The Matrix 4 by some freak transgender people that are just trying to manipulate the way that you think. And that's not the only instance. That's one really popular one. Why is it popular? Because it's of the world. Because it's not of the Father. Go back and look at all the popular things. Guess what? There's something in every single one of these popular movies and music that's trying to defile your mind with things that are ungodly and things that you should never allow to come in to your minds. And they'll have an influence on you, whether you realize it or not. Turn to Romans chapter 1. Nobody knew in the late 90s and early 2000s that these people were just total sodomite weirdos. But they were. Now some people probably, I'm sure some people probably did. Right? But in general, at large, the public didn't know. I never knew that they had, I know what that other movie was, that first movie. I knew about that movie. I didn't know it was from them until I did the research for this. Because I had heard not that long ago about these people being these freaks. And I was a little surprised. It's really old news. I mean, this happened, I'm reading this. This came out like a decade ago or whatever. But how much coverage is there about that? Not much. There's going to be a lot more now, though. Because now it's gotten more, I mean, they said the world wasn't ready for it then. So we had to do it more subtly. And every year that passes, that subtleness is starting to go away. And they're pushing it harder and harder and harder. And ask yourself this. Are you allowing more into your mind? Are you allowing more things to come into your ears and to come into your eyes than you did a decade ago? If you are, guess what? There's a reason for that. Just saying, nobody is immune to this. Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall. Let this be a wake-up call to say, I'm not going to allow this worldly influence. Because you know what's going to end up happening? Slowly, gradually, you're going to find yourself being an enemy of God. You go, how did I get to this point? You just started loving the world a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. Hey, let's go check out the Marvel movies. There's nothing, I mean, it's just comic books. I read comic books as a kid. There's nothing wrong with that. Okay. You don't think that now? Oh, but I know everyone in that. They're not sodomites. Sure, they're not. Okay. Yep. Lana and Lily aren't either, right? Lana and Lily aren't either, right? They were Andy and Larry when they made the movie. Are you so certain about those? Oh, did I, you know, it got real quiet. Did I hit a button? Is Marvel a big thing? I don't know. I don't care what it is. It's all garbage. If it's of the world, it's garbage. It's not of the father. The things that are super popular, that's the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, but I love seeing people fly around and all the explosions. The lust of the eyes and the pride of life. It's not of the father, it's of the world. And you're going to start being entertained by the world, good luck. Romans 1 talks about people are giving over to reprobate mind and what they're like. And these industries, I was talking about these worldly industries are comprised of people like this that are described in Romans chapter 1. And you're going to have to choose. Am I going to choose to get my entertainment from people that the Bible describes like they describe in Romans chapter 1? Is that what I want to put in front of my eyes and laugh at and cry with and have whatever emotions and whatever joy I want to receive, I want them to give me that joy. Is that what you want? Romans 1, 28, and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient. Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whispers, sounds like the things of the world, sounds like the lust of the flesh, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but look at this, but have pleasure in them that do them. These people, these reprobates, not only are they filled with all these things, not only do they know, yeah, these things are worthy of death, they do them, but they derive pleasure from other people that do those things. This is describing reprobate, but are you somebody like them that also likes to take pleasure in people that do these things? Is that where you want to get your pleasure from? You want to be just like them and have the pleasure with all the other sodomites in Hollywood and in music and in anything else that is popular and promoted by the world? The love of the Father is not in you. You love this world? You love the things of the world? The love of the Father is not in you. That's the word of God. And then if you keep reading in Romans chapter 2, therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest, for in thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doest the same things, but we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things, and thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them that do such things and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? People will be real quick to judge the wicked and say, O man, yeah, that's right. These sodomites, these reprobates, everything else. But then you go home and turn on the filth and just let that sink into your mind. You hypocrite. I'm going to drive my entertainment from all these people that I'm condemning in church when I'm condemning online. But then I'm just going to go ahead and be entertained by them. Hypocrite. You know I love hard preaching? It's the only thing that's going to make a change. You need to get slapped in the face with the truth. And I hope there's more, at least one person where this stings. But I hope more than that, that you go home and make the right decision and get right with God and get the worldly garbage influence out of your life. And keep guard, because it's easy to slip back. It's easy to start allowing more influence in their house. Go home and say no, no. I'm putting a stop to this. And get more in this book. There's plenty of things you can do for entertainment that aren't bad. Don't choose all the popular things in the world to put in your head. That's what I'm saying. Especially when it comes to media that have thoughts and concepts and ideas that are being promoted. You thought the matrix was harmless. It's science fiction. That's not what it was about at all. You heard from the people who made it what it's really about. And that's not the only one. Artists, I've covered this in sermons, I preach on music, movies, whatever, everybody has a message. Everybody has a message. And they want to influence you. You may think it all sounds like a movie, you may think it all sounds harmless and whatever. There's a message there. You just might not be picking up on it yet. And it's subtle. And it's going to implant itself in your brain. And you can't undo that. I mean, the only thing you can do is try to get in the Word of God to be able to spot it and recognize it and say, no, I'm going to walk in the Spirit. Spotlights have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for your word. I pray that you please help us all, Lord, to combat our flesh and to not give in to the desires of our flesh, but that we would seek to walk in the Spirit. And Lord, help us to clean up our own lives and clean up our houses and to not allow the filth of this world to gain a foothold into our lives. Lord, help us to realize that at the end of the day, these things that so many people grow to love, for myself, it was music and the movies that I just love them so much, Lord, that when you actually get rid of them, it's not quite as bad as you might think it is. You know, it feels like you might be cutting off a limb, but at the end of the day, when you look back, it's really just a blessing to get rid of that junk. And God, I pray that you please just help us to make good choices and to be able to walk in the Spirit that we wouldn't fulfill the lust of our flesh, Lord. We love you. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. All right, we're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed. Brother Peter, please lead us in our last song. All right, church, if you don't put your hymnals, song number five. Song number five, When I Survey the Wonder's Cross. Hymn number five. On the first, when I survey the wonder's cross, on which the prince of all he died, my riches gain I tell but loss, and for content of all my pride, for be it, Lord, that I should boast, save in the death of Christ my God. All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to his blood, seek for his head, his hands, his feet. Sorrow and love flow, meaning go down. Did Jesus love and sorrow meet, or thorns of both so rich a crown? On the last, were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my home. Amen. Great singing. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you.