James 5:12-20

Why Dale got asked to do a song at the last minute. Now we have this contingency planned in case for whatever reason I'm in the restroom and we lose track of time or something like that you text the sound person and you tell them hey tell Dale to do another song. Well all my children are pretty sick right now they're all they all have colds and you know my little little one has got you know bookers coming out of everywhere eyes and all that kind of stuff normal kid stuff right but here's the thing I hate not being able to pray with my children I hate even more not being able to read the Bible with them and oftentimes when we have long nights like Tuesday nights or Thursday nights I miss the Bible reading I don't ever miss the prayer so I just I just told the sound guys I said just tell them to do another song and then so while he was doing that then I got to pray with my kids on FaceTime which can be a little bit of a drama because you know the girls always want one wants to hold the phone and all that kind of stuff but it was it was well worth it and pray for Caleb because I think Caleb actually got my children sick so you can just pray for him I think it's his fault now that he's doing well and everything it was a quimbee it was one of the quimbee's faults anyway all right so James chapter 5 let's go there he wasn't Caleb's fault I just like blaming him that's not a big deal I like blaming Dale more but I really couldn't blame blame Dale this time you know so as we go there we do have a couple of quick announcements that are actually one major announcement that is important and that is the women's study make sure for this last summer in the Psalms that you guys you guys you girls ladies have signed up it it really is important okay gonna be a great time together but I say it's important to sign up now because this will run out of space I'm telling you it will I know how these work so make sure you sign up you don't want to miss it and and then that's it so with that we're gonna finish James the book of James today and actually I was gonna finish it last week but so many of you were kind of dedicated getting involved in the in the VBS festivities that we're going on out there that I decided to teach through the book of Leo D.C. or the letter to the church in Leo D.C. and the book of Revelation if you missed that you can go online and take a look at that that's a great passage and a lot of fun tonight's study is gonna be a bit of a shorter one but it's very power packed and there's a lot of really good info in it and I just think it's a really important message for the day that we're in right now especially considering the insanity that absolutely surrounds us and that seems to be a theme right the insanity that we continue to observe and the craziness that is going on and it's just been absolutely wild and I just have to tell you the time that we're in is unbelievable I can tell you a quick example of this I got called in for Jerry duty and Jerry duty for me is a bit of just an informality it's kind of like a quick in and out you know because typically if I don't get excused because they see my physical ability kind of barring some things I typically get excused the moment they ask me if I have any affiliation with law enforcement or have any background in in the law or when they find out what I do normally they're like you're out like you get out of here right and so you know when you go to the courthouse they are filled with just police officers everywhere and especially as of late it's just so dangerous right now I mean there's so many crazy things going on so there's police officers everywhere and so as I was strolling my way in they all look like they're angry right and it's not that they're angry they're just you can tell they're worn down right they're they're guarding they're literally watching for their lives while I was there there were probably three or four occasions alone where they were being yelled at and screamed at and you guys are pigs and you I mean just the craziness that comes out and you can sense it like you can sense that it's just deeply spiritual like you just know it is right so there are some people that were mad at me but on a few like every single time I came across them so I must have done this like 30 times in a simple you know one hour or two hour period I'm stopping all of them and I'm saying hey we're praying for you we love you guys we know you have a tough job you know keep fighting the good fight they're like what are you did you actually say that really what you know and and it's interesting because you can sense it like you can sense the warfare as you're just observing it all around you it's like you can you know it's spiritual everywhere you go everything we're dealing with right now is just spiritual and this is such a very important time and a very important passage for this particular subject so let's pray as the Lord to go before us and we'll get into it because I know there's a lot of great things I think we can draw from this passage Father in heaven we just thank you Lord for your goodness and your faithfulness to us Lord we thank you for the fact that you are such an awesome God and that you are good to us Lord you love us you care about us Lord every single detail Lord that's going on in our lives Lord you're concerned with and I just pray God that the words that I share would be your words Lord and not mine and that Father you'd be glorified in and through everything that is said Lord we know God that you have a purpose and a plan for us Lord and we pray that you would help us to understand that better today Lord that we would just better know and realize Lord what it is that you have for us today so Lord we just love you go before us fill us with your spirit Lord keep us seeking you Lord and always desiring you Lord every day of our lives so Lord we love you and thank you and we ask these things in Jesus name we pray amen okay James chapter five now I want to say this because we are going to start in verse 12 I want to reiterate something very important about the book of James because we talked about this right James has gone out of his way to outline for us everything that we have been and everything that we've become in essence as we walk with the Lord he talks to us about what true religion looks like he gives us a better understanding of the mechanics of our relationship with God he spent some time talking to us about how even our own lusts that the lust of our flesh get us carried away in the evil doing that ends up happening and the wickedness that's around us he goes on and on to share share with us concerning all kinds of things that exist within our walk with God that we should be mindful of and aware of and things that we should do in order to keep ourselves on the straight and narrow path and it's interesting because when you look at James James really is the new testament version of the book of Proverbs right and if you don't really understand the significance of the book of Proverbs then I would highly encourage you to go over my Sunday night study that I did not this last Sunday but the Sunday before where I talked about how books like the book of Proverbs Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon is such an impacting and powerful set of books as it relates to the subject of Bible prophecy especially in Proverbs because it gives us so much insight as into how to receive the Word of God it also gives us insight on how we can practically apply the Word of God right how this applies in this situation under this circumstance and what we're supposed to do and what it looks like on a practical sort of everyday level I think oftentimes we lose sight of all of these facts and in reality we allow ourselves to lose our bearing because when we don't or cannot establish a sense of moral authority within us based on a word that never changes then we start to change right and in so we begin to be molded by the community around us we get molded by the culture around us by the circumstances instead of allowing this word to ingrat being grafted within our hearts and then we become the molding influence in society and culture right and this is kind of an important thing and so keeping in theme with all of this he finishes us he finished telling us finishes telling us something very critical in verse 11 of chapter 5 he says "Behold we count them happy which endure you have heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord that the Lord is very pitiful and tender mercy so the idea here is he says look persecution is a regular part of Christian living difficulty is a normal part of the Christian life hardship is a normal part of what we do as believers and as a matter of fact if you choose to walk in a life that is dedicated to serving the true and living God Almighty God then understand this you will be attacked because of it right there will be a warfare that will ensue there will be a battle or a series of battles that will take place and you will be heavily resisted God is going to honor your your your commitment to serving him God is gonna bless you of course he is but there is going to be a battle that will really ensue the kind and the likes of which we have never seen because the devil hates it when you choose to please God I was thinking about this this morning I was on my way into work after all kinds of just morning insanity right and I was just I was telling them I call them on the phone I said you know I'm just gonna tell you I'm beginning to hate Thursdays as well and for any of you any any of you that know some of the things that go on between me and Dale you would know the phrase I hate Saturday nights because for those of you that don't know Saturday nights of course is the very moment in our lives where we tend to experience the crate the craziest and most insane warfare right I actually believe that when the time comes that I actually go to be with the Lord if it is not through the rapture I'll probably die on a Saturday night it'll probably be that right because Saturday night is the time when the enemy does everything that he can to completely rip you off and get just completely take you away from focus because he knows that you are about to entrench yourself in a massive war on a Sunday morning right because people come in on a Sunday morning they're confused they lack direction in some cases many of them are bolstered spiritually and they love God there's wonderful things that are happening in their lives but nonetheless they all come that they might be fortified just a little bit more with the knowledge of the word of God that they would be at that they would be able to pursue the things of God better to walk with God even closer and in reality lots of wonderful things happen on Sundays right really wonderful things and the devil hates it right and Thursdays is kind of that way Thursdays is our represents our largest day demographically speaking not only on the radio often times but yes on YouTube and many the other places that we do things it happens to be the most action pack day where there's a lot going on and we minister to an overwhelming majority and overwhelming majority the people that we minister to throughout the week get minister to on Thursday it happens to be a very busy day and so you can see the parallel right and the Bible makes it very clear this is something that we should expect if we're gonna serve the Lord we're gonna see all of these things right we're going to be attacked the enemy is going to seek to destroy us because that's what he's good at doing so understanding this and knowing this realizing that we have an attacker that hates us we have an enemy who hates us right he is our adversary matter fact that's what the word Satan means Satan means adversary right he is our adversary he is our attacker he is the you know the king of haters if you know what I mean he is the worst he hates us in every way possible he wants to destroy us in every possible way that we can imagine understanding and knowing that understanding by the way that we are living in a world of heightened spiritual activity can I say that again we are living in a world of heightened spiritual activity I'm gonna make an assertion right now that I believe is completely true and I believe it can be substantiated with fact because we see physical evidence everywhere but I'm going to say this we are in the most heightened spiritual warfare time that we have ever been in human history outside of two other events in human history the first event was when Adam was confronted with the opportunity to obey God or rebel against God in the garden I believe that that may have been a higher spiritually intense time and I think the second highest or perhaps maybe even the first and then second would have been in the garden but would definitely be when Christ was crucified and when he was in the garden and the time leading up to that the third highest time definitely the moment in which we're living right now and the spiritual war is brutal the spiritual war is absolutely crazy and it is beyond me to be able to even begin to try to understand how so many people can allow themselves to be blinded you guys know that we are living in a world right now where they are proposing that you actually go to jail if you make the assertion that a male cannot get pregnant or cannot breastfeed I'm not joking this is the kind of language has been thrown around just in California legislator alone it's already being done in Canada and when you stop for a moment to think about how absolutely terrible things are going how dark the world is becoming when you stop for a moment to just think about the kind of lies that continue to be communicated you guys understand that the indictment that our former president was actually booked for today actually has one charge in it that requires a death penalty did I mean anybody know that and the reality of it is it's very possible that that man could probably die if he doesn't actually become the president of the United States and this is not me making a campaign statement for anybody or saying that I support or don't support anybody I support anybody who stands up for our Christian principles and our Christian values but my issue is this my issue is I don't care if they do it to Biden it doesn't matter but if they can do it to a United States president over issues that do not have a tremendous amount of validity or any validity at all you are going to be next they are setting it up to do it to you why because they are making Christians the enemy that's exactly what they're doing they're seeking to say that if you speak a voice of righteousness they will seek to destroy you and that is the world in which we're living by the way in what is still today the most freest country in the world we're beginning to see all of this happening and I stop for a moment and I realize can it not be more obvious I mean how much more obvious doesn't have to be for people to actually see through it all right and even when a large amount of people see through it all how much of it is going to get defeated because the forces of darkness that are there continue to fight in ways that are beyond our capacity to be able to understand or determine or realize folks we're in a spiritual war we're in a spiritual battle all of these things are seriously spiritual all of these things are demonically ran these forces are seriously hating your soul and they want to take advantage of every part of you they want to destroy your family they want to destroy your minds your hearts there's a battle it's raging it's real and so keeping all of that in mind understanding that we are sitting in the midst of more persecution we're sitting in the midst of a lot of insanity we're watching a world to go completely berserk these are some things that we should know these are some things that we should do these are some things that we should listen to and adhere to look what he says he says but above all things when he says but above all things what he's in essence saying is he saying look the most important variable here to be thinking about the most important issue for you to be mindful of the most critical thing for you to give way to are the things that I'm about to talk to you about the things that I'm about to tell you why because they will be the very things that give you bearing in a time where it's very difficult to see these are the very things that will give you protection in a time where you're taking fire from everywhere that you can think of these are the very things that are going to give you the kind of Teflon coding necessary in order to preserve your very soul because without these things you will find yourself in a place where the potential for casualty will be much greater and we've talked about this before right the words of the Lake Great Walter Martin what did he always say and I really truly believe it it more now than I ever have before he said the Christian that does not the Christian that does not engage in the spiritual war will become the first casualty of it and notice he said Christian right he may have sold that from Francis Schaeffer but the reality of it is it is the Christian that when they refuse to acknowledge the spiritual battle in which they are called to ensue they become the first casualty of it and boy we're seeing a lot of casualties aren't we we're seeing a lot of insanity a lot of craziness I was just talking about this with a pastor's wife that I very very much respect and admire and she's a very special lady she came from what I would consider to be an older era of pastors in a time where ministry seemed a lot more clear and it was cut dry and it was just a different time and she told me she said James I can't go to even a cavalry chapel nowadays that doesn't have a black stage and all kinds of you know blue lights and smoke and mirrors and so on and so forth it just seems to be assigned at the times everywhere you go you see it everywhere everywhere you go you begin to see things where people are carrying more about their hundred thousand dollar screens in the background and all the other crazy things then really spending time focus on the substance of the message right and I was thinking about this and I'm thinking yeah she's right I mean she's really right that that's not no matter where you go people are looking at a lot of these external and peripheral issues but they're not considering the power of the message itself it's very sad do you know that there are guys that are out there in the ministry that are bragging about the fact that they have artificial intelligence helping them with their teaching really as it really come to that it's spiritual folks so look what he says these are the things to do right in a time like this the time of darkness that we're in he says but above all things in other words you're going through all of this nonsense that you're facing above all of that right what you put in priority on top of all of that he says this my brethren swear not neither by heaven neither by earth neither neither by any other oath but let your aba and your aba less you fall into condemnation now this was kind of an important thing because understand the application of this principle this principle was predicated upon something that existed within the culture back then and it carries itself into the culture that we have today it is a partially transcendent principle here right but in that culture there was a lot of issues where the validity of people's words was put under question because the principle of truth was not one that was being standard on right it was not being leaned on or rested upon and so oftentimes to emphasize a matter what would they do they would swear on the matter right sometimes that would be by the use of foul or vain language sometimes that would be by simply just placing something in great value and saying based on this this is what I will make you a promise concerning and we know we hear things like this oftentimes I swear on so and so's grave or I swear to this person or I swear to that person you know you hear all these types of things that people make their swears and the funny thing about it is and I've learned this I think it's really important and I think that part of my job and part of what I do for living and part of my whole being in life centers around the use of words right words for me I'm learning more and more as I get older and older how critically important it is that they become more calculated in nature and perhaps the most significant way that my words can become more calculated than they ever have been is by resting and leaning upon the spirit of God to give me those words because as a spirit of God gives me those words the necessity for calculation is thrusted upon the creator of the universe who understands the need for the structure of every single word that it might be inspired so that when people hear me they understand and know that it is God speaking and not me right and so there's a reliance that we have to place upon that but in reality I find myself in a position were throughout the years I've been surrounded by men who feel the need to extensuate some kind of an emphatic thrust by the use of language that's been unbecoming and I see it a lot and quite frankly people come to me and they say oh I'm sorry if you feel offended by my cursing and I tell them the same thing every single time I'm not offended by the fact you're cursing but let me just explain what it looks like I remember sitting in a in a meeting once where I watched the former chief of police that I worked for an incredibly intelligent and godly and just he's a wonderful man he's an absolutely wonderful man he really is and he loves God with all of his heart he's bold about his faith he always has been bold about his faith he was one of the last police chiefs that I worked for and he was just a great guy I spent a lot of time with him he became one of my best friends he's a really good man and I remember sitting down at a meeting where he's talking to all of his officers and the city managers there and there's lots of other people that are there and he decides that to create emphasis in a particular arena he's gonna throw out a bunch of curse words so he throws out a f bomb here and a this bomb there and that bomb there and it's just a you might if you have if you were recording the meeting for a certain portion of that meeting it would be a baby baby baby baby baby baby baby that's kind of the way it felt so he watched me do this and I didn't know that I did it at the time but he watched me sitting in the back of the room looking at him with a big smile on my face just kind of going like this shoulder shrugged head down just kind of nodding my head like this and thank God I was in the back because none of the other officers would have noticed that and if they did then that that would have spoken a whole lot more than you know anyway that's a long story but he noticed and I did that so we go into his office and we're having a command staff meeting in his lieutenants and captains and two sergeants are there and he says I noticed your reaction to a portion of the meeting James why did you do that it's a chief look with with all due respect this might be something more appropriate for us to talk to one on talk about one-on-one I think it'd be better for us to talk about this one-on-one he looks at all of his guys he said you heard a man get out of here he tells his guys again all of his commanders and stuff now now they're mad at me because the commanders don't want to go out and come back in and go out and come back in so they go out and I said look chief you've ever been to the zoo recently you have a you have a young baby boy that you just recently adopted you guys have ever been to the zoo recently well not recently but yeah I've been to the zoo many times I said you ever go to the monkey cage yeah when you go to the monkey cage you ever see the monkey like loses mind you know what it looks like you know what happens that the zookeepers got his whole stack of bananas that he's got put aside whatever he's gonna give the monkey and the monkeys all of a sudden notice that the bananas are nearby and they run up to where the cage is and they just start shaking the bars and and they're just shaking the bars and they're going really crazy and then sometimes they'll get really mad and they'll put feces in their hand and throw it at the zookeeper and it just they start going crazy when they do that right you know what I'm talking about yeah I'll see that a few times I said you're that monkey every single time you choose to curse you're that monkey you want to know why boss because you effectively demonstrate to people that you have a unique incapacity to be able to functionally articulate your point of view in a way that renders an effectiveness to the audience that you speak to so you do what all of those guys do and you raise your voice which there's nothing wrong with raising your voice but then you start screaming and cursing and saying all the crazy things that you want to say because you want to gain acceptance and yeah they'll accept you because they're all the same monkeys in the same cage but if you expect to see those men actually grow into something substantial and exceptional and you expect them to go out in the field and to learn how to use the tools of language to effectively do the job that they need to do you can't do that anymore you just can't so I hate to admit this but for the next year and a half or two years as it went by if I was ever in a room with him and someone started cursing the chief would just start going like this look at me and just start laughing and no one knew what we meant no one knew we were in a meeting with the city manager once he just completely lost his mind he just went nuts trying to figure out what that meant we wouldn't tell him you know what I mean I'm gonna fire both of you if you don't tell me what that means yeah you know kind of a thing but the funny thing about it is there's a certain brilliance associated with a command that's being given to us to not use language like that here's the funny thing about foul language look I just want you to understand this when foul language becomes deployed particularly in the type of context in which I'm talking it cheapens the authority by which the word is actually being shared right your message becomes diminished substantially number one number two here's the part that a lot of people don't think about using language like that on a somewhat repetitive basis invokes something that is deeply spiritual and not in a good way I used to have this conversation especially with Christian police officers and they would they would ask me why it's wrong to curse I saw all the Bible prohibited but James you don't understand as a police officer we pull people over and this was even this way when I was in the military we had many police officers that were operators they spent a lot of time out there in the field doing all kinds of special operations and these guys were they were special forces people right and they would say you would go in a situation and if you told people to put their hands up they won't listen to you but the very moment you raise your voice and say put your hands up they still don't listen but then when you say put your blankety blankety blankety blankety blankety blanketly hands up they submit right away don't matter where you are that used to happen to me overseas I would do it overseas when I was in the Middle East if I used foul language and Arabic they complied with me instantly did you ever think about why that was a case if you ever stopped for one moment to just think about why it isn't they would comply so easily once they heard that language you're invoking spiritual terms do you get that you're putting into play words that actively engage in a realm that you don't want to be engaged with that way the very demons that control the hearts and the minds of these men will comply the very moment you capitulate to the type of terminology and language that they like it's kind of crazy when you think about it right think about this I was talking to somebody the other day who was telling me he's a a policeman but he works in the animal control world he works for the state and he's one of this is a job that a lot of people don't know about but in animal control when people get bitten in certain areas they actually have to send a sworn peace officer out there and the state attaches these animal control officers with them oftentimes to go look and investigate these types of bites depending on what they are and he said you know James he said three years ago like prior to the whole sickness thing that was going on he says I rolled out to maybe four bites a month like four dog bites a month four animal bites maybe a month maybe a little bit more maybe a little bit less he says today in three short years today I roll out to ten a day how does it go from four a month to ten a day you know I theory is on that right animals respond a lot more instinctively and they're instinct oftentimes is governed by things that are going on in the spiritual realm and as we begin to see more heightened spiritual activity going on you begin to see that played out in animals I think people realize the connection that's there right and this is not me trying to sound crazy or weird or anything like that we're in that world and the invocation of terminology that is not pleasing to God oftentimes create a gateway into a world that we really don't want much to do with in terms of flirting right we don't want to be playing in that world it's kind of interesting do you also know that there are certain words that when you use them and they are deployed they also engage in the spiritual realm but for the glory of God right like in the name of Jesus certain things that we that we say there I mean the parallels are staggering very interesting when you think about it look what he goes on to also say he says so this is our mouth that's what we do with our mouth and that's talking about being a person who is really walks away from profanity in the midst of affliction is that probably the best way putting it right when you're in the midst of the most difficult time stay away from the profane language okay it's an invoking tool it's kind of an important message look what he goes on in verse 13 to say he says is any among you afflicted let him pray is any Mary let him sing songs I love this when he says afflicted he's not talking about necessarily just sick right he's saying are you experiencing an affliction are you overwhelmed with some kind of pain or sorrow or hardship is there something you're going through right now that is uniquely difficult is there something that's happening that you're in the midst of where you're constantly facing trial and tribulation pray give it to the Lord it would blow your mind how many people from the fellowship come to me and ask me to pray for very desperate situations right how many times have people say ask me to pray for their babies their grand babies great grand babies in some case someone is in terrible trouble will you pray for them we have situations come up where people are afflicted we have people that have suicidal ideation we have people that are struggling with depression we have people that are doing all kinds going through all kinds of different things all very real things and perhaps the most significant and powerful tool that we have available to us in the day in which we live is to pray and the Bible tells us that are you having affliction do experience any such affliction go before the Lord pray tell him about it Lord where is this depression coming from Lord where is this anxiety coming from Lord why is it that I'm feeling this particular way father please absolve me from the very fear that's overwhelming me and keeping you from doing the very thing that I know I need to be doing in the current moment kind of interesting how that works right and by the way can I tell you how good God is when we go to him how oftentimes he answers our prayers when we go to him in a place of desperation how many people are going to this church that should have been dead several years ago and are now cancer-free and don't have a single thing wrong with them we sit down and we talk about brother Wayne who we've been praying for who's been normally leading worship on Thursday nights when he went to the hospital for the very first time he had major major major problems brain bleeding going on all kinds of serious medical conditions in the commission or throughout the commission of them trying to correct all of these problems through surgery and medication and all kinds of other things the man had four strokes four many of which the doctor said had effects that were completely irreversible it was very likely that Wayne if he did not perish in the midst of all of that happening it was very very likely that he would probably be in the hospital or rehabilitation facility for the rest of his life we would call him on a pretty regular basis and we would pray for him and most of the time he was not conscious or he was you know semi-conscious not really listening and we just I just remember this one time recently where we just said Lord God please we pray for him and so we we faced timed him me and my family the kids and my wife and there's Wayne hi buster James it is happy self and we began to realize that God was beginning to do something substantial do you know that they can't see any visible effects of any of the strokes that he had on him right now do you know that after only after five days of him being in a rehabilitation center he's now actually home recovering and resting only Lord willing to be coming back to full strength do you understand how mighty and powerful and amazing our God is that he hears our prayers that as we go to him and we say Lord we desperately need you in this moment how faithful he is to answer our prayers and some of you might say well James that's praise God and I'm happy to hear about Wayne and I hear all these wonderful stories but there are many stories where that doesn't happen there's many stories where people continue to go down a terrible direction and bad things happen what do we do about that we praise God because we know that even in those terrible things God knew better somehow some way we might not understand it but God gets it right look what he goes on to say if you're happy if you're married that's what he says let him do what let him go have a few drinks no he says let him sing Psalms let him praise the Lord let him proclaim the word of God singing praise to God is any sick among you let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord isn't that so powerful to understand what he says and look what he says in verse 15 and the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up and if he have committed any sins they shall be forgiven him right and there are some illnesses that oftentimes are a direct result of some kind of sinful pattern or behavior right we know that look think about it guys people often times look at this and they they they they take some kind of a mystical approach to this passage and say that if you commit sin today then tomorrow you're going to get deathly sick okay that's not necessarily what this is talking about now there are moments like this where this does happen and I'll tell you about when it's one such moment it's one that involved my mom's life but think about it if I decide that I'm going to consume LSD and I start having a hallucination and I begin to have a bad trip and I think that my arm is a dragon that wants to kill me and I pull out a chainsaw and cut the dragon off I'm gonna wake up in the morning without an arm right my sin has created a physical element within me that is going to bear a consequence for the rest of my life that's what happens sin can do that right now there are other situations where sinful practices can can bring about characteristics of physical sickness one such idea was when my mom was in Yemen if you don't know where Yemen is Yemen is the country south of Saudi Arabia it's on the southern border of Saudi Arabia right if you are looking at Yemen on a map it's just south of Saudi Arabia and to the west of Yemen is the Red Sea and below you have the context to the Indian Ocean and back over there it's it's right all over that area what's interesting about Yemen is it is the way it is today the way it was back then it is mostly Muslim right hardcore Muslim and there is no love for people that worship God now my mom born and raised in Egypt was a missionary in Yemen for many many years and was a missionary nurse and she was in an American missionary hospital in Yemen those were very rare and I don't think there's any of those around anymore and one of the clerics from the town one of the town leaders governmental leaders came into my wife's I don't know what you would call it a medical room you know examination room and told my wife I heard you have bibles in here and you're lucky I don't kill you for having them so the man ordered his men to take these big sacks and throw all of my mom's bibles that she was giving away into this bag now mind you in Yemen they kill you for stuff like this okay you're dead they kill you like there's no there's no ifsands buts about it the normal way this is sharia law the normal way is this is what they do my mom looks at this person did I say wife instead of mom my mom I'm sorry I keep saying my wife my mother not my wife my mother thank you mother technology saves me from a big problem here my mother looks at the person who's doing this and says you can take those bibles but I advise you don't do anything with them because you're going to be deathly sick because God's gonna strike you with sickness because of what you're doing and the guy looks at my mom and you know does says whatever he says and they leave the machinery doctor tells my mom a it's too much they're gonna come back and burn this place down or they came back they came back the next day the man who took the bibles away from my mom the leader came back on a stretcher completely sick out of his brain and he tells my mom call the curse off call the curse off and my mom said I'm not gonna pray for you until your men go back and get my bibles and bring them back here so sure he never did burn those bibles or get rid of them so he anticipated that this would probably be the issue and his men brought in all the bibles and then my mom had the the guts to actually say you took my bibles off the shelf you put them back on and she waited until they put all the bibles back on and then my mom prayed for the man the man was healed the next day he was literally on his deathbed he was healed the next day God had actually healed him. Funny thing is is when he got better he gets up and he leaves the hospital and he sends a messenger to my mom in the hospital and says we want you to come over to my house now the missionary doctor told my mom don't do it they're gonna kill you don't go over there they're going to kill you and my mom felt led by the Lord no I'm gonna go so she goes over there and it turns out that she sits down with the man's wife and the family and they have all kinds of questions about the God that healed him and my mom on that day led them all to the Lord this is Yemen this is a Muslim country you think about and and for that one story there's a bunch more like that with my mom not my wife my mom right and to think about the significance that that bears so yes there are times where people can get sick for sinful reasons that kind of bear that sort of kind of consequence but the reality of it is God says if there's sickness go to the elders pray seek the Lord I remember another story about this kind of an interesting one guy that I went to Bible college with he had a little girl she was just born they've been praying for her for a long time that you know they would get a baby and that there was a miracle baby the fact that this baby was even born was a total miracle she was born and she started exhibiting signs of real discomfort and just ailing signs she looked she just looked pale and just didn't look like she was healthy or well she's probably four months old five months old at this time and the doctors he was at Children's Hospital of Orange County and the doctor said put your baby right now in the helicopter that's waiting for her above we need to take her to the only facility that can care for her because she has a leukemia that if not aggressively treated right now in this moment your baby will not live for more than a few other not not more than a few days and if you even want a chance of saving your baby's life this is what you have to do so what is my buddy Lloyd do this is no joke I was so angry with him super angry he loads his baby in his car and he drives his baby to church not to LA to church now from Children's Hospital in Orange County to Calvary Chapel Downey in the middle of a Friday afternoon was an hour and a half drive he could have had his baby in LA in literally 30 minutes with a helicopter so he shows up he says I'm coming we're all there me and the elders and I told my buddy I I just can't pray for this baby because I'm so mad at Lloyd and my pastor said well you need to ask for forgiveness and you need to pray for this baby so I'm mad at my buddy and I pray for the baby and we all lay hands on the baby and we pray for her and Lord please just touch her her little name they called her a Theo her name was the often he was kind of strange name to name your baby an appearance of God but that was her name we pray for her we ask God to heal her and touch her and Lloyd's crying his tears are just welling up within him and just it's just such a challenging moment and a time for him and he puts his baby in his car and he takes off we even tried to get him to have police escorts take him over there because we could have arranged that and he said no I think God's going to take care of my baby and I just wanted to punch him in the face you know what I mean she's so mad what do you mean it drives over there the first reaction that the specialist had that had to come in from where he lived I think it was in Beverly Hills or something like that he looked at all of the X-rays and he didn't even you didn't even talk to Lloyd he didn't say anything to Lloyd he got on the phone in the examination room while the often he's laying there in the bed and he calls the doctor that's at chalk and he calls him every curse word in in on the book what kind of a blanket he blanket joke are you trying to blanket he play on me but I'm looking at the films of this little girl we took these films she's perfectly healthy where did you get these where did these lab results come where's the oncology report and they go back and forth for the next hour and a half two hours to confirm what Lloyd had already knew in his heart would happen and his baby was completely healed she went from having a prognosis that basically said she would not live for a few weeks to now still being alive and well serving the Lord twenty some odd years later think about the story of that right God is faithful he can do these things you guys you think God's incapable of doing anything like that he's God of heaven he can do anything he wants right we go to him and we ask why because it's all spiritual confess your faults verse 16 this is another thing to do during a heightened spiritual time right confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man available much isn't that an interesting and important picture right how important it is to go to one another and to share with one another the issues that you might be going through the time that we have in fellowship where we talk to one another about all the different weaknesses and the things that we face from day to day I think in a time where we face the kind of spiritual warfare that we're facing we should always be going back to one another and talking about the things that we are facing on a day-to-day basis shouldn't we shouldn't we be the type of people that are thinking about all of these things should we be the type of people that are considering these things with one another planning things out going through things you know there are different people that I interact with in different communities based on the areas that I'm involved with and I find myself in a place where it's very valuable I talk to different people in all different walks of life and I oftentimes sit down and work through things with them plan through things with them because in reality it provides a great benefit there's a group of YouTube creators that I spend a lot of time with on a pretty regular basis there's a group of people in law enforcement that I spend time with on a regular basis there's people in all different walks of life that I sit down and I brainstorm with and I talk with and I interact with and we walk through things together and we talk through things together I think that's a God-ordained picture but perhaps the most valuable conversations that I have the most valuable it's really simple are the ones with the body of Christ they're the most important conversations why because as we go to one another and we confess to one another and we walk through things with one another and we share with one another we find great victory don't we we find it God gives it to us and it's such an important aspect of what we do every day right look what he says in verse 17 King James it says Elias of course it's talking about Elijah right was a man subject to like passions as we are and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on earth by the space of three years and six months and he prayed again and the heaven gave rain and the earth bought forth her fruit funny how that picture is being given to us and here's the thing about Elijah or Elijah for that matter but Elijah a lot of people look at him and they think he's a one-off I mean you really think about it they look at the kind of power that that man had and that the kind of work that the spirit of God did through him and they think oh he was one of a kind there's nobody like him yet in this letter that James writes to the Hebrew church he says look at what Elijah did and look at how God honored his persistent prayer he was a man of like passions in other words he was a man like you and me there was nothing that set him part apart from anybody else other than his willingness to not only listen to the voice of God but his willingness to obey and to seek God wonder what happens if we have the same willingness right wonder what happens I think those prophets were striking to me and perhaps some of the most significant to me because they were the type of men that would be surprised when God didn't speak to them they weren't they weren't surprised when God spoke to them God spoke to them so much that the surprising moment was when God did it speak to them I prayed that God would have done that to me early early on in my walk and I can tell you this right now I can't begin to describe the feeling of emptiness that comes over my heart when it feels like I'm not hearing the voice of God I am so thankful that I hear the voice of God on such a regular basis speaking into my life at the very moment I don't hear his voice I feel an emptiness on the inside that's the best way to describe it it's almost like a nakedness you know the way we get to that point we stay in his word we constantly apply the very word that we learn every day and we depend on him earnestly for everything that involves this relationship of praying and seeking him and putting him first and all that we do that's what all of this is about folks look at what he goes on to say brethren if any of you do air from the truth and one convert him let him know that he which converted the sinner from the air of his way shall save the a soul from death and she'll hide him multitude of sins wow I think that we should probably think that through for just a moment right when we have moments candid moments with people around us that we love and we go to them talking to them about an error that they may be caught up in or something that might be tearing away at the very core of their being if we can win them over by bringing them into a knowledge of the truth you're not just saving them from the characteristics of death in the immediate moment you're saving them from their soul dying eternally think about the power of that statement people ask this to me all the time they they and I get it from people that are mostly not believers and people who tend to be like business people who are in influential roles but I get this a lot people will ask me a question like James how is it that you seem to have such a cult following right and they it's not just me they say that pastors oftentimes tend to have followings like this and people are very loyal to them and they stay very close to them and they oftentimes take what they say for law and so on and so forth and I and I basically tell them this I said look there's one common characteristic that pastors have that they share with one another that seems to be the sort of underlying thread that goes through as a commonality with all of these things with the people that love them and the people that seem to be very loyal to them and that's this there's something to be said with a group of people who get taken through the worst time of their life only to find themselves victorious what happens with a relationship like that right I think about this oftentimes the ones that I'm the closest to in our fellowship are the ones that at one point or another I was sitting in their living room talking them off the ledge from literally killing themselves or maybe the ones that found themselves in terrible crisis because a child just died or maybe the ones that find themselves in just terrible disarray because their spouse for so many years has now gone or maybe they're facing losing their their home because they have no mortgage one day and it doesn't matter what the situation is there's something that happens there's a bond that actually takes place when a man steps into the life of another man or that man's family and seeks to bring them to a place of restoration there's not just a homeless that's bought to them in the in the current moment with respect to the current condition and situation there's a homeless that's brought into an element that carries over into the ages that carries over into eternity and that bond is created as a result there's a closeness that exists why because you have done well to save their souls you have done well to bring them to a place where they get to experience the benefit eternally of the better decision making process that's been attributed to them the idea here is this the idea here is that God knows how to create a bond amongst his people through the characteristics that are oftentimes associated with miraculous healing and the most miraculous of healings come from what area the spirit right the soul how God can take an absolutely burdened and broken and disarrayed heart and bring them to a place of healing and restoration to only experience every wonderful benefit that comes as a result something special happens at that moment and I think that the very moment we can get to the place where we are willing to say Lord I want to hear from you in everything in every situation in every moment in every place and I want to teach other people how to do that we'll find a certain fulfillment that comes from knowing that the souls around us have been saved including our own there's something spectacular about that isn't there there's something special about that guys look I can say this in some reading probably I could have gotten away with saying this at the beginning of study closed the Bible and said we're done but in a time of some of the greatest and most heightened spiritual warfare that we have ever seen in our world's history more than ever we need to hold fast to the principles given to us right here in this book right we need to be closer to God that we ever have been before why because he holds the answers that we need he holds the truth in his hand the hope that we have for eternal life is given to us right here amen father we just thank you Lord for your word and we thank you for the message that comes from knowing your word Lord and understanding your word and Lord we just pray that you would go before us Lord fill us with your spirit give us your discernment your understanding Lord an awareness Lord of what it is that you're telling us in the current moment help us Lord to be able to live fruitfully Lord and powerfully for you that we would be men and women whose whole hearts and minds are given to you Lord understanding that you have a purpose and a role for us in our lives to live so go before us now Lord fill us with your spirit we love you God we thank you and we ask these things in Jesus then we pray amen all right God bless you guys listen the brothers are coming up and they're going to be available to pray for you if you have any prayer requests we would certainly love to encourage you guys CJ we're not we're not broadcasting anymore right we are okay you're you killing it