Glorious Way Church

Persisting In Resisting | Pastor John Greiner

• Pastor John Greiner

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This teaching unpacks the necessity of persistence in spiritual resistance against the enemy. Through Scripture and practical application, it emphasizes standing steadfast in faith, refusing to yield to discouragement, and continuing to speak God’s Word until breakthrough comes. The message challenges believers to develop endurance in prayer and faith, reminding them that consistent resistance causes the devil to flee.

SPEAKER_00:

Get into the word together this morning. I've got something for you I believe will help you. And let's just all wave those Bibles around, make Jesus glad and the devil mad. Say this together. Say, Heavenly Father, I'm so glad to be here at Glorious Way Church among people of light precious faith. Love plus unity equals miracles. This place is full of love. It's full of one accord, and all things are possible to him that believes. And I'm a believer in Jesus' name. Amen. You can be seated. Let's turn in our Bibles to James chapter 4. And also 1 Peter right next to it, chapter 5. We'll start with James, the Lord's brother. A lot of Catholics think that Peter was the first pope. And Peter was an apostle, all right, but really the pastor of the church at Jerusalem was James. You know. He wasn't a Pope either, but anyway, he was the leader of the church. And he was a late comer. He, you know, he passed, he passed his brother Jesus, earthly brother Jesus, you know, he didn't believe in him for a long time, but he finally got on the program. And James chapter 4, verse 6. 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. All right, and then we turn over to Peter chapter 5. We'll start reading with verse 5. Likewise, you younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with humility. For God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, unto the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant. For your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith. Knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called you unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you've suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. And so today I wanted to share a message entitled, Persisting in Resisting. Persisting in resisting. You know, natural wars mirror spiritual conflict. I mean, when there's war on the earth, there's war in the heavenlies. And there's a lot of stuff going on right now in our world, especially in our nation, but it's it's not just here, it's all over the world, you know. I wanted to read out of Luke, Jesus was talking about the end days in Luke 21. Matthew 24 and Luke 21 are the same event, and two different gospel writers have their have their different perspectives. I like their perspectives. See, you get the whole picture when you get Matthew and you get Luke writing about the same thing that Jesus was talking to the disciples about the end days. In Luke 21, he said in verse 25, he said, talking about the end days, there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars, and upon the earth, distress of nations. The word nations there means people groups. We think about nations with a boundary and all that, but it's really people groups. We have a lot of boundaries and borders in the earth that are that men created, and they separate people groups and include people groups that are not compatible, and you got a whole lot of problems. You got a whole lot of problems. Think about Russia and Ukraine. Think about northern, you know, Eastern Europe, all that's all those borders are messed up. And uh man did it. Stupid man got involved, stupid governments got involved, God didn't wasn't involved. And so you've got this trouble, distress of nations with perplexity. The sea and the waves roaring. How many of you know it wasn't talking about the ocean? He's talking about people. They're roaring, they're screaming filthy things and throwing urine and throwing spitting on ice agents as if they're, you know, why? Because the news media repeats this lie about them being Nazis and being all these. Their language is out of bounds. Because their father is not the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Their father is the devil. You have to understand that's who's that's who's talking. They're roaring. Everybody say they're roaring. And it says, men's, he said this about the end days, men's hearts failing them for fear. And for looking after those things which are coming on the earth. For the powers of heaven shall be shaken. Now he's not talking about heaven where God is. He's talking about where principalities and powers, rulers of darkness, wicked spirits in the heavenly places have been holding sway, and they're being shaken. Their places are being shaken. Why? The church is finally waking up. Things are different in 2025 than they were in 2020. Thank God. And the devil is going crazy. So, really, we're talking about persisting in resisting here. Natural wars mirror spiritual conflicts. You know, Bush precipitated the war on terror. It was a failure. He increased it. His hand-handed hand handling his commander-of-chief and commander-in-chief of the armed forces and giving them impossible rules of engagement that are impossible to have when you're on the battlefield. I mean, he just tied the hands of our brave soldiers. They weren't able to really take care of the enemy to the uh, you know, the ability that they had. He was too busy not wanting to offend a group of people called Muslims. George Bush's problem and his father's problem is some of his best friends are all Muslims. And they know which side of the bread their bread is buttered on. I'm sorry, but that's just the facts. And we lost a lot of wonderful men and women needlessly because of these silly rules of engagement. I mean, they, you know, they're training the Taliban to fight the enemy. The Taliban is a terrorist organization. I mean, who's in when as soon as we left uh uh uh Afghanistan, who took over Bogerman? And Taliban. I mean, we in we in we did this in World War II. We and we we aided Russia and and created the trouble with Russia. I mean, we gave Russia all this stuff, gave them all this technology, and they're beating us over the head with it for 50 years. Gotta understand history. The Bible says in Revelation 12, the devil has come down among you and has great wrath. Why? Because he knows his time is short. He knows his days going past him. And he's walking about as a lion. He's not really a lion because all of his teeth were knocked out. Jesus knocked out his teeth. But he's still got some weapons. His weapons are what? Fear, deceit, confusion, distraction. He's a master at those things. He's a master at trash talking, if I can just put it in modern parlance. Trash talking, you know, just having a yap yapity yap. Oh, these these Democrats are big on trash talking. They talk trash 24-7. We know what his motive is, and his motive is not just to inconvenience you. His motive is not just to give you a bad hair day or to steal your parking space at the mall. His motive, Jesus said his motive in John 10 10, the thief cometh not but for to what? Steal, kill, and destroy. He's a murderer from the beginning. He wants to kill you. They all want to kill us. They dream about killing Trump. They rejoiced at Charlie Kirk being assassinated. They couldn't have been glad. They couldn't have been. Well, he got what he deserved. He's just a he's a divisive. Yeah, he's a divisive. You're the divider. I mean, you're the one that left one nation under God and started worshiping this other devil. This devil. You worship false gods. No, I'm telling you, let's not forget who we worship. Let's not forget who is the God over this country that we're under. It is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, you know, and the good and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for the Jewish people. They they don't recognize Jesus, but they do recognize the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He's the creator. You know, Allah didn't create nothing. He's not God. Oh. I'm sorry. It's gonna make some people mad. Okay, I'm sorry. We're gonna keep preaching the truth. We need, we the church has got to rise up and not and keep persisting to resist. We have to resist the spirit of Antichrist. We have to resist all of his fear, deceit, confusion, distraction, the changing of our language. I was listening to uh uh Mark Levin last night. Sometimes I have to flick him because I get kind of mad at him. But he is a brilliant guy. And he was talking last night about a part of his book that he wrote a couple of years ago. I might go out and get it. I don't have time to read a lot of books besides the Bible, but sometimes I do. And he was quoting some things that he wrote a few years ago about our language and how the left is able to qu uh to uh take our language and change the words, and that goes back to uh a book that Lenin wrote in 1902. This is a tactic of the Communist Party. And one of the ways that they're able to take over a nation is to get over there. There's a lot of different stages, but one of them is language, get in there and change the meaning of words. See, so they call good evil and they call evil good.

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That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_00:

They call clean unclean and they call unclean clean. You just go right on through. This is what they do. They call abortion choice. And they just they sanitize and actually they call marriage just well, you know, just marry the one you love. Doesn't mean if you love a type, if you love a computer or an Apple phone or you love, you know, a dog or a cat. I saw some lady was involved was was in love with her AI, artificial intelligence uh man that she's dating online. Artificial intelligence means it doesn't exist. And you're in love with AI's version of your man. I mean, you talk about Lulu bird. But they're out there, folks, they're out there by the multitudes. But we've got to do what? Persisting. We've got to be all about persisting in resisting. I mean, in consistency lies the power. It's not what you resist today and forget about tomorrow and the next day and maybe resist once a month, or once you resist when you're around this group and when it's easy to resist, you resist in church, it's easy, but when you're out there and you're outnumbered, it's not so easy to resist out there, is it? But we've got to persist. Because what we constantly do, that's where the power is. Praise God. So the Bible gives us specific areas to address so we can resist the devil. And if we're to be victorious in persisting in resisting, then I've got one, two, three, four, about four things that we need to pay attention to, make sure that that's what we're doing. In verse 5, it says of Peter, submit yourself to God. And uh so when you submit yourself to God, James 4 7 said, Submit yourself to God, resist the devil, he will flee. So they both agree, submit yourself to God. Well, you said how do you do that? You submit yourself to God, you submit to yourself to his word, you submit to his divine order. Everybody say divine order. See, God can't bless a mess. We've had a mess in this country for the longest time. It's being uncovered now. We had the head of the FBI, he's as corrupt as they come. He's the worst head of FBI in our history. He is an absolute horrible person. And he and he has scads of people that know that about him. He's had a history of lying and leaking. James Comey was on the DOJ, and he did that there to increase his power, and and he would take selective little things, little bits of information that are private and leak it to his friends in the media, and they would print it, and he would get a conviction, and he got, you know, he got powerful, he got more powerful, and now he was the head of the FBI. And and I mean, I mean the guy basically was he's either the fall guy or the head of the coup attempt in 2020, and they they successfully they tried to have a coup in 2016, it didn't work, but they greatly weakened Trump's first term, greatly weakened it. And then in 2020, they were successful in cheating in that election. There's no question in my mind that Trump should have been the president in 2020. I don't care if they like it or not, it's the truth, it's the truth. It's coming out over and over. All this stuff is getting printed out, it's all coming out. Why? Because we've been praying all along. Everything hidden comes to the light. We've been persisting as a church in resisting. But then that falls back on you in your personal life. You know, keep persisting to resist. I mean, you're gonna have to keep on doing it. So submit yourself to God, submit yourself to his word, submit yourself to his divine order. And uh, you know, rebels don't have a chance. I said, rebels don't have a chance when you're so uh infected by the culture of our culture is I've got my say and I'm gonna say it. America, you know, thank God for freedom. We're the we're the greatest country on the face of the earth, but it's also our greatest weakness because we vote. Some of us do, not all of us. Unfortunately, not all the church votes like, you know, and some of them vote wrong. That's another thing we're addressing in this church. But be that as it may, uh, you know, we have this idea in America, well, you know, I've got my say-so, and I'm gonna say so, you know, and we we we just kind of go through, we just we're entitled. And and look, the church is not a democracy. I mean, Jesus is the head of the church, he's really the dictator of the church, if you really want to know. I mean, he what he says goes and it flows down through his line of authority, through his pastors and through and through the church, and and and we're in an army. There's the army is not a is not a democratic institution. You follow what? Orders. You don't like them, you follow them, or else you have great trouble. Right? Amen. So we've got to, you know, we've if we're gonna submit to God and submit to his word, then we've got to submit to his divine order, and that means you should submit yourself to a local church and come under the accountability of somebody beside yourself. Thank you for three old me's, five groans. I'm saying you need to be involved in this church. If you're a member, you need to be involved. We're gonna talk about it later. I'm gonna hold up a piece of paper and our ushers are gonna pass them out. But I want everybody to take one. If you're not involved already, I want you to get involved. I mean, the time is now. We've got to get together in this church and everybody share the load of what it takes for the light that shines the brightest, shines brightest right here. Then it can go to the state capitals, you know, then it can go to other places where we've got influence, but if it doesn't shine bright here, then it fails. So it's on me. I mean, I have to give it to you. I have to share with you how important it is. If you say, well, I'm gonna resist the devil, and then you're not submitted to his line of authority, you're not submitted in the local church for someone that just, you know, is a leader just above you and holds you accountable to show up and to do your job that you said you would do. And all of our commitments are temporary. You don't have to do it forever. You can get involved in one area of the church and serve there six months faithfully. And if you want to resign then, you know, hopefully you'll like it and keep doing it. But if you don't, maybe you can recruit somebody to take your place. Wouldn't that be a novel idea? Instead of Allison having to run around and find your replacement when you resign from children's church. She's got to go scramble and find somebody. Why don't you find them for her before you leave? It wouldn't, I mean, we're look, we're in this together. This is divine, this is a divine order. Amen. Are y'all with me now? Oh, I'm stirring some pots. I know I am. Everybody say accountability. I mean, you know, that's what that's what Comey did not have. They didn't have accountability. There were probably hundreds of people who knew what he was doing and did nothing about it. Look at Biden. Hundreds, thousands of people knew. I mean, the whole country knew he was completely demented. And yet here he is. And we've been ruled by auto pen. I love Trump. He's got a big long hallway in the White House with all the president's pictures. When it comes to Biden's picture, he's got a picture of the auto pen. You gotta love him. You gotta love him. You know, you gotta love him. I mean, you I mean, sometimes I want to thump him, but I and I do love him. I do love him. One of a kind. Everybody say accountability. Submit yourself to a local church, the pastor, and his leadership. You know, leaders, Jesus said it, he said, if you want to lead, you've got to be able to follow. You've got to be a servant of all. He washed the disciples' feet when he got to Peter's. Peter said, Oh no, you can't wash my feet. I need to wash your feet. He said, I don't wash. If I don't wash your feet, you have no part in me. He said, Oh Lord. Don't just wash my feet, wash my head, wash my whole body. I mean, that was Jesus speaking, letting us know that to serve, you know, to lead, you have to become a servant. Well, how do you think that works? Well, it works when you become accountable and have someone else, and that's how I got where I am. I was accountable to people. I was trained up by others. And and along the way, along the way, along the way, and then I became a leader, but not the leader. But I became a leader, became a leader, and then until finally here we are today. I didn't just I didn't elect myself pastor. And just that's not how it works. Your future ministry depends on your accountability now. So to submit, he said, submit yourself one to another, he said. So that means you know, you get involved. Sometimes people rub each other the wrong way and they differ, and their leader, maybe their leader is Karen. Karen's a leader of our life team, and you don't like the way Karen did that. Well, tough Rocco's. Hush. She deserves honor because we've selected her to do that. So when you rub against her, you rub against me. When you rub against me, you rub against Jesus, and Jesus is gonna do what? He's gonna resist you because you're proud. Resist means to oppose. Let me give you the meaning of resist. It means to oppose. See? Man, I don't want I don't want Jesus opposing me. I don't want God opposing me. So we can, if we're gonna resist the devil, then we've got to do things God's way, his word, and his divine order. Submit one to another, clothe with humility. See, wear it as a garment. Submit means to put in subjection, to yield to one's admonition or advice. All of our leaders are able to give you advice. They're able to pray with you about difficult things. Maybe you can't get to me, maybe I can't know about your situation, but if you're serving in a ministry, uh, like in the gatekeepers, you know, you talk to Pete, Pete is going to give you the right skinny boy. He's gonna give you, he's gonna agree with you in prayer, he's gonna give you some spiritual counsel, and you can put it in the bank that it's right on the button. Or he wouldn't be in this in the place he's in. See, we have leadership placed in the church. What if you're floating around out here, just kind of come into church and hallelujah to the land. Hallelujah. I wrote that song, by the way. Praise God. Thank you for singing some of my old songs. It kind of does my heart good. How did I write? I just got to worshiping God one day on my omnicord, and and you know, God gave me that song. It's just one of my worship songs that I that I sang for a long time before I brought it to the church, and we sang it here. Just a simple little song reminds us that He's coming soon. Are y'all with? I'm talking about persisting and resisting, and you've got to, you've got to, if you're gonna resist the devil, then you've got to do what God said and be clothed with humility, submit one to another, be humble. Humble is not thinking less of yourself, humble is thinking of yourself less. Humble means that you're ready to serve someone. You're you're ready to get involved helping someone. And that's the greatest opportunity when you get involved in any of the ministries here. When you get involved in the welcome ministry, you're gonna get around Irma. Irma is the same. Pete and Irma are married, and I mean, you know, they they are I mean, they are solid. That's why they're in the position they're in. Irma's worked here at the church for over a decade. How long has it been? She's part-time now, but it's most time, is really what it's like. Part-time is most time. Because she's always here, always working. And you you get to you get next to this couple, you get next to Karen, you get next to Jay, you get next to any of our department heads, and I'm gonna tell you something, you're getting next to someone, you get next to Claire, you're gonna get next to somebody that knows the ropes. You might not ever even get to talk to me, but you talk to them, you're talking to me. And more than more than that, you're talking to him. Are you with me now? Submit, put it, put in subjection, yield to one's admonition or advice. And uh this idea of the American culture having their own uh say-so is not the church culture. The church culture is one of military, it's an art, the army of God. We find a place to serve. We get to choose that. That's your choice. You can choose to serve. And when you sign up to do that, then we expect you to work at least six months. I mean, you know, six months. It takes six months just to, because you're not gonna work every week. You're gonna work at your schedule. We're not trying to create a bunch of rules for you not you not to be able to work. We want you to work. We want you, but yet on the flip side, the Bible tells me, know those who labor among you, so you're gonna have to fill out a form and tell us, you know, if you're a uh, you know, a convicted felon, for instance. Well, okay, then that's gonna trigger a question on our side. Okay, what was it? If it had anything to do with children, you know, well, yeah, are you are you on the sex offender list? We had people who show up here and and and you know, get close to the children's church, and we find out that they uh own the sex offenders list and they're on their first train out of here because they're not gonna be here. Oh, Pastor, I had people argue, well, they they deserve, I don't they don't have any deserve period. There's no deserve. I have a duty to my children to protect them, and they are not gonna be exposed to anybody that has that history. I know they can be forgiven, maybe they are forgiven, maybe they'll never repeat that, but I'm not gonna take the chance on this side. I don't have to. Y'all, y'all, am I being too? Am I stepping on toes? I don't mean to. I just want you to know how real this is and how dire the need is. We need everybody on board because there's a lot of work to do ahead of us. God is opening doors so fast, and we're running to keep up with Him. And they're only gonna increase before Jesus comes, and that means we've got to have all of you. So we develop leaders who lead under the mighty hand of God. See, promotion. See, promotion is God's side, and humility is our side. You know, we don't have to promote ourselves. I've been here so long and they don't even know. Well, see, I mean, you've got the wrong attitude. Why don't you just keep working with your head down and keep being a blessing? And at some point, when you when you pass that humility test, God will promote you. God's in the promotion business. You don't have to be in the promotion business. You need to be in the what? Humility business. Amen. All right. So then in verse 7 of Peter, chapter 5, cast all your care on him. For he careth for you. I like this one. The whole of amplified cast the whole of your cares, anxieties, worries, concerns once and for all on him, for he cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully. Isn't that good? So then that tells me that worry is a sin. And actually, worry is the sin of pride because you're not trusting God to take care of you, and you say, Well, I'm gonna have to pay more attention. I don't think God's paying attention to this. I I better, I better, I better uh uh stay up all night and I better, you know, worry and fret, and I better. No, that's pride. You think you've God needs any help? No, he's God all by himself. You go to sleep and you know that once you've cast your care on him. He cares for you affectionately. Casting your care on him is once and for all. You do that one time in your life, you don't do it every day. Forty some odd years ago, when I came across this verse, I cast the whole of my care on him. And ever since then, I've been tempted many, many, many times to worry and fret over something. But every time I'm convicted faced with something that would tempt me to worry or to fret, I say, uh-uh, I'm not about to worry or fret. My father takes good care of me. He takes care of me in grand style. He's watching over me affectionately. He knows everything about this. I am absolutely not touching this with my thought life. I'm speaking the word of God toward this thing. And then I go to sleep. And you know, when you're a pastor of a church, you've got some things sometimes that you'd wrestle with. You've got boobirds, you've got people that can that are resisting you, people that are lying about you in secret and you find out about it. And it it can be a challenge to cast and to not let that come in and bother you. But that's where the equipment that comes in. The equipment of the office that I stand in is part of that supernatural equipment. But I still have to do the word just like you do. Are y'all with me now? Because I a long time ago I cast all my care on him. I remember when Gladys and I got saved. Gladys was a worrier. She just came by it on it. She worried all of her life. She worried. She was a worry. I'm telling you, we got under Brother Osteen. We got under the Word of God, and I mean to tell you, she just changed. I mean, she just prayed. She just prayed. When anything happened, boy, she just prayed about it. And she wouldn't let it go either. She'd pray about it until she got to victory. Are y'all with me now? And no worry in her. She prays. All right. Then he says in verse 8, be sober, be vigilant. For your adversary, the devil walketh about. Be sober, be vigilant. That means well balanced, self-controlled, and on the alert. Well-balanced. Everybody say balanced. It's so easy to drift into fear. You know, verse number two, cast all your care, that's fear. Care is fear. And then, but then he says, then he doubles down on it, be sober, be villain, be well balanced, self-controlled, and on the alert. So what happens to people is they start off casting their care on the Lord, but then as time goes on, they get into this syndrome of being out of balance. I've seen it many times. I have to guard my heart that way. Because I can get out of balance so easy. I'm just, my personality is such that it's that it can be appealed to with the negative of life. If I watch too much, even if I have, even if I have a good uh news agency on like Newsmax or or Fox News, you know, not everything on Fox News is is on our side. Some of it is flaky and weird. But if I watch too much news, I'm informed, but then I'm informed too much, and then I'm getting when I when I hear too many Democrats talking and saying the lies that they say, I just I hear Jasmine Crockett go on and say that Charlie Kirk got what he deserved. You know, I get my teeth on edge. Well, that's not good for me. That's not good to be, I'm out of balance. I need to be, I need to be informed now. I do need to know what's going on, but I need to be well balanced and in self-control. Are you all getting this now? This is something you've got to develop in order to be able to resist the devil, persisting in resisting. I mean, it's not just resisting him once. You've got to resist him over and over again. You oppose him. The church is set against the devil and demon powers. It's set against sickness and disease. It's set against, it's set against poverty and lack. Jesus said, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. That was number one on his list. That's why Wednesday nights coming up in October. I want a lot of you to show up. I want you to sign up and come on Roadmap to Kingdom Wealth because we're going to help you over five Wednesday nights in October to share both the spiritual side and the practical side of how to handle your money. There's a kingdom way to do it that leads to success. Are you with me now? God wants you successful. Because why? Because he's set the church against lack. Just as much as he has set the church against devils. He's set the church against sickness and disease. Are y'all with me now? So you have to be well balanced. He told me in October of 2004, I went to Galvest to pray. And I had received communion. My way that I do it is I go, and I get there usually around noon or one o'clock. And I haven't eaten breakfast. And uh and actually I haven't eaten nowadays. I do intermittent fasting, and that's not spiritual, that's for my physical body. I don't eat anything after 8 o'clock at night, and I don't eat anything till noon the next day, so that's 16 hours that I fast. It's called intermittent fasting, 16 hours. But when I get to Galveston nowadays, well then I still don't eat. And I take communion, and if I can get in my hotel room a little early, I'll get in my hotel room, I get my Bible, and I start praying in the Holy Ghost. And then, you know, then if I don't eat then, if I keep going, well then I know it's going to be a distraction because my body will start to uh have low blood sugar and I'll get dizzy and I'll get sweats and I won't feel good. And then that's a distraction. So that's, I mean, well, why don't you just fast for 40 days and 40? Because God never told me to do that. He told Jesus to do that. I'm hoping he never tells me to do that. I just you don't fast to get healed. You don't fast to get something from God. You fast to keep your body under subjection to your spirit. So then I'll just go on, and then along about three or four o'clock, then I'll I'll go and I'll eat something. And I'll break my fast. And I'll come back, and a lot of times that's when God starts talking to me after I broke my fast. Are y'all with me now? So, but anyway, I was there, and he spoke this to me. He said, Many are satiated. And I knew it was the Holy Ghost because I don't use that word. You know, that's one of those 25 cent words. I had to look it up. I thought I knew what it meant, but it means filled to repletion. It means gorged. It means like what happens when I, you know, sit down to fajitas and uh be fajitas specifically. And uh you know, frijoles refritos and uh corn tortillas. I can tend to gorge on that. Or blue, a lump blue crab. I mean, I can gorge on that. So he said, many are satiated with cares of this world and the pleasures of this world, and much of the care comes from the pursuit of the pleasure. He said, many just tip their hat to me and go along their merry way. Well, that was interesting, you know. Why did you tell me that? See, because he's giving me some information that I need to watch out for myself, uh, that I need to teach others to watch out for. Satiated with what? The cares of this world and the pleasures of this world. Much of the care comes from the pursuit of the pleasure. You can get to pursuing pleasure and start putting stuff on your credit card, and you can start creating credit card debt that's 30%, 40%, you'll you'll dig yourself a hole so fast you won't even know what hit you. And then you're gonna start care. You're gonna have really cares. You're gonna have some heavy cares because they're gonna start calling you when you can't make your payments, when your payments are bigger than your ability to make them, and then you still and then you know when you make a payment that's under under what they suggest, and they charge you another charge. I've been there, I know all about that. Are you with me now? Many just tip their hat to me and go along their merry way. What does that mean? Well, it just means that they they admit, they come to church, they're they, you know, they they you know, they hallelujah to the Lamb. But then they just do their own thing. I mean, they don't the the word doesn't govern their behavior, it doesn't govern their decisions. They go emotional. They're just they're emotional. They get attached to something, they go buy it, or they get something they want, they get it. And then they wake up and they realize they couldn't afford it. Now they don't know what to do. They're upside down on their house, upside down on their car. Their car wore out. Now it's gonna take$10,000 to fix the car. They don't have$10,000, and the car's not worth anything on trade. In fact, it's upside down. So they go to trade it in, and I've been there. No more, but I've been there. I know I know exactly how that feels. See, he's describing my past life, you know. Are you with me now? So uh it's you know, you've got you've got to be balanced and self-controlled and on the alert. And uh let the word of God inform you. Let the word of God inform all your decisions. Don't don't act on emotion. Uh, when you think you're gonna do something, say, no, I don't need that. I'm just gonna put that on the shelf. I'm gonna resist the urge to do that right now. I'm gonna make sure that this is you, Lord. I if I if I'm okay to take this next step in this purchase I'm gonna make. I mean, you ought to really, any kind of major purchase, if you're married, you ought to make sure your spouse is in agreement with you. If you're gonna go buy a house or a car, I mean, really, there's a lot of even less than that. If you you need, we're gonna talk about this on Wednesday nights, but you need you need to take account of your outgoing your income. And don't be going through life on your emotions. You're gonna you're gonna hurt yourself. We don't have time for that. Jesus is at the door now. We've got to have people that are out of debt. We've got, listen, we've got just three months. The quarter of the year is 2025 is gone. Miles, this is a milestone. Has yours arrived yet? It's not too late. You might need to make some adjustments. Don't just tip your hat and go along your merry way. No, let's let's find out what the word says. Let's find out what the Holy Ghost says. All right, and then number four, it says, resist the devil steadfast in the faith in verse 9. Steadfast means stiff, stable. Stiff and stable. You resist. You're stiff on that. You resist lack, you resist sickness. You're you're resisting that day and night. Gladys has had to resist this infirmity that's attacked her. She's had a whole laundry list of things to overcome. And it just seems like one, she gets a victory over one, and then another one comes in. And I mean, it's just like, well, she's got to persist every day, is a persistent. Every day she persists, every day, and then I'm I'm in there helping her. I'm in there agreeing with her. I'm in there cheering her on, coaching her if necessary. I'm the coach. Sometimes the coach gets yelled at. But anyway, praise God. She said, I'm gonna tell somebody on you. I said, I'll give you the microphone. You can tell everybody in the church how I'm my coaches told me the truth right in right in front of my face. I mean, they just got right there in my nose and told me the truth. You missed your block, Grant! Oh, praise God. Resist the devil, and he will flee. The word flee means flee as in terror. He's more afraid of you. You have no business being afraid of the devil. I I've known people that were so afraid of the devil that they just they'd move, they'd leave their place they were living in. It's oh, it's a bad area. Well, you know, don't do that because it's a bad area. All the areas in this town are bad now. Thanks to Biden. Thanks to Joe Biden and the Democrats. We, every area of our town is infected with crime. I mean, just down the street, less than less than a mile and a half from the church. There was, you know, guy killed his sister. A boy killed his sister. I mean, murder suicide. They go in, I mean, it's everywhere. It's out here everywhere. All Northwest Harris County used to be kind of exempt. No more. Tombaugh's not exempt anymore. Cyprus is not exempt anymore. No. No, we got crime big time out here. So if you're gonna run, where are you gonna run to? Marfa? I didn't say Martha, I said Martha. Look up, look up Martha. It's way out there in West Texas. Population 35. Okay. So resist the devil, he will flee. Steadfast, stiff, stable. See, grow a backbone. Don't give in to the devil. Resist him, be persisting in resisting. Quit running from the devil and his devices. What am I talking about, his devices? Well, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago about the whole armor of God. The armor of God describes the devices of the devil. He comes against your mind, he comes against your heart. He, you know, he'll fight fiery darts. You've got to catch him with your with your shield of faith. There's only one offensive weapon in the armor of God, and that's the sword of the Spirit, which is the Rhema of God, the God-breathed word. That's why you pray. That's why you have a prayer life and a word life, so that you'll have something to attack the devil with when he comes after you, because he will come after you. He'll come after you in all the areas that we're talking about. Well, quit being afraid of those devices. When you resist those devices, they have to flee. Are you with me then? Years ago, I grew up in my first early life until third grade. But we lived in Galena Park, little town, you know, East Houston, right on the ship channel, one block off of Clinton Drive. And we lived on a corner of uh 2nd Street and Eastway, so our garage faced Eastway. And so my dad was working in the garage. I'm four years old. I'm messing around on the driveway and toward the street. I wasn't in the street, because he'd have been hollering at me if I if I was in the street. But it wasn't a busy street anyway. But uh I'm out there by the edge of the driveway, and this dog comes up, starts growling at me, and bears his teeth, and I mean I got afraid. I was afraid, and he started barking and looked acting like he was gonna, you know, eat me alive. And man, I started running and I started hollering. And I'm running down the street by this time, and that devil's right by, I mean, that dog is right behind. That devil's right behind. And the next thing I heard was this yelping, you know. And I turn around just in time to see the dog going end over end over the ro over the road and into the ditch across the street. And he, man, he scurried away, and I mean, he didn't turn back. I mean, he my dad had dropkicked him. I mean, he had planted his foot right in his rib cage and lifted that whole dog. And he wasn't a little dog. I mean, he's a dog about this big. Uh he wasn't a little bitty dog, you know, and he kicked that dog all across the street, and he started yelping, and I'm just, man, my eyes are big, and I'm I'm just trying to. And the next thing is my dad grabbed me, and he, don't you ever run from a dog? You know. And uh he really paddled my behind. And my dad never did that. My dad was not the disciplinarian in my house. He he worked really hard. He was, you know, pipe coverer here in town, insulator, and he worked lots of hours. He didn't mess with discipline. All he had to do was look at you. Mother was the one that got the belt out. And so I was just beside myself. Of course, I cried, you know, but I've never forgot it. It's been 70 years ago, and I've never forgot it, see? That you don't run from the devil. You don't run from the enemy. You face him down. Are you with me now? You oppose him, you resist him, and you keep on. You keep on keeping on. Praise God. So then we get over to verse 10 here. Get anything out of this today? Uh simple message, but profound. It's something we need to put together, and we're doing this corporately, and you need to do it individually. But in Peter here, it says in verse, after you've done all this, wonderful stuff that he tells you to do, humble yourself, resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same affliction, see, you're not, you're not alone. People have to fight the devil all the time. You're not, you're not even the worst case. You're not, you don't even have it as bad as maybe somebody sitting right next to you here this morning. You think you got it so bad, they might have it worse. They just don't talk about it. Because they've been busy resisting. They've got their mouth speaking the right thing. They don't talk about their trouble. They don't talk about sickness, they don't talk about their lack, they don't talk about what the devil's doing. They talk about what God is doing, they talk about what the Word has done, they talk about the grace that they've got. So if you do these things, then it says, but the God of all grace, verse 10, who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you've suffered a while, you know you're suffering. Suffering is persecution. Not suffering. God doesn't want you to suffer sickness and disease. He doesn't want to want you to suffer poverty. But if you, while you're learning how to deal with the devil, sometimes you will have to go through times where you have to overcome sickness. You have to overcome lack. So after you've suffered a while, see, he will make you perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. Praise God. That's the goal that God wants when you persist and resist. So you be all about in this time from now on, persisting and resisting. Come on, lift your hands and receive today. Hallelujah, Father. We thank you today. Glory to God. We're not intimidated by the devil and his tactics. We know that there's a war in the heavenlies going on right now. We're not intimidated. We're thank you that you've called us to live in these days.