10-19-25 Study of Acts Chapter 13:1-2a Satanic Opposition to a Spirit-Filled Church Part 1b

➡ The speaker discusses a Bible study session where they debated the size of the temple in Ezekiel and its fit in Israel, the location of the four rivers from the Garden of Eden, and the interpretation of scriptures. They also discussed the role of Lucifer in the Bible, his attempts to prevent Christ’s birth, and his surprise at Christ’s resurrection. The speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding these biblical events and their implications for Christians today, particularly in relation to the Church’s role in opposing Lucifer’s influence.
➡ The text discusses the early formation of the Church, as described in the Book of Acts. It emphasizes the importance of teaching and the roles of different individuals, such as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. The text also highlights the diversity of the early Church, including figures like Barnabas, a Jew and Levite, and Simeon, a black man from Africa. The goal of the Church, as led by Saul (later known as Paul), was to unite Jews and Gentiles, despite societal divisions, under one body in Christ.
➡ The text discusses the importance of spiritual leadership in the church, emphasizing that leaders should be guided by the Holy Spirit and focus on spiritual ministry. It also highlights the role of the church in serving God and the community, with the pastor’s main duties being teaching and prayer. The text encourages believers to view their lives as a continuous offering to God, emphasizing that even mundane activities can be seen as spiritual sacrifices. It concludes by urging self-assessment and reflection on one’s role as a ‘believer priest’.
➡ As Christians, we are all priests, and our daily actions should be seen as offerings to Jesus Christ. This means that everything we do, from teaching a Sunday school class to having tea with friends, should be done with the intention of serving God. However, it’s important to remember that God deserves our best – half-hearted or insincere offerings are not acceptable. Therefore, we should strive to live our lives as fully committed, spirit-filled individuals, constantly seeking to improve and grow in our faith.
➡ The text emphasizes the importance of serving God and others with sincerity and dedication, as if serving Jesus Christ himself. It discusses the concept of submission in relationships, particularly in marriage, and the importance of giving your best in all you do. It also clarifies the biblical concept of fasting, explaining it as a spiritual act tied to prayer, not just abstaining from food. The text encourages focusing on spiritual growth and service to God, rather than trying to satisfy worldly desires.
➡ The text discusses the spiritual practice of fasting, emphasizing that it should be a private act between an individual and God, not a public display. It also highlights the importance of spiritual leaders in guiding their communities and the challenges they face. The text further explores the concept of sanctification and the struggle to live a life dedicated to God. Lastly, it delves into the interpretation of biblical events, such as the casting out of demons and the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
➡ The text discusses the belief that our spiritual names are written in our DNA, a concept found in religious scripture. It also explores the idea that everything, including stones, vibrates at a certain frequency, which is believed to be God’s frequency. The text encourages personal exploration of these concepts through reading and prayer, emphasizing the interconnectedness of all things.

Well, we’re going to start recording this, but we’re going to talk a little bit before we get into Bible study. But anyway, we were, the, the restaurant owner and I were, we’re having this conversation about, you know, and he was quoting me Ezekiel and I started laughing because the temple size is 8 1/2 miles by 3.3 miles. And Israel is a narrow strip of land. It’s not eight miles across. All right, so how in the world can you take this temple that we’re given the specifications in Ezekiel of everything, Cubits, whole, the whole nine yards. In Ezekiel, he lays out verbatim the size of the temple and it doesn’t fit in Israel.

So. And it doesn’t say that they’re going to redo Jerusalem to fit the temple. It’s going to go on the Temple Mount, let’s say, and God sits on the throne of David. Well, that’s Jerusalem. Well, where is Jerusalem then? You know, the quest now starts. So I mean the whole conversation yesterday was just fascinating one in all kinds of ways. And this guy was, was, was educated and came through the Church of Christ system, but he got spiritual and he basically went head to head with the church leaders and base and basically just let them in no way shape form understand that they didn’t know what the scriptures had to say about things.

So it was very interesting conversation. Oh, and yeah, basically we also talked about finding the four rivers because the four rivers flow from the brain trust of God himself. Okay. And we, we saw that in Garden of Eden and then people trying to figure out where these, where these four rivers are. And, and we went, we went back and discussed the Genesis and all kinds of stuff because when there was no rain, remember we, we learned this. There was no rain until the flood and the flood destroyed everything. So how are you going to find the rivers? Do you think the water just settled down to those rivers again and there’s where they are today? No, not in any shape, way or form or fashion.

So, you know, all of the things that we have been taught, I can pretty much say that it’s been a lot. Everything from locations to, to naming of rivers where they wanted to you to think the rivers were, and on and on and on. This whole thing has been a facade since, since day one after the flood. Because you only had the real map prior to the flood. There was no real maps after that. So it’s, it’s really interesting. All right guys, let’s get going. We’ll have time at the end to, to talk about things because we’re going to pick up the second part of what we started last week and we’re dealing with the looking at the church from Satan’s point of view.

That’s where we started last week. Why is that important? Because the, the evil side of this world just like is what we’ve been talking about, are more have more understanding about scripture than we do. They know more about all of this stuff than we do and they’ve got a book on every one of us. They know what your hot buttons are. They know how to push them. They know how to move you where they need you to be moved. And how do you get how you. They get you to do the evil bidding for them and not understand your relationship with Christ.

So last week we started in again in Acts. We’re looking at Acts 13 which is basically the transitional book, transitional chapter of this. And when we, when we looked at this we started went back in time looking at the other previous chapters in Acts. And remember that Acts is viewing you from the church point of view where Ephesians it views you as an individual point of view. So the study of these two books together is really important because you get the calibration from both sides so that when you, we get into other bits of, of the other books of the Bible as we start to study them, you now have the foundation from the individual side and from the church side as it relates to your relationship with Jesus Christ.

So that’s the importance of this. So we’re, we’re in the middle of this study that we started last week and it’s in chapter 13 and it deals with the viewpoint of Satan’s opposition to a spirit filled church. Now remember going back in history that Lucifer knew in the garden that, that he was going to get defeated by a God man figure born of a virgin sometime in the future. He didn’t know the timing of that. Okay. That was not given to him. He did not know the timing of it. But God told him the process. So he immediately, He, Lucifer immediately began to put in place all of the things that he had at his disposal in order to corrupt all of the bloodlines that could produce Christ.

And in his focus was to prevent Christ from coming. But because of a chess move that God made in, in the middle of the entire bloodline history by, put by, by moving two ladies into the bloodline confused that situation. So God kept a pure bloodline. Not, not pure from sin but a pure bloodline to that came from Noah basically pure bloodline all the way through to, through David. Into Mary and Joseph. And you, you know, based upon looking at scripture, that Jesus was born of the bloodline of David from both his mother and his stepfather. The lineage from those two go right back to David.

So when Jesus came, what Lucifer did not know, in addition to when he was going to be born, when Jesus came, Lucifer was taken off guard at the resurrection because Lucifer did not know that Christ was going to be resurrected. That was the other thing that was left outside of communication from God to his angels. So when Christ was resurrected, Lucifer was relocated to the prince of the power of the air. He was no longer the God of this world. Why? Because Christ went down to hell the three days that he was in the tomb. And he took care of all of that business and got the keys and brought them back to the, to his government in Heaven.

He wasn’t even giving them back to, to men because men was corrupted. So he took him to heaven and says, the only way now that you can have dominion over this world is through me. So if you’re saved and you’re regenerated and you go through the transformation process, which means you’re taking on the entire nature of Christ and Christ comes and seals himself inside of you biologically, then there is no way that Lucifer could have dominion over you if you were a Christian. If you were born again because you transformed, you’re now in the image nature of Jesus Christ.

So what Lucifer had to do was wait upon Christ to make his chess moves so that Lucifer could understand how can he get that control over this world? So when Stephen was stoned, remember that that was the catalyst for the Church. When Stephen was stoned by Saul of Tarsus, okay, with his approval, who became Paul. As you guys were learning that threat, that was the, the ability for Lucifer to see what Jesus Christ’s next move was going to be, which was to create the Church. And the Church, while in prophecy in the Old Testament was never really talked about in the Old Testament, prophets, they just taught, they just talked about God’s people.

So there was never Church, the word Church or the condition of Church other than by code in the Old Testament until Christ basically made his move. And Lucifer then knowing that move, said, okay, the only way he gets back control over this world is to be in opposition to the Church, okay? Because if you’re spirit filled, you’re sealed, he can’t get inside of you in your, in your control zone. He can only oppress you. He can possess of your other parts, but he can’t possess you in the spirit any longer. So we’re getting into seeing what this, these moves are taking place in the Book of Acts, chapter 13, this transition chapter where we’re looking at Lucifer and the engagement with the masses and what God is doing in positioning the right people into the Church to take the Church to the world based upon the Great Commission and based upon the second Great Commission.

We know because we’ve studied this now that the apostles, when they went into an area and, and the people were changed, regenerated, saved, transformed into Jesus Christ. We know that the apostles removed the pagan gods from the governmental system and put in place God’s governmental system in those areas where those people were following Jesus Christ. And we also know from our Monday nights studies on the return of the gods that those gods have returned. But what we need to understand is the gods that are returned are the same gods that were then. And how the Church needs to respond is exactly how the Church responded then because that was a successful response by Jesus Christ.

So if we are going to take back the position of the Church in this world, we have got to do it in like manner to what is described in the Book of Acts. That’s the reason why it’s so important for you to study that in relationship to looking at you being the individual in Ephesians 4, 5 and 6 and the application of God’s ordinances in your life. Because that is the foundation that gets the Church to be the church. So we, we ended last week by moving from the office of the Church. We’re into officeship. We moved through the office of the Church from the prophet to the teacher.

Now we know from Ephesians that some were called to be apostles, some were called to be prophets, some were called to be evangelists, some were called to be pastors. But all, but all are teachers. We’re all teachers. Okay. Why? Because that is our responsibility in life is to teach you don’t walk through this life without teaching. So we need to have the framework of what does that look like in our lives so that what we properly educate first, our children, right? Teach them the ways. So you got to understand the ways. And they will, they will come back or stay with Christ as they get older and then follow the same.

It’s a, it’s a, it’s a replication process. So history is repeating itself over and over and over again. We’ve already studied that concept, that doctrine of Scripture as well. So we looked last time about the men that God sent into, into Antioch to start the church. And the first one of those is Barnabas. And he went to get Paul. Okay, so that’s where we ended last time. And we’re going to sort of pick it up there and just with a introduction paragraph or so on getting us back into continuing looking at these men as we move through the church.

So the first one was Barnabas. Now he was a Jew, as you remember from last two weeks. And we’re not going to go into that because we’ve already studied about him, but he was a Jew and he was also a Levite from Cyprus. Now that is critical to understand because Levites were the ones that were priests in the nation of Israel. Now he was, he was a wonderful guy. He was the son of consolation. He was a comforting soul and just the kind of guy to hold down a wild hair like Saul did and be the kind of companion to bring the soft side into everything that happened.

So opposites. Barnabas was a soft spirit. Saul was the hard nosed bulldog. And over time they blended. Okay? God does not change you. He doesn’t change who you are. Your makeup, your personality is already set by the time you’re three. Okay? So you, God doesn’t change that, but he molds it in a way that allows you to still be you. But you have been sort of reconstructed in how you apply who you are to your calling. Now then there was Simeon. Now Simeon’s a really interesting guy. He was called Niger, N I G E R Niger, which means black.

All right? Simeon also was with another guy called Lucius of Cyrene. Now it is true that the side that Cyrene goes with Simeon, and it may be that Simeon was also from Cyrene, but Cyrene is in Africa. Simeon being a black man in Africa and having gone to Antioch. All right? Now we also know that Christ was a Nazarene. Nazarenes are also dark colored skin. So the pictures that you see on the walls of this white male figure with long blonde hair or long black hair ain’t worth it, okay? At all. A It says in scripture that Christ had nappy hair.

Now regardless of whether you, you relate nappy hair to black type race people or not, it really doesn’t matter. He was a Nazarene. Dark colored skin. He had nappy curly hair. Okay? That we equate to the black people today, at least for those that don’t take the iron and you know, iron their hair out type scenario. So, okay, so let’s get back. And so, so, so here’s another, another interesting footnote in all of this. The men who carried the cross or the man who carried the cross for Jesus Christ was also the name of Simeon of Cyrene.

Now, scripture doesn’t tell us if this is the same man or not, okay? But looking at his knowledge about Christ, so forth and so on, and, and looking at the time period, it’s more than likely could be the same man, but we don’t know. All right? So nevertheless, it’s interesting that at the very heart of the early church, there was absolutely no racial discrimination. Racial discrimination came in with Lucifer’s opposition to the church. Okay? That’s where it came. Now here’s a black man ministering with Jews and gentiles in the leadership of the church of Antioch. That’s the kind of church God designed from the very start.

If you recall from James, and looking at racial profiling of individuals based upon outer wear, you’re told in James that that’s a sin. So as Christians, another good part of the conversation yesterday. As Christians, we’re to be blind to racial profiling. We’re to be blind to. To think that because we have different colors of skin that we’re different brothers and sisters. That’s not true. Okay? Just not so. Lucius, also of Cyrene, which is. Which again is in Africa, may be the same lucius of Romans 16:21. We don’t know that either. But there’s another Lucius in 1621 that Paul begins to shape.

You know, scripture through. And Paul is with Lucius in Antioch. So while we do not know specifics on these two men as it relates to Simeon and Lucius, it’s. It’s a good, interesting view that since Paul knew them at the start of the first church, then he knew them in writing scripture later on in other apostles that he wrote. So the others were maybe commonplace people, but Manian m a n a e a e n was right from the upper crust who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch. Now, the term brought up means foster brother.

And it was a term used for little kids who were raised in the court along with the princes of the court. Okay, Hear me. Here’s Harris out here. People had children. They sent their children into the inter court of the montar team, whatever you want to label this individual as. And those children were sent there for a couple of things. Networks think about today. Networks. The ability to access food, the ability to get friends with the princes and prince, Prince sis and prince, so that they could commingle with them. So now when you look at this, Herod the tetriot is not to be confused with Herod who just Got eaten by worms last week when we talked about this.

Or two weeks ago. So. So there are Herods popping up all over the place. Herod was synonymous, like pharaohs, okay? It was just, it was a. It was a name given to people who were going to rule over periods of time in Israel history now. After all, Harry the great had 10 wives. And they’re just little Herods all over, everywhere. So one of these Herods, Herod Antipas, was the one we studied two weeks ago. So Harry Antipas, when he was raised, he was the son of Harry the Great. Manion was raised along with him, and he was raised in the king’s court.

He really was a well to do character, by the way. So here are the churches again. A. A beautiful combination of Jews and Gentiles. They’re beginning to mix. Two Jews, Solomon, Barnabas, three Gentiles, one of them black Christian, probably, one of them very common and. And one of them very wealthy, okay? That made up the combination of the teachers of the first church. Two Jews, three Gentiles. Okay? Now you see the church coming together. All right? So Paul’s greatest issue to deal with was to bring Jews and Gentiles together. And he had to figure the way out to do this.

That was his purpose of the apostle of the church, is to bring the two groups together and create one body in Christ called the church. Now think about that. I don’t know anybody in this world today that can go do that. Number one, if you look at society as a whole now, what you’re going to find is that Lucifer has so divided the cultures around the world that it would be hard to bring just cultures together without bloodline, okay? So I’m not sure anybody in the world today can go do what Saul had to do in starting the church.

Now there’s a beautiful picture being painted here about the leadership of the church. The motley arrangement the spirit of God designed from the very start. It’s very beautiful in. In structure. Why? Because he took the most hated guy, Saul, and made him the leader of this gang of people. And he brought Barnabas in to smooth Saul out, and he brought three Gentiles in that can work with Saul and, and moving the doctrine into the church so that the church could actually be started. So now we have five. We have five spiritual guys. They have a perfect beginning for an effective church.

All right? They were all spiritual men plugged into what the Spirit was doing. And we see the flow of this text that they were really in tune with the spirit of God. They were Walking daily, they were being filled by the Spirit, okay? And the people were made known that this was so important that the man of God who stands in the place of ministry be a man who is under the control of Holy Spirit. Now a second thing that we need to realize of this, these men who started the church was they were spiritual men that were led to spiritual ministry.

Okay? Now this is a very important point, especially when you begin to look inward to you. You might not be called specifically for spiritual ministry, all right? You might be called for ministry with the output of your ministry being related to your spirituality. Follow what I’m saying. You might not be a minister or a teacher that focuses on the spiritual side of minister. You might focus on something else. But because of the fruit of what you’re doing, people see that spiritual side of you that comes through you in those actions. Remember that God doesn’t change you.

So your gifts might not be that gift of spiritual ministry. The church that is going to reach the world, the church that is going to please the Lord is going to be one where the ministries and spiritual are one and they’re oriented together. So, so many people ask today, what is a pastor really supposed to do? That’s a great question because you guys, to go to church and support a church, if you don’t know what a pastor is supposed to do, how in the world can you support an organization, a corporate organization with the right focus to begin with? What are, what are their priorities? So from time to time we have to talk about this because we need to realign ourselves with spiritual thought for purposes of understanding what the church is.

So the subject must be approached about the priority of the Word, the Bible in the ministry. This, we go back to this. We all, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve looked at this all kinds of ways as it relates to the corporate church. The focus of the corporate church is to grow the church, putting butts in pews so that they can gain more financial support. They’re not there today in the majority of cases to support the individuals on, in their sanctification of their walk with Christ. Please don’t do it. So is, is my purpose in teaching lessons like this to make sure that the center point of our discussions is always scriptural based.

Okay? It always has to be the truth, nothing else. So so many people get sidetracked into all kinds of little piddly responsibilities and they forget the spiritual priority of the Word in prayer. Self assessment. Guys, how much time do you spend in studying prayer versus things you do in this World. Look, if you go to verse two, what did these guys do? Okay, remember what I said? If we’re going to change this world back to the control of the church, we’ve got to do it like they did it in Acts. So what did these guys do? Well, we get a lot of answers here, like what ministers are supposed to do.

Here’s five of them. What did they do? They ministered to the Lord and fasted. Oh, you guys think that basically ministering is to people. No, ministry is anointing. And you got to anoint Jesus Christ before he anoints you. So if you’re going to be a minister, you have to minister to the Lord and pray and allow the Holy Spirit to move through the people. When you begin to minister to the people, you’re on the wrong realm. Hear me out. You’re. The whole Bible is built upon the fact that it instructs you to run your life spiritually, not physically.

So when you minister to the Lord and pray, what you’re doing is administering to the one body of Christ as a whole, not as individualistic. So they ministered to the Lord and fasted. So you know what the Bible said in Acts 6, 4, that the apostles wanted to give themselves to listen. They gave themselves to the ministry of the word and prayer. That’s what these guys did. That’s what every minister really ought to do as their priority. It doesn’t mean that you become isolated, you live in this ivory tower effect and you make no contact with people.

It simply says that your understanding of your priorities in your life is spiritual first. Now, I want to emphasize this a little bit. First of all, the term ministered is very, very interesting. The word in Greek, where we get this is. Is kind of a prostitution of a. Of a meaning, really. We’ve, We’ve made this term a kind of a form without any content. Okay, that’s our English language. Worst language in the whole world. Okay, most demonic language in the whole world. But the word originally meant to discharge a public office. If you got elected to an office publicly, you were to carry out your.

The jury, that is, you were to fulfill your office requirements. If a guy was given the office of a ruler, he was to rule. Well, in other words, it was to fill the obligation of the office that you hold. That’s what the word meant, and that’s exactly what it means here. Ministered is to fulfill your office. Well, so what they had been placed, these five guys, what they had been placed in leadership in that church. They fulfilled the office God gave Them. And, and what did God intend for his leaders to do? Minister in the Word and pray.

And they did it unto the Lord. They didn’t do it unto people. Their accolades did not need to be from people. And they did it unto the Lord. They fulfilled the discharge of their office. They did this, as Paul put it, they made foolproof of the ministry. That’s the thing. Now watch this. All of our service and this is a salient point for us. All of our service that we do in ministry. All of the service that you do is seen as a sacrifice offered to God. Self assessment guys, individually you are to minister to the Lord and pray.

You’re to do that through your understanding of the Word and it needs to be sacrificial. You’re giving up what your physical realm, self to perform spiritual realm requirements. The term ministry here is also a term used in terms of priestly service to God. They see their ministry as an offering to God, to Jesus Christ himself. Now let me show you an interesting verse that really, if you think about it long enough, ought to change your Life. And it’s first Peter 2, 5. Now Peter is talking to the believers in this verse and he says, you also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house.

Oh stone, that’s DNA, right? He writes your true name in your DNA. And those stones your DNA built up your spiritual house. Now we know that we’re in the habitation of the spirit, a spiritual temple. That’s who we are. We are God’s temple, right? That he lives in us. So we happen to be a temple for Christ to live inside of us. Now watch this. A holy priesthood. I don’t want you to ever forget you are a priest, right? That’s what scriptures tells us. What do priests do? What’s the one primary role of a priest? Offer things to God.

Sacrifices. Your understanding. What did I say? You will only know who you are when you know who Christ is. Why? Because who you are is a priest living with Christ in a temple as service to God. You say, well this is the new covenant. Don’t you know we don’t make sacrifices anymore. Oh yes we do. It’s just not animal sacrifices. But we make sacrifices. What are they? To offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. As a Christian, you are a priest offering sacrifices to God. Oh, and when you go start reading Ezekiel again, sacrifices come back to play.

And you think your tithe today and those of you make over and above tithe offerings are some ridiculous thought that you don’t have to do. Well, I want to Tell you what, when you get there, you get judged. If you don’t, and we think we get by with it today. No we don’t. In Hebrews 13, it tells you what kind of sacrifices. The sacrifice of praise from your lips, the sacrifice of good deeds and sharing one with another. And with such sacrifice, God is well pleased. Now watch this. You as a Christian, everything you do in your life, everything you do in your life is an offering to Jesus Christ.

When you sleep, it’s an offering. When you wash yourself, babe shower, that’s an offering. What kind of sacrifices? Understanding this, what kind of sacrifices are you today? Self assessment. The believer priest. Think about it. Do you see your life as a priesthood to God? Self assessment. And do you see every deed that you do in your life as an offering? You just stewards over everything that he’s given to you. And a good steward offers back to God what he’s giving you, which you take into the holy of holies. Oh, where’s that? That’s your heart. And offer to Jesus Christ.

Remember, the table of communion is your heart. If you do, it ought to change the way you do some things. When you come to understanding by scripture, you’re a priest. When you were saved, you became a priest. And you’re also a king. All right, another subject for another day. But you’re a priest. And in that priesthood your whole life, every day is an offering to Jesus Christ. Now let’s put yourself in a, in a role here. Let’s say that you are a, for lack of a better term, because we all know this term, a Sunday school teacher.

You teach us Bible class of some sort of. And you’re in the book of Acts as a teacher. A teacher. And you’ve got a class of five little girls. Do you see the teaching of that class as a sacrifice offering into the hands of Jesus Christ? You ladies who have tea with other ladies, same thing. See, if you don’t look at it that way, then you are looking at your life completely wrong. See, that’s what exactly it is. You. We spend all of our lives as Christians, as priests, offering sacrifices to Christ. You need self assessment.

Start looking back and checking out some of the things you offered to him. I think you’re going to find that it’s going to be a sad sight. See, notice what scripture says. It doesn’t say they ministered to the people. That’s not what scripture says. It says they ministered what to the Lord. That is how your daily life as a minister, priest and as a believer should be. You Minister to the Lord every day in every situation of your life. That’s the reason why Paul says I die daily. They minister to the Lord. All their ministry was seen as a spiritual sacrifice to Christ.

Self assessment types. Now I try, I try to put myself in that situation before each one of our classes. I’ve already said I, I pray before every one of our classes that I will remove myself from any information that I may give you. I want the Holy Spirit to speak through me constantly. I go into this to offer a message or a discussion to you as a sacrifice. I’ll be honest with you, and I’ve said this to you guys before. I care about what you think, about what I say because I want it to do something inside of you.

That’s why I remove myself from this equation. Because I can’t control you. But the Holy Spirit can. And that is supposed to be how you live your life, as spirit filled individuals. Now I know I’m not changing some of your attitudes. And in those cases when that doesn’t happen, I have no use to you. My use to you is when you begin to take the truth from scripture and apply it into your life. Now you also have seen a little bit of frustration because I think about the fact that you hear me and I think about the fact that those eternal tapes go on and on and people keep hearing.

But you know what I think about most? I think about the fact that, that God hears. And when God hears, he raises your standard. And when he raises your standard, you’re held to a higher accountability. And the higher accountability means more harsh judgment. So to hear me and not apply it is probably the most detrimental thing you could have in your life. You would be better off not hearing me at all if you’re not going to apply what we discuss into your daily life. That’s the reason why I don’t ease up. Guys say you’re not in a position to know whether I rightfully divide the word or not.

Oh, there’s teachings out there to rightfully divide Scripture. I’ve tried to give you that information as well. But you know who he is. Christ is. So in the ministry, my spiritual ministry of teaching, I need to minister to God in my teachings. So in turn he ministers through the Holy Spirit in your life. And see, that’s the reason why Apostle Paul said to Timothy, study to show yourself approved unto men. Sanctification. That’s what he said unto him. God knows whether I’m studying or not. You don’t. And you know something? As you have continually heard Me talk about religion and corporate churches.

It grieves my heart to know that men, and in some cases women outside of Scripture stand up and try to teach a group of people and declare nothing from the word of God. Now, I didn’t say preach it or teach. I said declare. That’s a different word. They don’t stand up and declare anything in their pulpit to you, the people. I just want to make sure that what I do for you, Minister Scott, that way I know I’m doing the truth. Now, in Malachi, this is illustrated by what Israel offered God. Malachi 1:13. And incidentally, don’t construe that to mean that I’m infallible, okay? Please don’t.

Because I’m probably the most infallible or most fallible person out there, okay? I got my own bag of sins to deal with, just like you do. I’m no different than you. So, Malachi 1:13, you know, the people in Israel had really just gone down the drain spiritually. Now, if you recall, Malachi is the last prophet. And after Malachi ended his book, God went silent for 430 years until Matthew. And that was when Jesus Christ had come to this earth. So Israel had just gone down the drain spiritually. And they got to the place where they didn’t even want religion.

If you go to verse 13, he says, the prophet says, you said, behold what a weariness. You know, what they’re really saying is, oh, religion. What a drag. Religion. Oh, we got to go. Got to go to church. Got to go into that temple. Do we really have to go? But you go through the emotions and you brought that which was torn and lame and sick. You brought it as the sacrifice to God. See, and that’s the wrong sacrifice to God. God gets first fruits. He gets the best of the best. Say what they were to bring to God and what you are to bring to God.

If the church is going to get back its leadership, statue in this world is the best. You can’t do anything other than what X did in getting the church to be the leader of their culture through society. What did Israel bring? They brought the layman sick. And God says, should I accept this out of your hand? Am I going to accept that kind of an offering from you? God says, cursed be the deceiver that has in his flock a male, the very best. And vows and sacrifices unto the Lord, a corrupt thing. God said, don’t mess with me.

God says, if you’re going to bring me an offering, don’t bring me a or Corrupt one. Self assessment. Guys, what is your offering to God? You bring me the best you’ve got or don’t bring me anything, because if you do not bring me your best, you have sinned against me. Why? Because that was not a conditional statement. That’s a command. Do you see your life as that? This is the question. Self assessment. You’re a priest. Everything you offer is service to God. They minister to the Lord. That’s what priests did. That’s a word used of the priests.

They ministered to the Lord. They offered up spiritual sacrifices. When they studied, they studied to show themselves what approved unto God. When they counseled, they counseled as unto the Lord and he might be pleased. This is so germane to any kind of ministry. If Christ arrived this morning and he joined us, that would be a great joy. But we would be all overwhelmed. And then he just opened his arms and says, you whom I love here, I have a request. I would like you to bring me an offering. I’d like each of you to bring me something.

Bring me an offering. What would you bring? Well, would it be the best we had? You know, that’s what the Bible says. See, he’s asking and he’s asking through me as a teacher who stands in his place. Give him the best. Here’s where to start. Romans 12:1. Present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your spiritual service. Did you see a question in that? Did you see a conditional statement in that? No. Here’s another command. You’re to present your body, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your spiritual service. The first sacrifice he wants is you.

All of you. Now that’s well pleasing. Then the praise of your lips, the love of your life and all these other ministries these guys ministered as unto the Lord. Now we’re studying Ephesians about gone. And we studied about submission wise. Do you realize that how you submit to your husband, there are many ways. But I’m going to give you the only one way. You submit to your husband in a way that is pleasing and acceptable to Jesus Christ. Because you need to treat that submission as a sacrifice to Jesus Christ. Men no different for you. So the question on the self assessment, what are you offering him in that area? You might say.

Where did you get that? Well, we just studied it out of Ephesians 5:22. See, it says, wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord. See, husband Judah, you know that how you love your wife as a spiritual sacrifice to Christ. I have to pick on the men Too. Guys can’t. You know, I got to make sure that’s equal earth. This is just practical. But have you minister, your spiritual gift is a spiritual sacrifice to Christ. Have you give in terms of the offering and your giving of your life and the time and your money is a spiritual gift of Jesus Christ.

What are you giving him? He provides all your needs. He doesn’t want you to live in poverty. He wants you to live richly. But you’re not going to get it unless you give it. That is a declaration of scripture. That which you want, you must first give. Leftovers, residue, corrupt stuff, are the very best. Well, you see, Colossians 3:23 says this. Whatever you do, do it with all of your heartily, as unto the Lord, not unto men. Do you see a question in this? Do you see a conditional statement here? No. This is a command. Whatever you do, do it with all your heart, as unto the Lord, not unto man.

Say. The majority of people in ministry today understand that everybody wants something different. So a person in ministry, or really any Christian, tries to satisfy what people want them to do. And in doing so, you go nuts, right? Because you can’t satisfy the physical. So you know what you have to do? You have to spend your time saying, God, what do you want me to do? And how can I give you spiritual service? You need to seek his guidance on this. Well, you might say you just can’t go ignoring people. Well, I’m going to tell you this.

If you give the right kind of spiritual service to God, the people will get the effects. Now let’s go on the second thing here. Verse 2. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, so many people ask about fasting. So let’s take a moment to talk about that. They were fasting. So what does fasting mean? It means they are praying. In the Bible, fasting is connected with prayer. Fasting is not a display where all of a sudden you say, I’m going to stop eating and be spiritual. That’s what I said. That’s what I tried to tell you guys.

When you do that, that’s a cleanse. That’s not fasting. That’s a physical thing. That’s not a spiritual thing. And then you announce to the world that you’ve stopped eating so that they will know you’re spiritual. You got this thing all backwards. Every once in a while it’s, we all need to stop eating, we all need to cleanse. But it has very, very, very little to do with your spirituality. But see, it’s just Another one of those things in our society that people have associated two things into one. When you say I’ve stopped eating, they equate because what they’ve been programmed to equate, that’s fasting, that’s not fasting.

Fasting always is connected with prayer in scripture now, Jesus talked about the fact that certain evil spirits didn’t come out by what he linked these two together, prayer and fasting. In fact, fasting is tied to vigilant, passionate prayer, like on your face prayer, the most humble position that you can be in prayer. It is when an individual gets so lost he needs of others, so lost in the service of Christ that he all of a sudden has no thought for physical food. You’re living spiritual life and because of the needs associated of your spiritual life, you’ve lost all ability to, to think about physical things.

And some of you have even said, well, I think I’ll fast. You may desire to spend the time concentrating your total energy on the things of Christ and you just want to set food aside. I’ve talked to some people about because I like to cleanse. I have got away from it lately, but because of other issues that I’m dealing with, like this freaking sugar level. But once a quarter. I used to fast. Not fast, cleanse, just cleanse. And in talking to a lot of people, they thought that what I was doing was fasting. And I says, no, I’m cleansing.

But if you are in need of the, of a fight to solve a fight in a spiritual battle, the Scriptures say fast and pray. And we have all kinds of Old Testament references to that in the Bible. There were times of fasting set on feast kind of basis. You know, they ate and they didn’t eat and so forth and so on as described by the law. But in the New Testament, in the New Covenant, there was no such prescription within the law. Now let me give you another thought in terms of fasting. There is in the Bible just the word fasting, with little definition by the way, but to give it some definition, most fasts were not total fast, but partial fasts.

Without going into a whole lot of detail, let me just suffice to say that a partial fast was really the absenting of oneself from banquetings. In other words, feast. See, in those days there wasn’t tv, there wasn’t any bowling alley or movie theaters or anything like that. And entertainment was eating. Most people back then ate from morning to night constantly. The Romans really got wild in this. I mean, to give you some things out of history, they Used to pickle, hummingbird tongues, all crazy things. You study their history. And they had them at the banquets, and it was a really big thing.

So when you went to a banquet, you stuffed yourself all kinds of fancy tastes, all little deals, and it was fun to them. Now, in our society, you can just take any route. And part of our problem is it all tastes so good. If you just go away somewhere in the world where food is terrible, you don’t have that kind of a problem necessarily until you get adjusted to it and like the people there. And then maybe it’s a problem for them. But the point of all of this, it’s a partial feast. And it was the absenting of oneself from indulgence.

And so many times a person could be said to be fasting, when in fact he maintained eating, which was not for the sake of entertaining himself, but only for the sake of maintaining substance. Now, I, I, I think that’s the thing that we can be mindful about in our studies, that food becomes a compulsion. When the taste of things become a compulsion, then that is not fasting. When you restrict yourself from things for those, for the, for the taste sake and for their entertainment value, and for the fulfilling of the lust of the flesh. Strictly taking in these things needful for your existence, I think in a very real sense that can be spiritually fasting, absenting yourself from the indulgence of food, which is purely entertaining, or for the fulfillment of the lust rather than for the needs of your body.

So fasting is either total or partial. It may be a time of loss in the concern and the prayer of others, but we don’t have a lot of fasting going on today in our society with all that we have, it’s really kind of indifferent to us. We have it so good. We just really don’t spend the time in the care of others. So that eating is just a detailed part of life. And you say, well, are we commanded to fast? No, there’s no command in the Bible to fast. Nowhere in the New Testament are we commanded to fast.

Jesus expected us to fast as a service to him. Jesus said in Luke 5, verse 33, See, the critics had come to him and they said, critics said to Jesus, why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers? And likewise the disciples of the Pharisees? But jurors eat and drink. It was fasting time. And John’s disciples were fasting, and the Pharisees and Jesus’s guys were really eating and having a great time. So this is what Jesus said To them. Can you make the sons of the bride chamber fast while the bridegroom is with them? You.

Are you catching that? Jesus says, because I’m here, I’m the bridegroom for the church. Church is the bride on the bridegroom. Can you make the bride groomsman fast while the bridegroom is in their presence? Absolutely not. He went on to say, you don’t fast at a wedding, and the bridegroom is here. Nothing to fast about. He goes on. He says, but the days will come, verse 35, and Luke, chapter 5, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, crucified. And then shall they fast in those days because they’re longing for the spiritual service to God.

Did you get that? All right. Jesus says, there’s coming a time when I will leave and they’ll fast. So he expected us to fast. Why? Because they will have spiritual battles to fight. They will have spiritual struggles, and I won’t be there visibly present, and they’ll be on their knees and they’ll be in agony over those things. No, Jesus never commanded Christians to fast, but he assumed, expected that they would be lost in spiritual struggle and that they, at that point in time, would fast, sometimes totally and sometimes partially. Now, I can imagine if one of my children.

I can talk about my youngest one because we almost lost her. If one of my children was at the edge of death, I could be lost in the prayer, which I was. But in all those things, Jesus did give one standard, another standard for you. Here’s a standard. When you fast, be not like hypocrites, Matthew 6 of a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast. Oh, did you get that? Oh, I’m fasting. I love this. I’m fasting, therefore, I gotta mess my hair up a lot. I got to wrinkle my face.

I gotta look like I’m in total pain because my stomach is growling. Oh. Because then people will say, oh, you’re fasting. That’s it. Verse 17 says this. But we. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face. What he’s saying is, clean up. If you’re going to do this, do it with the right mindset, because you’re doing it unto me. Get your hair combed, wash your face, and don’t appear unto anyone, anybody to fast, but unto God, who sees in your secret and rewards openly. The only person that needs to know you’re fasting is God himself.

You don’t need to Come to the world and announce all of your things. I’m fasting. Please pray for me. God knows when you’re fasting and that’s the only person that needs to know it. Comb your hair, wash your face, you look sharp, you spruce yourself up. Why? Because you’re going to, you’re going to the throne of God. And it’s a spiritual issue between you and the Lord. So you want to look your best. Now let’s go back and look at the leaders of this church. These are great guys. They’re great leaders. These are leaders not only lost in the teaching of the Word, but lost in prayer and fasting.

Full service. So concern are they over the spiritual need of the people that they lead? Self assessment time guys. Start with your home. Do you know that a church, you individual that has that kind of leadership is going to be a church, a group of people, yourself individually, to make a dent in our responsibility of taking back this world. And that’s my prayer for you. That you get to the point of understanding that you are such a spiritual being first that you begin to live your lives being a living sacrifice unto God. Now this takes us through looking at this from the angle of Lucifer’s conditions of the church and we’ve looked at it in all kinds of ways by looking at the man putting in respons responsible leadership positions and then looking and seeing what Lucifer is doing to through the world in order to attack oppositionally a spirit filled church.

Comments? Questions? Anything? Sure. All right, let’s pray. Yeah, done. Oh my goodness. Jim. So one of the things I’ve really struggled with after accepting Christ as my savior at 7 is this whole sanctification piece. And what does that mean and what does that look like? And part of how I struggled with that is I thought I was supposed to go out and be on the street corner and say God loves you, you’re going to hell now. Not that that might not be in my future, but what you’ve been identifying in this amazing path that God has taken you down is how we minister exactly where we are from who we are in Christ.

I mean this is just a whole, this is just a whole huge aha. And what you’re saying about the, the pastors and the priests, of course they’re going to be frontline attacked demonically because they’re supposed to live the example of going to Christ first, sacrificing to Christ first. If they do that, then we will pick it up just by being around them. So I know it’s taken a lot of courage to call out how Satan has brutally attacked the church, brutally attacked it on all fronts. And it just feels like this is a path forward that I’m just.

I’m just so. I’m filled with gratitude for how God has a path for each of us. I was just thinking about talking with Ashalom and how we were discussing that, you know, each of us is like a snowflake. We have this uniqueness to us that God saves and values, and then he channels, you know, he gets rid of all the crap. And just to have him channel through that is what is going to reach people. It’s not so much anything we could ever do ever. It’s all about Holy Spirit. It’s all for his glory. And I know you’ve been talking about this for a long time, but I feel like it’s.

I just had major aha after major aha when you were talking. And just the peace and the joy that comes with that kind of connection is so. It’s such a profound gift. Thank you. And, you know, I know that it’s not you, but it is you. It. It’s the. It’s the Saul Paul thing. You know, God chose Jim Pew, and he’s getting rid of your Saul, and he’s strengthening your Paul, and your humility is on board. Like, I’ve never experienced it before. It directly calls out my pride. I’m just like, oh, my gosh. So this. This is what it is.

You know, I’m more of an example application person than a theoretical person. So I greatly appreciate the work you’re doing and how you’re letting us see the process in you. It’s just so cool. Thank you, Sam. So, Jim, with the fasting and prayer in scripture, when the disciples tried to cast out the unclean demon, did they not do that enough so Jesus could show them? They. That not. No. Okay. So what they did when they couldn’t cast out the demons. Okay. Is in their diagnosing of the problem, they did not properly diagnose the problem. So you can be.

You could be spiritually possessed. You could be physically possessed, or you could be. Your soul could be possessed. Now, your soul is different from your spirit, so you have all. And. And to cast out the demon, you had to diagnose the right problem, because did you. Did you need to diagnose them as a. A physical problem or a spiritual problem? So Jesus was trying to teach his disciples how to properly diagnose the problem. During the life of Jesus, for the three and a half years they walked with Jesus that’s, they learned from him. But what they had to do is practice, just like we do practice.

Right. How to diagnose diagnostic stuff. Okay. Diagnosed stuff. So when the woman came to the disciples and they diagnosed her problem as a physical problem and they approached that demon to heal her from a physical basis when she came to Jesus, Jesus immediately responded and says, no, your problem is not physical. Your problem is spiritual. So I’m going to heal, I’m going to heal your spirit. And immediately upon healing her spirit, the demons left. Had the disciples been able to diagnose the problem correctly? They had the tools to remove the demons, but the tools to remove the demons only apply to the correct diagnosis.

And that was their problem is they had not, not figured out how to properly diagnose every condition of, of life. All right, thank you, Maria. Yeah, I have a, a comment sl question. When you spoke about. Lucifer tried to corrupt all of Christ’s bloodline and he wasn’t obviously aware that Yeshua was going to come through the Holy Spirit because she wasn’t impregnate. Mary wasn’t impregnated by Joseph. It was the Holy Spirit brought that baby in her womb. So he wasn’t aware. My question is Lucifer wasn’t aware that Yeshua was going to come through like that. Yeah, he was because he said a, a, a virgin, a male will be born of a virgin.

And he, he told him that in the garden. So Lucifer was quite aware that a female was going to birth the Christ child. Okay. So what he wasn’t aware of was that when he was going to be raised from the dead on the third day, is that, is that, that was aware? Yeah. He knew any of the cross Christ was coming, but he didn’t know Christ was going to die. He wanted him to die, but he didn’t know it. He was going, he was going to die and he didn’t know that he was going to be raised from the dead, which closed the system.

Okay. Okay. So that was like a curveball that God put on, in, in, in history that he wasn’t, he wasn’t aware of. Right, right. Lucifer was not aware that Christ is going to raise from the dead or he would have plugged the hole. Right. Figured out a way to plug that hole. Okay. I also have one more comment. When you mentioned that he writes your true self. I think, I’m not sure if I wrote it right. He writes your true self in your DNA. So what is that your character? Your. No, he writes your, he writes your true name in your DNA.

My true name in my DNA. So what is. What does that mean? Spiritual? You have a spiritual name and you have a physical name. Okay. So your spiritual name is written in your DNA. Okay. There any way of finding that out? Well, yeah, you ask God, because it’s not revealed to anybody that scripture. It’s only revealed to you through God. Okay. All right, I think I’ll save. I had another question about DNA, but I have to see. He says. He says he writes your name in. In your. On your stones, and your stone is your DNA.

Okay, where is that in scripture? I’m sorry. Do it. Do a word search. That’s what I’m gonna have to do. I. I can’t tell you guys. I don’t. So. So you look up DNA. No, you look up stones. You look up name and the stones. Okay. Would you find it on e sword? You can. I’m just going to my database. So hang on a moment. First Samuel 7:12. Okay. First Sam. Okay, thank you. Bible refers to the 12 stones on the high priest breastplate. So this goes into all of that. So when you look at this, you’re going to see all of how this applies to your life.

And you know that the 12 stones is the power set. All right? It’s the vibration of those 12 stones that God used to create. All right? Okay. Isn’t that the same 12 stones in the. The priest. Yeah, it’s on the priest breastplate. He gave them. He gave them the 12 stones, one per tribe, which was signifying the. The 12 stones of Christ at creation. Now, the white stone is Revelation 2:17, but Sec. 1st 1 Samuel 7:12 begins the process of educating you on the stones. And it’s. It’s culminated in writing your name on Whitestone, which is you.

Okay. In Revelation 2:17. Thank you. Anything else? Guys, I have a question. The stones, does it have any type of frequency? All stones have frequencies. There’s not one thing on this earth that doesn’t have a frequency a grain of sand has. Okay. Is it vibrate? Those stones vibrating in. In 528 hertz. Okay. They vibrate. Understand what I’m saying? Yeah. Do you understand what I’m saying? Yeah, I. I got it. I know what you’re saying. They vibrate in the frequency of God’s residence within that stone. And it takes. Then it takes all of those stones put together and controlled by Christ to do creation.

You’re going to get that in substack. So. Yes, they vibrate at God’s frequency. Thank you. Why? Okay, guys, you might Say only this. Jimmy or Coop. No, just go read. David. Go read. Go read about David when he. When he came back and all of the women and children and wealth and food were captured because David was out fighting battles. And he came back and he. And he said to the priest, I don’t want you to go intercede for me against God. I want your coat. Remember that. I want your. The coat. Bring me the coat which had the bless breastplate of the stones, because I want to talk to God myself.

So just go through it. And you’d see that that was. And remember, also in Scripture, it says that the. The priest walked around with two stones in the pocket, and whichever one lighted up, they knew what they were being told. Yes or no? There was a question. Yes or no? So, guys, stones. Everything vibrates as well as everything is connected. There’s not one atom that’s not connected to another atom. And everything’s made with atoms. You don’t have matter if you don’t have atoms. That’s rocks, that’s sand. That’s anything. The chair you’re sitting in vibrates. Okay, guys.

Anything else? All right, let’s pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for a great study in your word. Thank you for always being able to walk us through the truth, hopefully with the understanding that we can actually walk away and apply it to our lives. Father, continue to work with us through our sanctification process. Be with us and. And all of our studies, providing us with your wisdom, your revelation, so that we can actually apply it to our knowledge, so that we can know more about who you are and about who we are. Father, we want to give you all the thanks and the praise.

Thank you for your grace, your mercy, your son. Thank you for life. Be with those who continuing in need that you may give them the power to overcome the knowledge that you will heal and the fact that basically they’re loved. Father, we just ask that you protect us, give us peace and joy in these turbulent times. May we ever know that you’re in total control. Ask all these things in your son’s name.
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