This has been an interesting week for me
at the conference.
And one of the things, I don't know
if Dr. Arnold is in here, but Clinton
Arnold gave me a new identity.
And it's not on one of Neal's In
Christ, he needs to add it to the
bottom of the list.
But as I was sitting in Clinton Arnold's
class, he said something that I don't like
being called a demon caster, or you know,
whatever, that kind of thing.
I just, somehow I react to that even
inwardly myself.
But Clinton Arnold said this, if someone comes
up to me now and asks me, what
do you do?
I'm simply going to say, I'm a trash
collector.
And I do the kind of work that
Josiah did, when he cleansed the temple of
God of trash, so the presence of God
could be obvious once again in that temple.
And that's the ministry that I have, and
that's the ministry that gives me the greatest
joy.
One of the joys I had at the
conference, there are many medical doctors here, and
God has done so many unique things in
our life.
I've had opportunity to minister to congressmen and
senators, governors, conferences for these people, leading some
congressmen's wives to Christ and also to freedom
and so on.
But one of the unique ones was the
medical seminars that we've done.
And there are a number of doctors here.
In fact, if you want to get sick,
you're fortunate.
There's probably a doctor in your row.
I'm sure there's a doctor in your row,
too.
I'm sure there's a doctor in your row
also, you know.
And but many of these doctors had attended
some of these medical seminars where we did
the warfare teaching.
But one doctor came up to me and
it was such a blessing.
He said, I was in at your conference
and where you're speaking on warfare.
And he said, after you spoke, I went
downstairs and I began to pray.
And I realized I wasn't a Christian and
I received the Lord as my savior.
Isn't that beautiful?
At a warfare conference, you wouldn't even think
it was name on that thing.
But as he began to look at his
life and what was going on, he didn't
even know the Lord.
What a blessing.
I recently read a book that was very
disappointing and I can tell you what it
was.
Oh, before I tell you that, I have
a few copies of my old prayer letter.
I left that you may want to get
a hold of.
And it's the steps of action that we
gave to a 14 year old anorexic boy
who came here almost immediately out of a
hospital after being hospitalized for it with no
help.
And in one week was set free and
is still free of anorexia.
What were the steps that we used?
What was the truth that this young man
needed to know to come to freedom?
And they're they're down here on the front.
There's a few left over.
And so if you'd like a copy of
that letter and what we did and what
the boy had to interact with when he
interacted with truth, that God was able to
set him free of this terrible, debilitating thing
in his life that was literally destroying him
physically and spiritually.
Now, back to the book I read.
I read a book, a classic book on
holiness.
And I was thrilled with chapter one.
I was thought chapter two was OK.
And from there, the book went downhill and
I don't think it's the author's fault.
And I have a I think maybe a
right sense, a real fear of sharing what's
on my heart with you.
I won't do it justice, so bear with
me.
Others have done a better job, but this
is so burdened on my heart.
And it's amazing.
Mark and I did not correspond with each
other, what we're going to speak on.
And yet God lay John 17 in my
heart as he did on his heart.
Yet totally different.
You know what God gave me was different
from his.
A year and a half ago, I received
a phone call that I had no idea
how that phone call was going to change
my Christian life.
And it was it seemed kind of a
of an easy phone call to take because
it was easy to say no.
And it was a call from Dallas, Texas,
to speak at a prayer seminar.
And I told them, no.
That I would not speak at that prayer
seminar because I'm not a man of prayer,
I'm a man that prays.
And there is a difference, you know, the
difference.
Have you ever heard Mark do that?
There is a difference between a man of
prayer and a man who prays.
And so I told them now that they
had the wrong person.
And I told them to and I started
naming people, had them been there and said
his thing.
And I said, no, I just I don't
feel right about doing it because there's two
kinds of people.
This is my excuse.
I don't know if Nancy DeMoss is in
here, but Nancy, if you do something on
the lies that men believe, add this to
your list.
And that is there are there are guys
who pray and guys who do.
And I'm one of the doers.
Anybody here like that?
There goes my granddaughter.
What a lie that is.
And so I just told them, no.
And I and they said, we're going to
pray about it.
Anyway, they call me back.
They prayed about it and they said, we
really feel you're the one that's supposed to
do this.
And so I I thought, well, I will
do this.
And I didn't realize I already did it,
I think was last October, but I had
a year and a half to prepare to
do that prayer seminar.
And God took me on a tremendous journey,
first into myself.
And then into his word and in many,
many ways to try to discover and discern.
What was the blockage in my life to
be a man of prayer?
And so I would like to to share
a little bit of some of the things
that God revealed to me and maybe encourage
you, especially if you're counselors, we're going to
get into some of the counseling issues that
I think we're failing our counselees on tremendously.
And I'd like to share this with you,
Micah, four or five, these are not notes
in your notes, the notes, you know, just
on the names of God, Micah, four or
five.
It's interesting there, Micah says, and we will
walk in the name of the Lord, our
God forever and ever.
The name of God, that statement, the name
of God signifies the whole disclosure of who
God is.
And it's holy in all holiness and in
truth.
Secondly, the word name literally means a mark
or a brand.
It is an external mark that distinguishes a
thing or objects, one from another.
When I pastored my first church, I grew
up in Los Angeles and my wife and
I were called to pastor out in nowhere.
If you think Sioux City is nowhere, go
to Aiden, California.
I mean, if you sneeze driving through that
town, you'll miss all of it.
You know, we were 100 miles one way
from a major city.
So if we wanted to go to a
grocery store or pennies or something, it was
a 200 mile round trip.
It was 150 miles round trip to get
a prescription filled.
I think it was 100 miles round trip
to get a haircut.
It was during the hippie time, although I
didn't go that direction, but, you know, it's
kind of more in making that that long
trip.
We were really isolated and they had open
range and open range is this, that all
this was cattle, ranches and loggers.
Was I out of my realm and I
never had letterwood stove in my life.
I had never met a real life cowboy,
let alone have a whole bunch of hard
neck, rough neck drinking loggers.
God, I got to tell you, this is
so wonderful.
God moved so wonderfully in that place.
So many of these loggers and mill guys
and I am so unmanly.
I mean, you should see these guys.
Their muscles have muscle.
They seem to use a chainsaw all day
long, falls these big trees, drunkards, fighters, all
this stuff.
So many guys got saved.
And I'm not even really an evangelist, got
saved at the logging mill.
That's the testimony of all logging mills in
California.
Don't go to Aiden, California, because you'll get
saved.
Unbelievable.
These roughnecks, when they got saved, it was
just a marvelous thing that happened there while
we were there.
But they had open range and they turn
all the cattle out.
Thousands of cattle are roaming all over these
mountain ranges behind Mount Shasta.
And they earmarked them, they warble them and
they branded them because they're all turned out
and then the snow comes, the cattle all
start coming back and you can identify your
cattle by what?
By their mark, by their brand, and we
identify one another by what names, if I
asked Neil Anderson to come up here, Clinton
Arnold wouldn't come.
That signifies a certain person.
And that name, if you've heard, Neil, you
get a lot of conjuring up in your
mind about Neil Anderson or Clinton Arnold or
one of the other presenters and so on.
So names are extremely important.
And to walk in the name of the
Lord is to live in accordance with the
meaning of his name.
It's very, very significant.
And if I don't know God by name,
I can't walk in its meaning.
And neither can my counselees.
The scripture says when the righteous are under
attack, they are to run into God's name
as a strong tower.
Proverbs 18, 10, the name of the Lord
is a strong tower.
The righteous run into it and are safe.
But if I don't know his name, I
have no place to run.
Not knowing God by name is one of
the schemes of Satan.
I like what Nancy DeMoss said.
All lies come from Satan.
Just mentioned it upstairs.
When we start our counseling process on Monday
with the counselee, we start in Hebrews 12,
1 and 2, and we're told in that
passage that we're all running a race.
I got a marathon runner is going to
be my prayer partner next week.
He's sitting here in the front row.
My son ran a marathon and was running
all through junior high, high school and college
because Richard asked me in junior high, he
wanted to go into sports.
I said, you can't go into glory sports
because I taught in two Bible colleges and
all the kids in the glory sport were
lousy Christians.
So I said, Richard, I don't care what
you do as long as not a glory
sport.
And so he became a cross country runner,
which is wonderful.
Nobody goes.
So he got his sports in, won all
those medals.
But nobody was around.
And he says that we're running in a
race and he said, there's two things as
we run that we have to watch out
for.
One is weights.
Richard ran in this crazy weather when he
was living at home before he found Diana
moved out, you know, I mean, just all
the snow and here he's out running.
Well, he didn't run in his shorts.
He ran in a sweatsuit.
But when he ran the Twin Cities Marathon,
he didn't wear a sweatsuit.
Not there was anything wrong with it, but
it's a what?
It's a weight.
Be careful that if God reveals to you
a weight.
That you don't turn it into a sin
issue and judge someone else.
You tell me three good Christians that chew
gum.
You know what I'm saying?
God tells me, you know, not to gum
anymore.
I can't anyway, because if I do, the
teeth on top will stick to the ones
on the bottom.
I know good Christians to gum, you know,
I can't do it.
But there's that sin that so easily entraps
us now as we run this race, where
are we to focus inside looking under who
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith?
I believe this, brethren, every attack of the
enemy.
I don't care how it comes, what way
it comes or what your stuff is, is
to get your eyes off of the Lord
onto something else, yourself, people, circumstance.
What about Peter?
When I got out of the boat, when
he got his eyes off, who the Lord
and looked at a circumstances, what happened to
him?
He started sinking.
And we need to be refocused.
I know when you got a rock in
your shoe, it's hard not to think about
your foot and we have to help our
counselees get the rocks out of the shoes
so they can think about the Lord.
And so we're to focus on the Lord.
What is the purpose of the attack of
Satan?
Steal, kill and destroy.
Is that right?
He wants to steal, he wants to rob
me of joy and peace, the fruit of
the spirit.
He wants to rob my life, have any
eternal significance.
I get so wrapped up in my stuff.
I never reach out to anybody.
He wants to kill most of my counselees
that fly in here to see me, have
seriously thought of ending their life.
Where does that thought come from?
The Lord came to give us what life,
what abundantly.
Well, then when I have thoughts of taking
my life, where could that intruding thought come
from?
And the third is to destroy relationships.
You see the enemy at work today, that's
what he's that's what he's about.
Now, what's his two most effective weapons, I
think, to do that is found in Revelation
12.
He is the what?
Deceiver and the accuser.
And I believe that Satan as the deceiver
is a little bit different than Satan is
a liar.
Satan is the liar.
A lie is an out and out lie,
but I see deception a little differently than
that.
A deception has a lie in it.
But what's got more than the lie is
emotions associated with that lie.
I believe a man is deceived when his
mind and emotions believe something that's not true.
And we in our culture have a tendency
to believe what we feel and a tendency
not to believe what we don't feel.
And many of my counselees and I know
Nancy was talking about this with the ladies,
but I only counsel men.
Hundreds of men, all those people I saw
were men that fly in here and a
man will tell me I don't feel or
I don't think usually feel that God loves
me and I just say so.
I said, what do you mean by so
I said, well, he says he does.
And what are you going to believe?
Am I right?
You are counselors, you know, we have we
have to get over that feeling thing that
if I feel that it's true, I don't
feel it isn't true.
It's a real that's a deception.
And then all the accusing of all the
stuff in the past.
But I want you to turn if you
have a Bible, if not write this down,
I think it's very significant.
Second Corinthians 10, three, four and five.
We're told here the three aspects that come
under attack, for though we walk in the
flesh, we do not war after the flesh
for the weapons of our warfare are not
carnal, but mighty, divinely empowered by God, first
of all, to the pulling down of strongholds.
Now, you've heard Ed Smith and in those
who ministered in this area realize that a
stronghold, what is a stronghold?
A stronghold is a belief system.
It's something that I believe is true.
And often that belief system is connected with
deep wounding.
And the wounding is not as significant in
my life right now as what I believe
about that wounding.
You're with me, aren't you?
And see, that gets a stronghold in my
life until that belief system is challenged and
that stronghold comes down.
This thing is going to have an effect
on my life for years.
When I was teaching at a Bible college,
the president called me and pretend like he
was balling me out.
And he said, someone has given anonymous gift
to this college to send you and your
wife to Israel.
And I thought maybe the students did it,
and I said, is there enough money to
come back?
And he said, yes.
And so we went to Israel with the
friends of Israel, wonderful group to go with.
And you end that whole trip at Jerusalem.
You go through all of Israel, but the
end is at Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is a stronghold.
Jerusalem is a walled city.
And so they gave us a free day
and my wife and I were going to
do the tourist thing, you know, buy the
little wooden things, you know, all the stuff
carved out of pine in Oklahoma sold over
there for olive wood.
You know, or whatever, you know, we did
that thing.
Well, we walked in and there's all these
little teeny alleys.
In fact, my wife was saying the other
day, I forgot all about that's the first
time we ever saw anybody demonized was in
the old city of Jerusalem.
And we try to get away from this
demonized guy.
Here, this guy and I've never seen it,
I'm teaching in a Bible college where if
I even mentioned the word, I'd have been
fired, you know, and so here we are
in this guy comes with his eyes.
I mean, you ever see, you know, the
eyes and he was creepy and with another
pastor, we didn't know what to do.
So we thought, well, avoid this guy.
So so we're trying to go down alleys
to get away from him.
And we run down this.
I mean, if you've ever been in the
old city, that's what it is.
It's just little alleys.
I mean, if a donkey comes with stuff
on it, you go like this against the
wall for it to get by.
And here this guy comes up to a
brazier where they're selling stuff and he picks
up the brazier and he's got this big
holder and he's got hot coals holding him
to warm his hands.
Oh, no, there is, you know, anyway, that
was my that was our introduction to spiritual
warfare.
One on one.
And so after you did all the touristy
thing, we decided we walked out of the
city and we thought either they turned down
all the buildings and built new ones or
we went out the wrong gate and it
seemed more logical, maybe went out the wrong
gate.
So we went back in, wandered around and
finally went out the right gate.
Now, what I want to tell you is
this.
A stronghold may have many gates and from
that gate can be many roads.
And often our counselees are battling on the
road.
It's like fighting an octopus sticking its arms,
but we never kill the beast.
And those strongholds have to come down.
That's a belief system that's going to affect
as a man believes in his heart.
So is he.
And these beliefs can be down in there.
They're not all the time, but all of
a sudden I'm confronted with something.
And my interpretation of this situation is based
on a false belief system.
That's a stronghold in my life.
And I've been there.
I understand what I'm telling you is truth
in my own life.
Now, the second one is the one in
which in counseling I never dealt with.
Never.
And I have failed all of my counselees
up to this last year when I realized
I was failing them, what are we to
do?
It says the second attack of Satan is
this casting down imaginations and every high thing
that exalts itself against what?
The knowledge of God, do you deal with
that in your counseling?
Do your counselees know who God is?
By name.
And the significance of that name to their
life and situation.
Mine didn't.
And I was failing to help them in
one of the major areas of attack.
When was the last time in the church
that you go to that you heard a
message on who God is?
I'm not knocking.
I'm saying it's not by accident.
It's by satanic design.
Some of us have a great understanding of
Jesus Christ.
Some others have a great understanding of the
Holy Spirit and different balances, but when it
comes to God.
Often he's just.
Something on a song or power out there
somewhere, that's all he is.
And then the third one is intruding thoughts,
casting down intruding thoughts.
Well, as I began to put this all
together and as I began to look at
this thing, well, let's go to John 17
and then I'll try to put this together
running out of time in John 17 as
I was looking at that prayer, I was
looking at if I'm going to pray and
be a man of prayer, let's look at
some of the prayers in the Bible and
that kind of thing.
As I looked at John 17, I saw
something that I'd never seen before.
And when you focus on a portion of
scripture for a period of time, things can
jump out at you that you never saw
before.
And as I began to look at this,
Mark brought out certain things.
Remember, he said things that were repeated in
that.
Well, let me give you some repeats in
that five times this was said in that
prayer.
In verse three, Jesus prayed, and this is
life eternal, that they may know the the
only true God.
His prayer was that they would know God.
In verse let me look here in verse
11, he says, Holy Father, keep them through
thy own what name in verse 12.
While I was in them in the world,
I kept them in what?
By name.
I think I skipped one and let's go
to verse 26, because this is what my
theme was and father, I have declared unto
them what by what name?
Five times, Jesus prayed this prayer for you
and I, that we might know God by
name.
And we're told that's one of the attacks
of Satan upon the life of a believer
is that we wouldn't know God by name.
Now, as I began to look at my
praying and wanting to be a man of
prayer, I had to come to grips and
Mark already alluded to it.
And that is I needed some kind of
a form to follow.
And if you've got that free tape, it
shows how I laid out a prayer journal.
That we gave out at Christmastime.
And I realized that probably the Lord's Prayer
was very significant because you could take each
aspect of its phrases and develop a prayer
journal.
You know, they just the phrases cover your
whole everything is right there.
But the very first thing is our what?
I got over it.
And all of a sudden, I realized I
had a problem and I went to Dan
Rumberger, our psychologist, to be psychologized.
I don't know, Dan, I remember something and
I sat down, I said, Dan, I got
a real problem.
Now, when you grow up in an alcoholic
home, an abusive home and you've been put
down and you rejected most all of your
life and told that you couldn't do anything
and you're dumb and you're stupid and all
that kind of stuff that has an effect
on you as a kid.
I mean, it really does all through your
teen years and all of that.
When I graduated from the college that Clinton
Arnold teaches at, I got a special award.
They had, you know, summa cum laude and
summa this.
And I got summa cum lucky.
I said, let's get rid of this guy,
you know, can't we pass him out of
here, you know, because it's hard to live
beyond the concept of yourself.
Really is if you have a core belief
that you can't do it and you're dumb
and you're stupid and you're not very smart,
it's very hard to try to live beyond
that that's going on inside.
And so I sat down with Dan.
I said, Dan, you know, when I hear
the word father.
I don't get.
Negative thoughts, because I've asked God's forgiveness and
I asked the bitterness of my life to
be removed and I took care of that
years before and I got right by my
father.
I asked his forgiveness and all of that
kind of thing for failing to be the
son to him.
I should have been in all of that.
The rebellion I had, even though I was
a non-Christian, I still was wrong, but
Christian and non-Christian was wrong for the
way I responded to my father.
And I got that all right.
But when I got the word father, I
didn't have bad feelings.
I had no feelings.
It was just.
Level.
And then you have these people that go
around talking about other father.
Now, what did Nancy call him?
I can never think.
Kara's.
What's she say?
Car.
Charismatics, right.
All the charismatics are into all the father,
you know, and I'm going, hi, it's just
something about that that that's sickening.
Sweet.
You know, Daddy God, that is that I
reacted to that.
And some of these praise songs that had
Daddy God in it, I just reacted to
that and I couldn't help it.
I thought that is just so that's just
not me.
Yeah, it's just that's just too much.
Let's say that was revealing a problem.
Within me, because God wanted to be my
daddy, and so I had to come to
grips with that.
And then as I went to the Gospel
of John and I read that, Mark alluded
to that.
They tell you is when a word is
used a number of times in a book
that will tell you what the book is
all about.
That's the theme of the book, and I
wrote in my Bible in Bible school days
and I put it in every Bible after
that, the word believe is found in the
Gospel of John.
Ninety eight times.
If that's the theme, what do we do
with father that's mentioned in the King James
Bible one hundred and seventeen times and alluded
to, if you add on top, that'd be
one hundred and forty eight times is the
Gospel of John.
So I went to the Gospel of John,
showing us a relationship between a son and
a father, and I saw there there were
three tenses for father.
First of all was the father.
I didn't have any problems with that one.
Then the next one is what our father.
I didn't have any problems with that one.
But I realized that there was a blockage
in my life to my father because my
father is a father and God did a
marvelous work in my life.
I can't tell you the word of a
father now is a very special word to
me when I talk to my father, God.
But God in here is all these years
it was there.
I didn't realize it.
Now, and that's one of the names for
God.
Let me just give you a couple of
quickies on some of the names for God.
I want to whet your appetite so that
you will really think about this.
And what are we doing to correct it
in my counseling?
One of my struggles with the names of
God is God's first name.
I struggle with his first name.
His first name is what Elohim.
Genesis one Elohim, what did he do?
Elohim created, see, I'm created by God specifically,
individually, carefully, precisely the way that I am.
His first name is basic to all of
life and all of my walk with God.
Do you struggle with your self-image?
I did.
Did you struggle with your family origin?
I did.
Do you have bitter resentments towards your mother?
I didn't.
Did I have bitter resentments towards my father?
I did.
Did I struggle with my physical limitations and
my mental limitations?
Yes, I did.
I wish I was as smart as Clinton
Arnold, but he's almost spooky.
You know, I mean, he is so smart.
I just do a lot of reading.
I do a lot of copying from all
kinds of people, but I'm not smart.
I know that that's OK.
God didn't want me to be Clinton.
I just wanted me to be me.
But see, when I was struggling with this,
who was I struggling with?
Elohim, I was struggling with the one who
created all this for me, and literally I
was sitting on judgment of Elohim.
For it says, why were we created?
Why were we created precisely the way we
are dropped into that home, dropped into that
family, given abilities and not abilities and giftings
and all of those things?
Why we were created, how for him, Colossians
says that all things were created by him
and what for him that we would bring
glory to him.
That's the purpose.
See, my life is to give people who
are watching an honest estimate and value of
who God's all about.
I am to what's the chief purpose of
man?
You know, people ask me, what are you?
I'll tell you what I am.
I'm a presto battle.
Karis, that's what I am.
I can't put it all together.
When I graduated from Bible school, I had
all the answers.
When I taught at Bible College, I thought
I had all the answers.
Now I have all the questions.
I don't know what I am because I
see it's all true, isn't it?
I mean, God is sovereign, isn't he?
Isn't he?
Did man have a free will within the
sovereignty doesn't mean somehow it all fits, I
think, but I can't fit it.
But I believe it.
You know what I'm saying?
I don't try to believe it and work
it off through anymore.
I just believe it.
OK, now this is so vital.
When I was rejecting my design and my
family and all of this stuff, I was
really attacking Ephesians to 10 and Psalms 139,
Ephesians 2 says I'm created in Christ Jesus
unto what?
Good works that I should do before I
was ever saved, before I ever was.
God designed me for a purpose.
And by attacking the design, attacking the whole
situation, I would never find God's will and
purpose for my life.
I would miss it.
So I was rejecting my father.
I was rejecting myself.
I mean, I was having a problem with
worth all these things.
I was never free to discover God's purpose
for my life.
As I said, I was sitting in judgment
of God and what was happening.
I'm violating a much more serious scripture in
everything.
What give thanks for this is what the
will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
And what's the very next verse?
Quench, not the spirit.
And here I was pastoring.
Teaching in Bible colleges, in essence, I was
quenching the spirit of God.
Now, how do I deal with that?
Let me give you some steps because they're
not in the book, but I'd like you
to write these steps down, because I can't
tell you how many of your counselees are
struggling with Elohim about all of them, aren't
they?
To some degree, they're wrestling with Elohim.
The first thing, and I share this with
my counselees and they hear it all the
time, obedience precedes understanding.
I try to identify with the people in
the Bible.
It's very easy for me to do.
And I identify with Moses.
And God said, Moses, I want you to
go down to the lake, river, whatever it
was, a lake or whatever it was, Dead
Sea or Red Sea or whatever, and raise
your rod over it.
And I would have said, if I was
Moses, can I do it after dark?
I mean, if I stand on a rock
and do this thing and everybody's watching, what
if it doesn't work?
I mean, I've never seen it work.
Then if it does work, how are we
going to muck to the muck anyway?
And, you know, we've got a thing that
was sent to me that if the children
of Israel, the number they think they are,
went across, if you've seen the movie, you
know, what was the movie Ten Commandments?
You got a wrong vision because they went
across four thousand abreast.
It wasn't a little trail as huge for
them all to get across.
But see all through the Hebrews 11, all
the men were that were obedient there, didn't
know what was going to happen.
You know, Mrs. Noah came home and said,
no, what do you realize?
We're the only people in the city doesn't
have a boat.
He said, honey, don't worry about it.
When I get through the Joneses will look
at us.
I don't think that's the way it was.
God said it's going to rain.
And he said, what's rain?
God said, don't worry about it.
Build a boat.
You'll know in good time.
He didn't wait till it rained.
He said, I think I better start on
this.
See, obedience, what must precede understanding?
We're talking about what God clearly tells me
to do something.
What do I need to do?
I need to do it, even though I
don't fully understand all of it.
OK, the second thing is that thanking Elohim
is an act of my will done in
obedience to God.
So God's not asking me to feel anything
there.
He's asking me to what?
Do something.
Being thankful is an act of my emotions
that comes as we realize the benefits of
God's actions.
I can look once I resolve this thing
of my family and my heritage and the
alcohol and the drunks.
And then in my book, just before I
practically wrote the book, I realized that we
had people in my family that had occult
experience.
You know, my aunts, my aunt and grandmother
were my aunt and her and my cousin
were doing telepathy.
And all the stuff she told fortunes and
late cars and all the stuff was going
on in my family, but I thought that
was normal.
I mean, if you grow up in a
family, your aunt always lays cards, isn't that
normal?
I mean, what's Christmas and Thanksgiving?
Well, the family all gets together and gets
drunk.
Isn't that what they do?
That's all I ever knew.
That's all ever happened to our house or
their house.
That's what I thought was.
It's amazing.
It took me a long time to figure
out that my own family has this occult
stuff going on.
But see, being thankful then will be an
act of my emotions as I realize the
benefits.
But if I never realize the benefits, that's
OK.
But I see now the benefits of growing
up in a home and being rejected.
How many of my counselees grew up in
homes that were less than the best?
And they can't look at me and say,
you don't understand.
I can look them right in the eyeball
and say, I do understand I've been there.
I know and I know how you're hurting,
but I can tell you the way you're
dealing with it is only going to cause
you greater hurt and greater pain.
And you need to do what I did.
See, we thank God for his higher purpose
in the situation.
And I see it now because God wanted
me to go through that so I could
help others go through it, too.
But as long as I was rejecting that,
I could see no benefit in any of
that at all.
See, to fulfill the purpose and the will
of God for my life will give glory
to God.
That's Elohim.
Well, we need to close.
Let me give you just a couple other
real quickies.
We can't go into all of it, but
one of them, a thrilling one, is El
Elyon, the name El Elyon, the God most
high.
That is who Satan wanted to be like
when Satan picked a name for God.
He was picking a nature attribute and character
of God he wanted to be like.
And he picked El Elyon, the sovereign one
that reigns, the one who reigns sovereignly in
the heavens and reigns sovereignly on the earth.
And I just want to just give you
two thoughts here from El Elyon.
A mentally deranged man said it perfectly.
With a single thought, he said, God, most
high rules over all.
And when that flooded his mind, his mental
sanity returned.
And you can read it in the book
of Daniel.
The unshakable fact that God is sovereignly control
over all is the foundation of sanity in
this crazy world.
It gives stability and hope.
Let me give you another quickie, Jehovah Rapha,
right?
You ever heard of the Rafa?
And when we hear of Jehovah Rafa, what
do you think of?
Physical, what's wrong?
The children of Israel went in the promised
land, they came to the waters of Mora.
Why can they drink them?
There are bitter waters and God told Moses
what to do about the bitter waters.
And Moses put that wood member in there.
And the bitter waters were healed.
And he said, Moses, my name is Jehovah
Rafa, the one who heals bitter waters life.
Do any of your counselees need healing of
the bitter waters in their life?
Do they need to know Jehovah Rafa?
Do they need to cry out to him
when they're under attack?
And then.
Oh, I got to give you this one
as fast as I can.
There was a woman.
Who was used sexually, we don't know how
many times she was used.
But after so often after that, the person
is despised in the eyes of the user
or those that were involved.
And this woman, with all the rejection and
now she's pregnant.
Does the only thing she knows what to
do.
And that's to flee out of that abusive
situation.
And there she is, pregnant, alone.
In a strange country.
And in the wilderness.
And all of a sudden.
And.
God intervenes.
You can read it in Genesis 16, seven
through 10, Hagar, what did God know about
her?
He know he knew right where to find
her.
He knew her name.
He knew her occupation.
He knew her heartaches from the home she
just fled from.
He knew about the child in the womb
and she didn't have to go get a
CAT scan.
He told her it was a boy or
whatever they do.
What is it?
Maybe it's not a CAT scan, whatever it
is.
If you're sick, I'm not one of those
kind of doctors.
You know, I won't be any good.
God also told him what his name was
going to be.
And God knew her future destiny.
And when God got through talking to her,
she gave us a new name for God.
The God that sees.
Al Roy, God sees.
Do you have a loved one?
You don't know where they are.
I get phone calls.
Our son has left.
Our daughter's gone.
We don't know where they are.
But let me tell you, there's a God
who sees he knows exactly where they are.
He knows her name.
He knows what's going on.
Can you trust him?
Do you see how important these names are?
They're vitally important.
And let me give you one more and
then I'm going to quit.
Last Sunday, I was reading Isaiah and I
got so caught up in this book, I
spent hours doing a word study on two
verses.
Isaiah 26, three and four.
You know, thou will keep them in perfect
peace, whose mind is stayed on thee because
he trusts in thee.
It's on my wall in the counseling office,
but I never did a Hebrew study of
the words.
So I got all my Hebrew books, got
up the computer, pull up all this.
Because there is what a piece of God
that passes what all understanding that will guard
their hearts and minds, and I'll go word
by word, thou who is thou there?
It's Jehovah.
It's the Lord Jehovah, you just look in
the context.
The Lord Jehovah will keep that guard, protect
or set of watch.
Him will guard him in perfect peace, and
that's an interesting word.
It means harmonious state of soul and mind,
both externally and internally.
It means soundness, well-being, the absence of
inner strife.
And the one this grab me, I tell
you, I just got so thrilled on this
one, I hardly believe it.
Whose mind?
Now, I knew this one word in the
Hebrew that mine can mean imagination.
Has your imagination ever gone wild?
Remember one time we were moving into a
church and was hot and I rubbed the
back of my neck and there was a
bump there and I thought, oh, I got
bit by something.
And then after a while, I rubbed the
back of my neck weeks later and it
was bigger.
And I laid in bed and I knew
what I had, neck cancer.
And I began, I read a book about
how this cancer eating this girl up and
she could put her tongue up through her
nose.
And if you read that book, it's all
horrible.
But you understand what was happening is I
wasn't telling anybody.
I was thinking, what should they sing, you
know, and who should I have do the
service and all of this stuff?
Well, I hope you get a bump.
You won't laugh.
Let me tell you.
But let me give you two other words
here because they're so significant.
One, the mind is as by farmed by
the potter.
But more than that, this is the one
that just really grabbed me to frame a
picture.
The word is stayed is a verb that
describes the state of being a continued simple
action.
It means takes a hold up to grab
a hold up and keep on what holding.
On the who Jehovah, the I am, I
will be who I will be of all
the names of God, that one somehow gave
me such comfort that God didn't matter who
Logan was, didn't matter what I did or
didn't do.
God would always be what, who you would
be.
And that just thrills me.
And then because he would trust on me,
there's another would continue actions, being confident, secure
to feel safe in Jehovah, the God who
is always there.
Now, let me give you this first.
Jehovah will guard him in perfect peace, whose
mind or mental frame is stayed and continues
to take hold of Jehovah because he trusts
and has confidence in the God who is
always there.
Now, think about that, a frame, if your
counselees are going to put a frame around
God, what does he look like?
Is the picture blank?
Is the picture distorted?
Or is the picture grotesque?
I think we have a responsibility.
To give our counselees a proper picture of
who God is, we need to declare to
them his name.
Why is that important?
This conference, the people have said over and
over and over again, first of all, submit
to who?
What if I don't know who he is?
How can I submit to a God I
don't know and effectively resist the enemy?
They said the only the beginning of helping
anyone is what they have to do.
Well, what did Nancy talk about?
They have to what?
Repent, access.
Repentance is always towards who?
God and faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ.
Why do people not have a very much
conscious guilt about sin because they don't realize
they're sinning against what?
God, a holy God, we got to do
something.
And let me give you in closing a
couple of helps.
Aaron Potter's book.
From light to darkness, because when I started
to realize I don't know who God is,
I made a pilgrimage for a year and
a half to try to find out who
he is.
I bought all kinds of books and I
grabbed my old books and looked at them.
And here is a book with two chapters
on the names of God and spiritual warfare.
And it's on sale back there.
The book now that I give my counselees
to do, I ask them to buy it.
They start on Monday.
It goes for forty two days.
They're only there for five days.
So at least they get four days under
their belt.
And many of them have written me back
and said one of the most significant things
that ever happened in the counseling there besides
my coming to freedom is working through.
Lord, I want to know you.
By K.
Arthur, what are these names of God mean?
It's a workbook.
And if God is this, then work it
through and form prayers to God and thank
him.
I can't tell you a better book because
we can't do everything in counseling.
They would never they'd never leave us.
And if they were going back to churches
where God was preaching, we'd have to worry.
I'm not saying, you know what I'm saying?
I mean, I'm not knocking the church.
You can't preach on everything either.
But these people desperately need to know who
their God is.
And so they could cry out to that
specific name of God for that, for his
promise to meet that need and they need
to know.
And so I would encourage you to encourage
your counselees.
And in fact, if you can afford buy
some and ask him to buy it and
to begin to work through this after they
leave, that they may have a proper concept
of God.
Father.
We want to acknowledge our failure.
In really.
Declaring your name.
To those who have heard and come to
us for help.
And father, we pray that we might help
our counselees to walk out with a proper
view.
Of who you are.
And how that you're ready to deal and
to meet.
Every need of their heart and life.
That you would be glorified in the lives
of those who are crying out for help.
We ask this in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.