Open your Bibles, if you would, to the book of Galatians, Galatians chapter 5. I'm going to take a look at a latter portion of the text this evening. And I think as you see a few different translations in one of the slides, you'll be able to just look at the one that you're at and see the differences as well as we trust see the that are taking place between what is called the battle between flesh and spirit.

Reagan mentioned that maybe a couple of years ago, you went through the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit. And tonight we're not going to take the time to take each one of those and delineate them. I want us to see a broader picture. Context here, I want us to see why it is that Paul makes the point that we need to walk by the Spirit when we think in terms of this battle.

He says in verse 17 in the ESV, the desires of the flesh are against the spirit. The desires of the spirit are against the flesh. These are opposed to each other. But tonight we're going to talk about that opposition and how is it that we deal with the opposition as we take a look at this particular passage in these particular verses, primarily verses 13 down through.

I want to thank the elders. I want to thank Reagan for the opportunity giving up a slot. I actually was no offense to you, Reagan, but I was hoping maybe I could hear Preston tonight. Oh, just one of the, I don't get down here all the time. You know, he says you get to preach a couple of times a month and I would have enjoyed that very much.

I've enjoyed being around Preston throughout the week. We've had A couple of occasions to get together and I hope that his work with you will be beneficial. I know that you will work with him and we need laborers in the kingdom of all sorts. And so we I look forward to hearing good things, Preston.

So keep, keep studying and keep laboring for the Lord. As we look at this, I have seen refrigerators that look like that. Yours are probably clean. Mine aren't. Mine. I just have one. But the point is, it's, it, it has all sorts of, it, it's not necessarily magnets that have scripture on it. For instance, you've probably seen some things like maybe the Ten Commandments or, you know, set your mind on things that are above, above level.

little magnetic stickers that will go on there. God is good. And there's nothing wrong with those sort of things. In fact it was a favorite saying of dad in Spanish, you know, he would say Dios es bien. And even to the point that some brethren came to, why do you say that? You know, I was in a gospel meeting a couple of weeks ago and there was a brother that we, we would, after services, we're talking at some points, well, God is good.

And that's a great statement. And then you have the fruit of the spirit somewhere. There's, there's this refrigerator magnet that, that gets there. Now, nothing wrong with these things. I don't know, like I said, that we have any refrigerator magnet, my wife may correct me, that has any scripture on it, but it's throughout the house, it's in the hallways, it's in the den, it's in the bedrooms, the bathrooms, you know, portions of scripture.

We all I've seen that in a lot of folks homes, and that's good. It reminds us of certain truths that we need to have in our life. But with some folks, that's about as far as it goes. And so they have these sayings, and maybe it's a, you know, framed somewhere, but their life is not one in which they're following after the Spirit.

And I want us to see tonight the importance of that. Why should you do it? And you might say, well, because God said to. Well, yes. But Paul gives a deeper reason for that very thing. The broad context of walking by the Spirit, it's interesting the term is used twice in this context where he talks about walking by the Spirit.

First time we come across it, verse 16, but I say walk by the Spirit and you won't fulfill the lusts of the flesh. This word is the idea of to be occupied with it. So you occupy your life with spiritual things, what the Holy Spirit has revealed. Like you're walking around and about it. This is what your life is about.

But why is it then that he goes on talking about being led by the Spirit? Now, some brethren think that possibly at this point, and we all know that in the original language, there was no capital S and little s. The point is, the context is going to determine things. If you go back to chapter 3, and in verse 2, he talks about the Holy Spirit.

That's what he has been dealing with. And he talks about the fact, you know, having begun later in chapter five, he says, you know, and, and in verse four, he says, I'm sorry, chapter five and verse five, four, we through the spirit by faith, wait, and for the hope of righteousness. He talks about having begun in the spirit.

Are you going to be complete? You see in the flesh and in the law. Well, of course not. So he's talking about the Holy Spirit here and being led by the Holy Spirit. So verse 18, then he says you need to be led by the spirit. Why is it that we need to produce the fruit of the spirit that he brings out in verse 22.

that we need to have these things. And tonight we're going to be talking about why is it that we want to keep in step with the spirit. In verse 25, again, it says, if we live by the spirit, by the spirit, let us also walk. But that's a different word. That's a word which means to, to march in rank or to keep step with.

In other words, the Bible doesn't say, you know, sort of see where the general spirit. Spirit is the Holy Spirit's kind of kind of talking about this kind of life and and just sort of make sure you're kind of moving in that direction. No, we all understand what it means to march and rank. And if you haven't been in the military, but you've been in a band, you know, a high school band or something of that nature.

Oh boy, you, you get in trouble, especially when you start doing those cartwheels and the guy on the outside has to go a little faster than the guy on the inside. And he just makes the same steps, but he doesn't move very much. And you've got to be always watching or good band director is going to be yelling your name out, you know.

For getting out of ranking and making that line less than straight. It's something you give attention to. And so he uses that word of keeping in step. With what the scriptures tell us, we ought to be doing in this. But why? Why do we do that? Well, in a broader sense, it's very similar to what you find in Revelation chapter 21, where it says there's a war in heaven.

There's a spiritual warfare going on, brethren. It's going on right now. Back then it was going on. And you have Satan as represented by a dragon. And Michael, he, the archangel, he, he represents righteousness, and, and they go to war against each other. It's a spiritual warfare between good and evil, between forces of righteousness, and the devil, and his followers.

And we find in verses 1 through 6, the dragon attacks the Christ child, and it looks like there's going to, all is going to be lost, but it isn't. He's defeated. Alright. The dragon then seeks to attack the followers of the Lord, but he's unsuccessful because they overcome because of the blood of the Lamb, because of the word of the testimony, and because they loved not their life unto death.

They realize this is something that cost my life, but I'm going to do it. And they overcame. So, that doesn't stop it. The, the, the persecution after the death of Stephen, what happened? They all go about preaching. So the devil's defeated in that respect, but he doesn't quit. That's the point. He doesn't quit.

And so verse 17, he goes to, to make war with the rest of her seed, the woman who brought the Christ child, to keep the command, those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus. That's you and me. He's out there trying to make war with us, always. And so this, this spiritual warfare, we're the rest of the seed.

And, and it's flesh versus spirit. And you're gonna have to think in terms of following after the spirit. Why? Why do we do that? Look at the different translations. Notice he says in verse 16, Walk after the spirit and you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. What does that mean? Well, the ESV says you won't gratify the desires of the flesh or the king james not fulfill the lust of the flesh and again the new king james very similar the new american standard says you will not carry out the desire of the flesh so now we have the fact that we need to be walking by the spirit allow this we are we are to be led by the spirit that means we have to follow What the Spirit has said.

We do that so that we don't carry out the desires of the flesh. Now, is that a problem? Well, Paul even puts that in the text, doesn't he? Look at verse 21. As he gets to the end of the works of the flesh, in the latter part of verse 21, he says, Now, I forewarned you, I forewarned you, even as I did forewarn you, that they that practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

You're not going to go to heaven. You fulfill the lust of the flesh, you're not going to heaven. Daddy was a preacher, doesn't matter. Grandpa was an elder, doesn't matter. You can't be doing these things. You have to follow after the Spirit. There's a conflict. This, this passage always bugged me a little bit because I study out of the American Standard.

That's gonna be the, that's the top one there in the screen. And the flesh lusts against the spirit. Well that, that makes sense, you know. Because flesh here, by the way, is not being used in the sense of, you know, the physical body. But it's being used in the sense of the sinful things. That is done by the physical body.

It's the avenue that Satan has to tempt us. He tempts us in the flesh. Lust of the eyes. You see, the lust of the flesh. The, the, the sensuality. The senses. Even the word sensuality. You see, it comes from the idea of senses. Touch, taste, smell. Even in the sense of, of Esau in Jacob. You know, he, he was hungry and he, he smelled What, what Jacob had made.

And so Esau profaned something holy, takes something holy, makes it common, sells its birthright. All because of, of that sensing. So sensuality, that doesn't always mean something involving sex. It's just simply, you know, giving in to the desires of the day. Whatever that might be.

And so, the flesh lusting against the spirit. I could see that, but, but then, you know. It's the spirit against the flesh. I think the Holy Spirit wouldn't lust, would he? Well, it was comes from my misunderstanding of lust. Lust simply means a strong desire. It's used on one occasion of Jesus. When he talks about how he desired, he desired to partake of the Passover with his disciples.

It's the same word that gets translated lust. The translators don't put that in there because they thought that might be confusing. As lust always, the English word always gets associated with something sinful. But it's the same word in the original language. Jesus had a strong desire to partake of the Passover with his disciples.

On another occasion, Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, talked about this strong desire. I, I, you could translate it, I lust to come and be there. Had a, he had a strong desire to go back to Thessalonica. And so, that's what is going on here. The flesh has, it's a strong desire against what the spirit is. And the spirit is against the flesh in the same sense.

These are contrary to each other. That's why there's a conflict there. That you may do the things that you, that you may not do the things that you would. But again, I look at that verse and say, What, what are you What, what is this? Lust again? And, and what's this doing? The things that are, what is it saying?

I wanna do simple things. Well, look at the ESV again. It's just a difficult, not impossible, just a hard translation. And some of the problems comes with our English words and the changes that they make for the desires of the flesh. Look at the second, the ESV, the desires. See, they see the point. And so instead of putting lust.

This is strong desire. The desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. That's right. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. Or the New King James. The flesh, lust against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh.

These are contrary to each other. So that you do not do the things that you wish. Probably the one in my mind that seems to be the clearest. It's the New American Standard where it says the desire of the flesh is against the spirit, spirit against the flesh. These are in opposition one to another in order to keep you from doing what you want.

Satan is there saying you want this. It may be the aspect of covetousness. I said it's not all as we'll see here. It's not all about we think in terms of lust. Well, that's got to be talking about sexual things. Well, it involves that. But we can lust after all kinds of things, material things, we can lust after power, we can lust after recognition, and so, you know, the vainglory of life.

And so we see that it keeps us from doing those things. And so we want to be led by the Spirit, walk, keep in order with the Spirit, because this is the power that is going to keep us from doing what we want to do. When we look at this passage Well, we can make all kinds of application to life, and Paul is, is taking this general truth.

He is putting it within an immediate context. There's like two bookends, if you would. One of them is up in verse 15. We know that there was the problem of the Judaizing teacher who was trying to teach that you still had to keep portions of the law in order to be saved, and Paul is addressing that. We saw how that Peter in chapter 2, you know, he gets carried away and he treats the Jewish brethren one way and the Gentiles another.

Can't do that. And so there, there was, there, there was a struggle there. There was strife there. And in verse 15 he says, in a, in a sarcastic way, If you bite and devour one another, be careful you don't consume each other. What's going on there? Well, they weren't following after the Spirit. Look at verse 26, or rather verse 25.

If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk. Let us not become vainglorious, provoking one another, envying one another, fighting, biting, and devour. And so he puts in between this the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, but he gets back to it. You're doing what you ought to be doing.

You may, you may be wanting, there may be some jealousy there, they're fighting and devouring. It'll stop. So those are kind of the bookends of this whole discussion there. This is what's going to help them to get along and to work with each other. And let us not think that that can't be a problem in the Lord's Church today.

It's good when a congregation like this and many others have men who have spent their life and trying to qualify, meet those qualifications of elders, and then serve in order to help God's people go to heaven, shepherding the flock.

But there are brethren who have thought that if we had elders, there'd be no problems. There'd be no strife. There'd be no conflict. I'm glad that it, at least from the things I hear, didn't affect this congregation as much as others. But if you can remember back about four years in COVID, then you can know that there can be strife and difficulty where there should not be.

Because at some point, someone is not following after the Spirit. And even to this day, as I hold meetings in different congregations, at some point that could, yes, about three or four weeks ago, this one brother said, yeah, that, that kind of. let you know who's really doing God's will and, and who isn't.

They had some issues. Why is it that after that, even when congregations, we, we were dealing with something we didn't know in many respects. And then there were some things we did know, but there, you know, so I remember, in fact, I was down here first time that, you know, nobody meets and, and I, I, I forget who it was, maybe it was Josh, you know, he.

He had his cell phone and puts it up on Facebook or something like that. So, so you couldn't have more than, than 10 people. Reagan and Stephanie, you know, his family and Sue and I, I think we were hearing Josh and I can't recall if it was Brother Harold or not, but, you know, there was I think there were 11 of us and somebody put up here on the attendance board.

That was back then put 10. It's going out there, you know.

Ah, they got 11.

And then eventually, I don't know how it happened, but eventually you guys got the coming back and worshiping again. But there were folks, there were folks in Benton. We did the same thing. There was five of us at meet, video, all of that sort of thing. Everyone's at home. Then we finally began to realize, yes, we can get back together.

And we did. And there's some who never did. Why did that happen? Well, then we're not being led by the spirit. And so it's, it's very important that we consider that today. Notice, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the spirit oppose each other. By the way, this is not like, we've, we've, we've been watching some of Maddie's and Brooklyn's volleyball.

And afterwards, yes, they're, they're, these two teams are in opposition to each other. And when it's all over, what do they do? They all line up and go, you know, good game, good game, good game. It's not that kind of opposition. We, we, we don't go, Satan, yeah, good try, good try, but I, I beat you with the power of the Lord.

No, no, no, this is, this is serious warfare that is taking place. These things are in opposition to each other, and you've got to be following after the Spirit in order to be able to keep from doing those things that Satan tempts you to do. Now he talks about the works of the flesh. As I said, this isn't just talking about our physical body.

It's really talking about man without God. He's simply going to behave, as we would say, like an animal. This is not the false doctrine of the Calvinistic idea of sinful nature. You know, you sin because you're in a physical body. It's just, it's, you're born with this. No, that's not what it's meant. Some translations and even the early NIV.

Instead of saying works of the flesh, they would, that says sinful nature. Now the NIV has been updated and they took that out and put flesh back in, because that's what belongs in the translation. It's what you find in Romans chapter one. You recall where the people refused to have God in their knowledge and God keep giving them a refused to have them in their knowledge.

And so what ends up, it ends up all kinds of depraved activity of homosexuality, men and women, you know, doing those things. Because that's what happens when you remove God. And we too will lose the battle against righteousness and godly living if we follow after the works of the flesh. And it'll keep us from going to heaven.

The works of the flesh are evident. Like I said, we're not gonna talk about all of the specifics. Works of the flesh are adultery. That's found in your King James and New King James. It's not, if you're looking at another translation, it won't be there because that's a textual variant. Don't let that bother you.

Fornication is the general term. for these sexual sins. In some translations they say sexual immorality. It would involve homosexuality, adultery, all of that is there. It is a work of the flesh. And then you have uncleanness or the older word lasciviousness, the newer word lewdness the immodest dress, the talk, behavior, the gyrations and so forth that would entice fornication.

You have idolatry, you have witchcraft, very similar to each other, in that they really rule out God as the ruler and the creator of this universe. You have sins of attitude, like hatred, or strife. Older translations say variants, emulations, we don't use that word much, but it's the idea of jealousy, wrath, selfish ambition, or strife of that sort, heresies, factions, seditions, or dissensions.

That's the kind of stuff that was going on, unfortunately, during COVID. One particular situation, elders got together as they were getting ready to start assembling again. The elders got together and said, okay, we'll make some rules here. We'll sit, you know, families, six feet apart, that type of thing. Much like y'all do the Lord's supper today, started doing the same thing, you know, try to be hygienic, had, had you know, hand sanitizer and all of that type of thing, trying to do the best.

Everybody would wear a mask as they're coming in. And as they were going. But they had consulted with some doctors and the doctor said that the speakers, because with us, the closest person was 18 feet away, they said, no, the speaker does not have to be masked or the song leader. And so the elders decide, okay, so You know, song leader would have his mask on, he'd get up and he would take it off and lead the thing and put it back on as he'd go down.

So as these rules were being set forth on a Zoom with all of the brethren in the congregation, let everybody know what it was going to be like next Sunday.

The wife of one of the elders, One of the elders leans over his shoulder and says, no, a song leader and preacher have to be masked.

So you've got problems of submission, both the husband and to the leadership. That's why I said, we think we, we just have elders. Nope. Everything doesn't go away. And it caused problems. And then others started speaking up. Someone else said,

I just can't believe you'd be so unloving as to want to hurt other people.

Meaning, the person standing up here talking was just,

there was a lot of strife, sedition, faction. It was the work of the flesh, brethren. We talked about Indians, again, murders doesn't always show up in some translation against the textual variance, drunkenness, revelings, some will say orgies, but that's, it's not sexual orgy. It's just this idea of let's go party.

You know, just, just let it all go loose. So the idea of, of yelling and screaming and it could involve drunkenness, but, but not always so. Just out of control. And some people think, well, that's okay. You know, spring break, let's go to this place and just get out of control. Yeah, that's, that's the world, but that's the work of the flesh brother.

And those who participate in any of this stuff right here will not inherit the kingdom of God. But notice as he talks about the fruit of the Spirit, and I know that this has been brought to your attention before, it's not fruits of the Spirit because this isn't going to be cafeteria style. This is fruit of the Spirit.

When you follow the Spirit, every one of these things will be part of your life. Love, joy, Peace. Long suffering. Well, I'll have to admit, I'm kind of short tempered, so I'm going to leave that one out. No. Kindness. You can't leave out goodness. You can't leave out faithfulness. Had a great lesson this morning.

Even during difficult times, you got to be true to the Lord. The just, the righteous, if you're a righteous person, will live in his faithfulness and his trusting in doing God's will. God called on it back then, calls on it today. We know that's not weakness. We know that. Who is the meekest man on earth?

There's a reason why Hollywood got Charlton Heston to play Moses. There's a reason why. Because Moses wasn't a weakling. They're all saying, oh, you brought us down here to die. Stand still and see the salvation of Jehovah. The man was a leader, even dealing with people who, while he's getting the law, they're down committing fornication and rebelling.

This man was a leader. This man was strong in spirit and in character. But he's described in scripture as the meekest man. Because what it is, it is a humility that is controlled by God. It's self control. It's recognizing there's someone greater than yourself. And that's why you don't lose it. That's why you don't say things like, Nobody talks to me that way.

Satan does. How you gonna react to him? Is it about you or is it about the Lord? You see, when you're walking in meekness, for the meek shall inherit the earth, the earth doesn't inherit you. When the earth, when the world is controlling you, when your environment is controlling you, you don't inherit it, it's inheriting you.

But the meek inherit the earth. They, they deal with what goes on around them. And so the fruit of the Spirit, all of these things are to be part of a person's life. And when that's the case, what did Paul say? This is a warfare, and if these are in your life, if this is who you are, if this is your character, Then you can go up against the works of the flesh, which are strong and powerful, and you will overcome that.

Notice, and by the way, you might move those arrows around a little bit, that's fine. This is just to illustrate, and quickly do so, how that, if we have the fruit of the Spirit, all of these things, then it, we overcome. If, if there's love in our life, for instance, there's not going to be this strife, or the word there is translated, and rightly so, the Greek word means selfish ambition.

Remember 1 Corinthians 13, love seeketh not its own. There's your selfish ambition, but love doesn't do that. And so, you know, you're going to be a little calmer, there'll be someone who has an opinion different from you. But you're going to be able to deal with that. Love doesn't envy. Again, 1 Corinthians 13.

Certainly not going to get to the point of murder. And we're not going to be like Cain and Abel, where we just allow this stuff to seethe in us to the point that, that, that, that we don't overcome it, but it overcomes us. God even told Cain, look, sin is, it's, it's couching, it's ready to pounce on you, but But you can reign over that.

He didn't listen to God, and so one day he rose up and slew his brother, because he didn't love him. You think about adultery. We know what that is, and so obviously true love, a person loves their spouse, but adultery involves not only the breaking of a vow, but when two others come together and they have no right to be together, that's not love, that's lust actually.

You're not helping each other go to heaven. You're helping each other lose your soul. And so fornication, same way. How many, a young lady has fallen into the trap of men. Listen, it's been around for a long time. And when I was a teenager, guys talked about it in my locker room all the time. Here's what you do.

Tell her, tell her that you love her and that she's the greatest thing in the world. And, and you would do this with me. You would commit this fornication with me. You would do this. They don't never use that word, but you would do this if you loved me.

Well, I kind of don't want to, but I want him to know I love him and he loves me.

Yeah, guys talked about that. This is how you do it. It's a lie, of course. And they have no true love. It's a selfishness on their part. That doesn't always happen that way, but many times it does. Fornication wouldn't be an issue where there's true love, as well as maybe some other things there. Again, my point is, isn't to say that that's the only thing love conquers.

It's just simply to say, if this, the fruit of the Spirit is in your life, it begins to conquer some of these things. What about joy? You're a person who wants to be happy and is happy. I

hope this isn't too embarrassing, but Joy Reidelhuber. It's, it's easy to remember her name. Just because she's always smiling. At least at me, anyway. Maybe it's because she only sees me once a year and forgets, you know, hasn't learned all my bad traits or whatever, you know. But, you know, there's always smile, joy, happiness.

A person just want to be happy, not, not always going, How you feeling today? Well, that's terrible. Joy overcomes hatred, or this idea of strife, you know? Some people love to, quote, love to mix it up, love to always argue. I went to work with some brethren in Tennessee about 30 years ago or so, and they had me, began teaching a young adult class, much like the congregation had different classes, but they had a young adult class.

And I was told by several of them, before the very first class, they said, now watch out for so and so. because somewhere he's going to find something you say and it'll be a quibble, but he's going to start, you know, attacking you. You're going to start quibbling with you. Well, poor fella didn't know me.

It's like, bring it on because I'm just going to take the text here. All right. No braggadocios on my part. Don't, don't start quibbling with God's word or we're going to have an issue here. But sure enough, he had to do it. Because he just loved this idea of stirring things up.

He wasn't looking for joy and happiness, looking for attention. What about peace? That won't be envying. If you're looking to be at peace, Hey, so and so, their, their daughter just graduated valedictorian. Well, my daughter also, they're the dear sister, you know, no matter what your kid or your grandkid or your cousin, Or your third uncle, fifth removed, or whatever, did, you know, she had the same and more.

It was always the idea that we just can't sit there and say, well that's great. And there's no peace there in a person's heart with all of the things that you see. But, you know, Peace, a person looking for that. What did Jesus say? By the way, have you ever noticed how the fruit of the Spirit comports with the beatitudes?

You know, blessed are the peacemakers. We've already talked to meek. They shall inherit the earth. There's a lot of the beatitudes that are found in these very things. Not blessed are the peace lovers. We all love it, or should, but blessed are the peacemakers. What about longsuffering? We all understand what that means.

You know, patient with somebody. Well, certainly would take care of murders. Again, but what about the strife or the selfish ambition? Sometimes you see that in others. So, what are you going to do to help that person? Have you ever thought about that way? You see certain works of the flesh, character flaws in someone.

Do you approach it like, how do I work with this person to get them to stop doing that so much and start doing this other, as opposed to just simply staying away from long suffering? Even Paul, as he's writing to Timothy, talks about the fact that here's scripture, you know, and it's profitable for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

And he goes on to tell him that a preacher has to reprove and rebuke and exhort. What? With all long suffering. And on that sometimes preachers aren't careful. And they'll just boom, boom, boom, boom. But where's the long suffering? He's simply saying you've got to work with that. How about kindness and goodness?

By the way, they're not the same. I'm just putting them together for sake of time. So one of the fruits of the Spirit is kindness, and the other, goodness. But you can see how that, that goodness isn't going to involve itself in uncleanness, or lasciviousness and lewdness, hatred, variance, strife, envying.

If, if kindness and goodness, if you're looking for what's good and wholesome in your life It'll help you to fight these things. Faithfulness, as we talked about this morning. You're, you're, you're not looking to be like the world. And that's what Peter says, you know, they're going to think it's strange if you don't run to the same excess of riot, you know, just letting it go.

Because Christians don't do that. They exercise self control and being faithful to the Lord. They're not involved in these revelings. Or adultery or fornication or uncles or less seriousness? The, the sexting, the, the Instagram, the pictures out there that are being put out, they're not being faithful to the Lord.

Obviously, idolatry in witchcraft, not faithful to God. And then the last two meekness or the won't be there. Oh, your, your son just got this good job. I'm, I'm glad to hear that you think about that, brethren, if a person's child. Remember the church, they're faithful in their attendance, and they just get this job that's got like six figures or more.

If that person is faithful to the Lord, why would I envy that sort of thing? The contribution's gonna go up. More men can be supported in preaching the gospel. The blessings that come to God's people are great, because this person got a good job. That's great. Why don't we approach it that way? And say, well, my son could have done this and that and thus and so, but he chose blah, blah, blah, you know.

All of these things can be combatted by meekness, obviously, self control, the desires. God puts that in our life. Hunger. It's a desire. You don't steal your bread, though. It's okay to do your best. The right of ecclesiastes, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. Amen. But if you don't get to be number one, if you're second place, that's okay.

Life isn't about always being number one. It's about doing your best and then being meek and not bragging about it. Because love doesn't brag. First Corinthians 13. But all of the other things that take place where a person just gives in to the desires, you saw that in the very early part, didn't you?

That, that, that person who is led by the Spirit. All of these things are fighting over here, the works of the flesh. And what's always guaranteed is that the person who is led by the Spirit, he'll always win against the works of the flesh. He puts it just a little differently. Who hasn't studied about the armor of God?

So writing to the Ephesians, dealing with issues again of this spiritual warfare. We put on that whole armor of God, and we do so with prayer. Why? So we can fight against the schemes of the wiles of the devil.

We fight against the plans that he puts out there.

We have to,

or you lose. You can't avoid the fight. Michael couldn't avoid the fight with the dragon. He had to take the fight to the dragon and overcome the dragon, then attacks Christ and he's not successful and he attacks New Testament Christians and not successful and he's going to attack you and me, but you're here tonight.

Because he's not successful. And I trust that you're following after the spirit, because if we follow after the spirit, we will put to death, meaning we will win the battle of the deeds of the flesh. If we follow after the spirit, we will put to death the deeds of the flesh. Galatians 6 and verse 8, For he that soweth unto his own flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth unto the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal life.

This, this theme about spirit and flesh runs all the way through the book, right down to the very end. You and I want to go to heaven. Satan doesn't want us to go to heaven, but the Spirit of God and Himself and His Son Jesus Christ wants us to dwell with Him. If you're here tonight and. There is something that has been plaguing you in this life that is keeping you from following after the fruit of the Spirit, producing that in your life.

If there's a work of the flesh that has been overcoming you, the brethren here would be glad to pray with you and to study with you and work with you. There is no sin of the flesh that cannot be overcome, none whatsoever. But Satan is strong, that's why he's represented as a dragon. He's strong, but the Lord is stronger in His Word and His people, and if there's any way that we can help you, either to become a child of God, or to remain faithful to Him, you might choose to let us know this evening.

One of the brethren here will take you in hand, and we will do what is necessary with the power of God to help you get to heaven too. That's, that's our only desire. Let us know how we can help you as we stand and sing.

Jesus loves me.