Understanding Our Spiritual Enemy and the Call to Holiness

- "Fear not tomorrow. Tomorrow is one good morning." [01:30]
- "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." [02:55]
- "The forehead represents ideological commitment and the hand the practical outworking of that commitment." [23:40]
- "The difference between the person who grows in holiness and the one who doesn't is not a matter of personality, upbringing, or gifting. The difference is what each has planted into the soil of his or her heart and soul." [31:57]
- "Hospitality, when you get it right down to it, is unnatural. It is difficult to place others first because our inclination is to take care of ourselves first." [42:06]

But the word of the Lord tells a different story. Hope echoes throughout the pages of Scripture. Despite the mystery that surrounds it, the book of Revelation offers the people of God a clear message: Fear not tomorrow. Tomorrow is one.

Good morning, church! Good morning to those that are worshiping online. It's so good to be with you this morning. My name is Larry, and I recently retired from 50 years of working, but I have not retired from fighting the good fight of faith. I have not retired from pressing on to the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, my Lord.

And that fight is what brought me to the Village Church. You see, you have to ask yourself when you near retirement, what are you going to do for the kingdom beyond what you're doing now? So the Village Church graciously allowed this old guy to be part of the church planting program. The church planting program has my friends that are planting new churches, those that are replanting churches, and they called me a revitalizer. I do not know what a revitalizer is, but I can tell you one thing: it has revitalized me. [Applause]

You know, when you ask yourself what you're going to do, you have to always go back and say, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." So I encourage each of you to do that. I encourage you to be one of those units that goes to the unreached people groups in the 10/40 window. I encourage you to plant a church, to replant a church, or join me and my wife going to some rural church someplace that is in vast need.

I read this last week that there are 600 Southern Baptist churches that will close their doors. That's a sad case, and these rural areas are in deep, deep need. So I encourage you to fight the good fight.

And it's appropriate that we read this verse in Revelation 13. I'll start with verse 9: "If anyone has an ear, let him hear." That's you and me; we have to listen to this. "If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes. If anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints." Blessed be the word of God. Thanks be to God.

For a second there, I didn't know if I was preaching. I thought, "Okay, I'll just go sit with my family." We love us some Larry, as you can tell.

Well, if you have your Bibles, please do open up to chapter 13. Like last week, I want to kind of show you some things in the chapter as we walk through it. I have this memory of starting to go to church and them talking about the blood of the Lamb. Without a lot of context, that little phrase like wigged me out a little bit. I wasn't sure if I was like joining a cult. Are they about to bring a lamb out? If they kill something in this church, I'm calling the police. I didn't have language for it.

As I was getting ready for this week in particular, I thought if you had no background in church and you just showed up today for the first time ever, and I'm talking about dragons and beasts coming out of the sea and a beast coming out of the earth and a cosmic battle, you might just think these people are insane.

And so what I want to do is just remind you of some of the things that we talked about in week one in order to get us ready for today. The first is that the book of Revelation is primarily apocalyptic in its use of language. That means it uses a lot of symbols and signs in order to help us understand imagery meant to provoke something in us that's hard to provoke without that. The kind of imagery that God is giving us in the book.

I loved this quote from Daryl Johnson. We used it—not the fullback Daryl Johnson for you old heads, but the theologian—not the same guy. He said this in week one as we talked about this idea: "Imagery has the power to hook us deep inside. Images can quickly and effectively convey that which we struggle to put into words. Imagery goes beyond the intellect and through the emotions into the imagination, grabbing hold of us at the deepest recesses of our being."

Imagery goes beyond the intellect and through the emotions into the imagination, informing the intellect and igniting the emotions. And so today, as we talk about dragons and beasts, I just need you to know if you've got no background in church, we don't—we're not a group of people that actually thinks there's a literal dragon out waiting to kill us. We do think there is an enemy out to destroy us, and we think that if you would get to know and understand that enemy, it would help you understand some of the heartache you've endured, some of the disappointment you've walked in, and some of the pain that you might have experienced in your life.

We believe there's a very real enemy that humankind is facing, and this book is meant to expose it for what it is. Right now, as we dive in this week, just to catch you up in the story, remember Revelation is not linear; it's a series of windows.

We saw window one, which was the throne room of God Almighty, Christ on His throne—ultimate reality, everything flowing to that, moving towards that. That was window one. Window two was a series of trumpet blasts where God called the world to repentance. And now you and I are in what's called the interlude. It's the interlude between the trumpets and the bowls, and in this interlude, God is helping us understand our enemy and how our enemy works.

Last week, we looked at this on a cosmic scale. We looked at the Christmas story that wasn't much like the Christmas story you and I grew up with, and that plays back right to this idea that imagery provoked something in us that normal words don't—like a dragon and a baby and war and the archangel Michael. All that provoked in you something other than just lighting a candle and singing "Silent Night, Holy Night." That's the imagery doing its job, and we're going to get more of that today.

The dragon, Satan, makes war against the people of God. This is what the verse said last week. If you forgot, in verse 17, that the dragon is enraged and pursues to destroy those who keep the commandments of God and hold on to the testimony of Jesus.

Now here's this week. That was the cosmic battle. Here's what it looks like on the ground. The dragon does not do this directly, but he calls out two beasts, two monsters, to help him. And these monsters, along with the dragon, form an unholy trinity that mimics the actual triune God of the universe. The dragon seeks to be God the Father, the first beast seeks to be God the Son, and the third beast seeks to be God the Holy Spirit. They mimic and mock and are a pathetic replacement for the actual triune God of the universe.

And so that's what we'll see today. I want to introduce you to the beast by means of introduction, and then we'll talk about what to do with it.

Beast number one is found in verses 1 through 10. Beast number one comes up out of the sea, comes up out of the ocean, and this beast looks almost identical to the beast that we see in Daniel chapter 7. So if you'll remember what we said in week one, there is nothing in Revelation that the Bible has not already said. Right? That this is the people reading this in 96—they are hearing a lot of Old Testament that you and I aren't hearing because we just don't really know the Old Testament all that well.

But this looks very much like the beast in Daniel chapter 7. And what the beast in Daniel chapter 7 represents was the nations that ruled over the known world: Babylon, Persia, Mede, and ultimately the Greeks. So the beast is the embodiment of all that was expressed in the four beasts in Daniel 7.

So the beast from the sea—are you ready? Here's enemy number one: the beast from the sea is the state—human kingdoms that have rejected the living God from the center of their lives. At the time John is writing this, the beast is clearly manifesting as Rome. Like we'll see this all the more clearly in Revelation 17. When they're reading this in 96, they're thinking Rome. The beast is Rome, and they're not wrong. It's just not only Rome.

See, before Rome, the beast had manifested in Egypt, in Assyria, in Babylon. John wants us to see that when a nation sets out to be their own master, they turn beastly. Power that is no longer exercised under God seeks to play God. Power that no longer resides under God will seek to play God, and they'll grow far more beastly than they will humane.

Let me give you this quote again from Daryl Johnson: "John is opening up a sober, unseen reality of the present governments which step out from under the rule of God do not become more divine; they become demonic. Governments that exalt humanity as the measure of all things do not become more humane; they become more beastly."

John highlights that in the middle of these nation-states, they become more demonic and more beastly. These things are a part of how the dragon wages war against the people of God. They also, if you read the passage this week or if you glance down at it, you can see that this beast gets a mortal wound and yet has a kind of faux mimicking resurrection that makes everybody put in awe.

We know this because this beast is hard to kill. We killed it in World War II as we launched out against the Nazis, and it just came right back as communism. And then the battle of communism still kind of rages on—probably more in-house now than out-house. But then now you have all sorts of other totalitarian regimes that have popped up.

And guys, you might hate me for this, but you better start praying for our country. Better start praying for our country. If you can't pop your eyes up and see that this ain't somebody from across the pond right now, that I'm really anxious for our future.

Look at verse 4 because verse 4 tells you what the end game is: "And they worshipped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, 'Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?'"

So this is important to know, and this helps us see when this is happening. The purpose of the beast is not merely the exercise of political power. That's not the end game. The objective is capturing the loyalties of men and women and diverting them away from the worship of God.

The way this beast fights us is not necessarily by throwing us into jail or killing us or hard-pressing us. It simply wants us to worship the state. It simply wants to pull our loyalty away from Jesus and put it on something that cannot help us or ultimately save us. This is the game, and he's good at it. I'm telling you, he's good.

He is so subversive and good that it won't even feel like this is happening. Like the devil knows what he's doing. Like if I were to walk up to you right now and go, "In two minutes, I'm going to walk up to you, I'm going to tap you on the shoulder, and I'm going to punch you right in your head." Now wouldn't you at least now know this dude might punch me in the head?

So my dad—I don't know if your dad made you watch movies with him on Sunday afternoon—there was a movie called Billy Jack. I know, anybody watch this movie? Okay, sorry, I just lost every millennial in here and down.

So Billy Jack was the story of a Native American man who had come back from serving in Vietnam, and his wife ran this little school, and some rednecks—that's the best I know to do—were making life miserable. So Billy Jack's gonna handle some business, and there's this scene in Billy Jack where he's talking to one of the rednecks, like, "What are you going to do?" And he's like, "I'll tell you what I'm going to do. Take this left foot right here, I'm going to put it across the right side of your face. I'm going to grab him, I'm going to break his neck, take that dude's leg off, I'm gonna beat him to death with that guy's leg."

And then, like, you're like, "Oh my gosh, Billy Jack is amazing!"

Now the enemy's not going to work this way. The enemy is not going to look at me. It's going to sound right. Good God, did you not see this in 25 freaking pulpits meant to point to Jesus pointed to the state? Like, listen to me, this is the beast, and it just felt right.

Oh yeah, because look at all this. Oh my gosh, this is going to happen. And gosh, some of that is happening because they know better, right? This is what the beast does.

So listen, be discretionary where you place your hope, guys. Just be. I'm not trying to turn you into a cynic. Like, I'm not trying to turn you—like, we should not be cynical. If anybody should not be cynical, it's us. But be careful.

But the state isn't the only way the dragon seeks to destroy the children of God. That brings me to beast two. This is found in verses 11 through 18, and then it hits right out of the gate. There's not a lot of transitionary sentences; it just starts to describe.

So we see right out of the gate that the purpose of the second beast is to get people to worship the first beast. So the second beast seeks to get people to trust, follow, and worship political power that has moved out from under God. He performs great signs, creates an image of the first beast, gives breath to it. The second beast makes it very difficult for anyone who's not bowed down to the first. He can kill those who don't worship the image. He puts a mark on the people, mirroring the Lamb yet again, makes it extremely difficult to buy, sell, do business with the world unless they take on the mark of the beast, which we're going to get to.

And are you so excited about that? In Revelation 16, 19, and 20, this beast is called the false prophet. If the beast from the sea is dragon-manipulated political power, the beast from the earth is dragon-manipulated religious power in institutions. True prophets lead people to the worship of the living God. That's what they do.

False prophets, this one in particular, lead people to a worship of the state, where the beast—this beast is advocating putting your hope in human means and institutions. That's all he does. Like, put your hope in these institutions. This will save you. This will win the day. This is what's best for your grandchildren.

This is the second beast. The second beast also likes to encourage a compromise agreement between us and the culture. Again, this is that—and you're seeing this right now with all the deconstruction I mentioned last week, where it's like, "No, God really—I don't think God really said that." I mean, "Holy 1912." There's no way the God of the Bible actually believes that. No, He does.

Right? This is the just compromise. This compromise—maybe we can make Christianity pretty for people. Wouldn't it be great if we were cool? If they saw us like, "Oh man, they're not that bad." Now this is the second beast negotiating a compromise.

Now it's important to note that we don't fight this beast by studying these beasts. You fight these beasts by knowing the real thing. Right? So back to week three and centering worship in the throne room of God. The way that you and I stand firm and are able to spot the activities of these beasts—both of these beasts—is to look at the real thing so that we can spot the counterfeit.

This is how our agents find counterfeit bills. It's not that they know about every way of counterfeiting; they know the real thing so well that they can spot a fake. They know the real thing so well that they can spot a fake. They know the real thing so well—they know the nature, the beauty, the character, the majesty of Jesus so well that they can look at other things and go, "Pathetic substitute for the real thing."

Right? This is how we spot the beast.

So then how then shall we live? By the way, that was my intro. You're going to be fine. I've already done this once; it's fine.

When I first said, "Hey, we're going to do Revelation," the number one question I got was about the mark of the beast. Literally, number one: "Do you think it's the vaccine, pastor? Are they going to, like, you know, put a chip or are we just waiting for them to put a chip in, like, my hand and my forehead?"

Again, you're into me smarter than that. Like, right? If it really was like that, I mean, honestly, like if all of a sudden the—like from the highest place in government—they were like, "Without this chip in your forehead, you cannot do any business," like how are any of us deceived by that? You're like, "Nice try, sucker. I've read the passage."

Like the enemy ain't coming at us like that. He's better than—I mean, whatever you can imagine as a kind of insurgency against the people of God, he's better than that. He ain't coming at us clean like that.

God, that'd be—wouldn't that be amazing? Oh yeah, no, I'm not going to—it's not your phone. Now you should get off that phone, but it ain't your phone.

It's not. Listen, when we need—and this is—I'm going somewhere with this. 666 is a symbol; it's not a code to be cracked. Right? So let me explain that to you. Six is one less than the number seven. You're welcome. I did all that work for you. You don't have to dig into the text; you're going to have to grab a commentary. Just my little gift to you today.

There's seven, and then right behind that is six—or before that, depending on how you're counting. Now seven in the Bible is the number of completeness. Six is therefore incomplete. Six is the number of incompleteness.

Now this is important. Remember, the best the beast can do is mimic. It's the best the beast can do. It can mimic. And we know that because we've already gazed upon the heavens. In fact, these beasts are parodies of the God we already see.

So like the second beast is a—what? It's like a mangy lamb. It ain't the Lamb of Glory, not the Lion Lamb. It's this pathetic, janky lamb. Like John, in a way, is kind of jabbing at these beasts, going, "Really? You're trying to mimic?"

Oh yeah, like this little pathetic minor little baby resurrection—that this resurrection ain't ruling and reigning over the entire cosmos. Like John's jabbing here a little bit; he's mocking here a little bit.

So the best either beast can do is mimic. He's a six. Now why three sixes? Well, because three is also a number for completeness in the Bible. So look at me: he's completely incomplete. How awesome is that?

Now where are you going to be branded with this number? Glad you asked. You're not. You're not. No one's going to implant anything into you. Nobody's going to brand you.

Then I know those were really scary shows that came out in the 70s. There's no guillotine coming for you. Right? What is this talking about? The hand and the forehead are unbelievably significant when it comes to how God molds and forms His people.

If you remember the Shema, you remember the Shema where they've got the law of God written, and they would wear it on their forehead—the law of God written on their hand, the law of God on their gates, on their door, everywhere. When they rose, when they woke, they were looking at the law.

It's about ideology and action. When we're talking about the mark of the beast, we're talking about internal character made manifest in behavior. Some of you are living out the mark of the beast right now. You already got it on you. It's not some future branding; it's you not being serious about holiness. You holding hands with sin. You not being serious about the kingdom of God. That's the mark of the beast. [Applause]

G.K. Beale says it this way, and then we've got to have a talk: "The forehead represents ideological commitment, and the hand the practical outworking of that commitment."

So I'm going to do something you're not supposed to do. We're going to talk about politics real quick—a family meeting. That means right-wing and left-wing ideology are both sixes.

So let's chat. Republican ideology is like your dad: "Suck it up, make your bed, clean up after yourself." And the Democrats are like your mom: "Oh baby, come here. No, get in here. Listen, just take all of it. It's just yours. You don't have to do anything."

Listen, I'm not lying. This is—and maybe you can't hear me right now because you're like, "Bro, my mom was going, 'Suck it up.' My dad was like, 'Baby, hold me, baby, hold me. Let's hold each other.'" Maybe that's the house you grew up in. I don't know.

Look at me: you're going to hate this, but I'm going to love you enough. The right is correct to a point, and then they serve the dragon. And the left is right to a point, and then they serve the dragon. You might hate that, and I hate that you hate that, but that's the truth.

And if our nation won't repent—let me just make it smaller. If the Church of Jesus Christ in this nation will not repent, it will not be long until we're on the trash heap with every great nation that came before us, and something new will rise to the surface.

Now one of the reasons I'm trying to push this right is I want to see massive repentance among the people of God—a waking up to the reality that we're in.

So what do we do? Because you're like, "Okay, great. What? What? What?" Okay, let's go look at our text again: Revelation 13:10. "If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes. If anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and the faith of the saints."

This is yet again—he is referencing Jeremiah here, and he's referencing Jeremiah in a way that's provoking us not to fight with the weapons that these two beasts fight with.

So do you remember this? This is a shadow even of Jesus saying to Peter, "Put away your sword. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword."

So I was in a member meeting after my Acts 13 kind of political exclamation point back in November, and a member in a member meeting was like, "So we're not going to resist?" And I said, "No, we're going to freaking resist."

Oh, we're going to resist hard. I just think we might not resist like you think we're going to resist. Oh, we're going to resist. We're going to resist in a massive way.

Like, this is John; this is Jesus saying to us, "We won't use their weapons against them lest we become them."

And then what's the call? Faithful endurance.

So let's talk about that. So I said last week—last week was fun for me. Last week, I just went in, and then the amount of feedback I got from you was like, "Let's go! I'm in! I'm with you, pastor!"

But here's the thing: I hadn't even said what that looks like yet. So here's what I know: that's just all adrenaline, and adrenaline doesn't make for war-winning. Right? It doesn't make for war-winning. No, no, no. You need a heartbeat for war-winning. You need endurance for war-winning.

And you can get hyped up for the first round or two. Anybody play sports? Going to that pre-game speech, you're like, "Whoa!" Five minutes later, you don't know about that speech anymore. You're like, "This guy's bigger, stronger. I'm getting my tail kicked. It don't matter."

So I'm trying to whip up adrenaline; it doesn't go anywhere. We're not going to need adrenaline; we need something else.

And so here's what I want to do: I want to talk about what faithful endurance looks like. And if you really want to fight—like you want to even, like today, throw your first right hook, or if you're a lefty, left hook, whatever. Maybe you're a jabber; I don't know. Your left foot across it, whatever you want to do.

We're going to talk about what that might look like.

So here's the image: this whole time I'm like, "You want to fight me and make some trouble?" Here's how we're supposed to make trouble.

All right, so here's the first one: what are the weapons of our warfare? The first one is a serious pursuit of holiness. A serious pursuit of holiness.

Look at me: holiness is hating sin and loving righteousness. Holiness is hating sin and loving righteousness. And when I talk about hate, I'm talking about violence against sin—our sin. Not to become an expert in other people's sin, which we excel at. No, our sin—my sin.

And let me tell you why. What—let me tell you just—I’m sorry. I’ve been saying that I got to go. I want you to come. That means I've got to say some hard things. Some of you are just like baggage. You've got secret indwelling sin that you have hidden for decades. You're already shackled and put up. What good are you in the fight?

God, you're so overwhelmed by darkness, addicted to porn. You had some sort of weird affair 20 years ago you won't let anybody know. You're just hoping to take it to your grave. You're like, "If I were to confess, the stuff in my whole world would burn to the ground."

That ain't your world, bro. You're living a mirage. Hey, life—like you want to fight? You act violently towards your sin. How do you do that best? You confess it. You drag it into the light, and that's your first shot across the bow.

Now you're a problem. And if you're like, "Well, brother, man, if my spouse was to find this out or this out, man, if my kids found out that..." Yeah, it could be a train wreck. I'm not—listen, I'm not naive. I've been doing this 20 years, bro. I get it, sis.

But like right now, you're just totally in bondage, totally locked out of the fight. Do you know what it would feel like to just get it off of you? You know what your problem is to the enemy? Just with that—just the confession of sin—your sin. Like that in and of itself is like a declaration of war against it. Like, "I will not—you will not—you will have no place in my home anymore."

And you root it out. You drag it into the light. Darkness loses power in the light. It doesn't mean the journey's not easy. Like if you think about escaping prison—like if you were locked away in some deep, terrible jungle, you had to escape, and you had to make your way to freedom—think of the cost of that. That's what you—but you're going to get free.

I'm telling you, some of you are no problem at all. You're just baggage. So you're constantly worried about this or complaining about that—not in the fight at all, but complaining about the people who are in the fight.

And that's why I keep trying to create an off-ramp every week. I love you; I want you with me. But here's where we're going.

So man, just—you live in Dallas; there's a billion churches in seven square miles. But here, I don't know, man. Here, I ain't got much time. I want to fight. I want us to fight.

Remember, I want us to be a problem. That means you have got to be serious about sin—even things that you think are cute little puppy sins. You know that first day that you get—I've got to hurry—you get that puppy, like, "Oh my gosh, this puppy's amazing!" And then he destroys your couch and takes a dump on your bed.

Is that too far? I'm out. I need you to put a bullet in that puppy. Too much? Is that too much, Michael? Give me a ruling from the elders. Okay, got a thumbs up from the elders. I'm still good. Still have a job.

I need you to put it to death, guys. Look at me: there are no small sins—just sins that are waiting to destroy everything you're serious about loving.

That's why I'm trying to wake you up to the fight. You're actually—it's not a puppy; it's trying to destroy you.

So how then? How do we do this? I love this quote. It's from Tim Chester: "The difference between the person who grows in holiness and the one who doesn't is not a matter of personality, upbringing, or gifting. The difference is what each has planted into the soul of his or her heart and soul."

So holiness isn't a mysterious spiritual state that only an elite few can reach. It's more than an emotion or a resolution or an event. Look at that last sentence: holiness is a harvest. Gosh, I love that!

Like, what are you sowing into your life? What are the seeds that every day you're dropping into your soul that in time they might produce a harvest of holiness?

I've got some thoughts on this—how you cultivate a life of holiness, how you sow these seeds. The first, I already mentioned: we confess our sins. Like Luther said, in his first resolution, that the life of the Christian is one of ongoing confession and repentance. This is our primary weapon: I will not give sin a foothold in my life, no matter how embarrassing.

Second thing, I think, guys—I don't want to be this guy—you've got to pay attention to how you're spending your time. Like I keep wanting to use this phrase with you: like marinating in your own mediocrity. I feel like you guys might think I hate—so I love Netflix. Netflix is a gift of God's grace. It's also a demonic passy—just put that in your mouth and just let you go to sleep. You're fine.

Like, I ain't got no time. That's wild! You just binge seven seasons of this? I know, man, but they hooked me. Oh, they did hook you. Just the reason we do the Institute, the reason we have core classes, the reason we're doing these things, guys, is to strengthen your knowledge of who He is.

The reason we put you in groups is to stir up devotion to one another. All these things we're doing—these are acts of war organizationally. We're inviting you into to help. What are your inputs? Are you biblically serious?

And then here's something I've done. It's one of my favorite—it's one of the best things I ever did as a young pastor. I was 28, and I just started setting up groups of men who are in proximity to me and asking them to guard over my life.

You see me say something from the stage that I don't live out for my life? My expectation is you come talk to me about it. So man, I've got two sets. I've got a set of friends that's inside my work—they're pastors of this church. A couple of them are in this room right now. Another couple have left this church.

But man, I've got four guys. They see me almost every day. We text multiple times every day, and those brothers have been charged: "You see inconsistency in me? I want to hear about it."

And then I've got another group of friends that are not on staff, but I do play a lot with them, if you will. We like to get out to the Brazos River and mess around. We like to—and I want them—I'm like, "Guard me. Guard my heart. Watch me. I'm prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love."

Just hit me in the fight with me. Whatever lane you need—a little platoon. You need to invite somebody in. I need you to watch my life. I'll have blind spots. But if you don't invite them in, people are scared of conflict or they love conflict, and both of them are bad.

Right? Like you're not asking me to be real nitpicky about my life. I'd like you to watch any little detail that I said. I want you to immediately bounce on me. That brother doesn't have the temperament for the trade. No, do you love me? Will you guard my flank? Will you come with me on this?

Sisters, brothers, we need this.

So the second thing, if the first is a serious pursuit of holiness, the second—I'm not going to spend long on it because we've talked about it throughout this series—is prayer and worship. One of the more underrated weapons that you have been given by God against the enemy is prayer, fasting, and worship.

And it's telling that one of the things the church really stinks at, by and large, is prayer, worship, and fasting. And when I'm talking about worship, I ain't talking about music. You're tracking with me? I think music can be a big part of it, but remember from week three, worship is attention.

How do I fix my attention on—how do I order my life that my intention is on Him? That's worship. But praying, worshiping—so listen, and here's where I want to—like when people are like, "All you're going to do is pray?" Let's do something.

But men, according to this passage, that sounds like the beast—human effort. Now I'm not saying we don't do—we do, but we first pray. Right? We're like Nehemiah building the wall—40 days praying, fasting—shows up to the king: "Want to go rebuild the wall?" "Sure! What do you need?"

I've got a long list. Been thinking about it. There's all this stuff on any of these letters. I need this community, man. I need spending. I need this many. And now let's go.

So pray, fast, action, go. Right? We pray, we worship.

Let me give you this quote, and then I'll land on the last one, and I'm doing better than I thought. This is from C. Peter Wagner: "God's purpose may be thwarted or it may be accomplished depending to one degree or another on the obedience of His people and their willingness to use the weapons of spiritual warfare that He has provided. God is powerful enough to win any battle, but He has designed things so that the release of His power at any given moment of time is often contingent upon the decisions and the actions of His people. A principal weapon of spiritual warfare is prayer—not just routine or mediocre prayer, but prayer powerful enough to move God's hand in order to determine the destiny of a whole nation."

Now you might—we talked about this last week—you might be like, "Gosh, I don't know how to pray like that." And I'm just going, "Ah, I think you do."

God, I don't know how to pray like that. I would love to pray in such a way that it moved Your hand and I joined You in what You were accomplishing in my day. Oh my gosh, look at you! You are a prayer warrior freak! Right? It is that easy, and it's only you believing the lie of the enemy that's saying it's not.

Doesn't Jesus go, "Who needs eloquent speech?" Doesn't He even rebuke that in praying? Like, "Don't do it like that. Don't do it like wise and eloquent." He's like, "No, no, just basic help, please." That's a big-time prayer in God's economy. Right? You ain't got to know the Greek. There's no thou shouts if you don't want to throw those in there. It's just you having a conversation with God.

So we're going to pray and worship and fast. We're going to pursue holiness. We're going to put a bullet in sin in our lives. And then lastly, we're going to practice hospitality.

Now I know I'm not dogging—so if you just heard Joanna Gaines there, we're not hearing each other. Although practicing hospitality might have some peonies on the table with some votives, some little candles in it, maybe some baking bread when they came in—maybe.

But that—look at me—that's more entertainment. I'm not talking about entertaining. I'm talking about hospitality. See, entertainment oftentimes has more to do with the host than the guest, doesn't it?

You're like, "Oh yeah, this is our foyer. Yeah, we built that for the kids. This is for dinner tonight." I just got you. Oh, listen, Opus 106. It's going to blow your mind, right? It has more to do with the host than the one who's joined in.

Hospitality looks like this—and just because you're not going to like it. Matthew 5:43-47: "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the pagans do that?"

So the idea of hospitality—specifically hospitality as the Bible defines it—is welcoming the stranger. And you and I have just been immersed in stranger danger our whole lives, right?

Do you remember? Like, I'm part of that last generation that got to play outside literally. I don't—my parents had no idea where I was most of the day. That didn't make them bad parents; it was just that day.

Anybody else grow up in that? It's like, "Be back when it's dark." We're going to let our kids out front. You play in the backyard behind the barbed wire, the machine gun nests, and keep this phone on you. Put that right—I mean, you're like, "What in the world?"

But that was the generation. It was just like, "Go play." And that's over now. Like, we've just been through every crime podcast, show, movie. It's like, "Someone's going to kill my kid."

And so it's just—and I mean, I'm not advocating not—I'm not advocating being an idiot, right? It's like, "Here, just run in the streets." Get—but we're terrified.

And biblical hospitality is hospitality—a welcoming of the stranger or maybe even the enemy. And there's no space for that. And like, because I think these two beasts have done such a number on us in our day, that just sounds—it just sounds unreasonable.

I love this quote by Stephen Rhodes: "Hospitality, when you get it right down to it, is unnatural. It is difficult to place others first because our inclination is to take care of ourselves first. Hospitality takes courage. It takes a willingness to risk. But as our Lord reminds us, if we only love those who we are sure will love us and welcome those who will welcome us, then we have done little to share the love of God. For as Jesus says, even the heathen do that."

You see, most of us know what true hospitality feels like. It means being received openly, warmly, freely, without any need to prove ourselves. Hospitality makes us feel worthy because our host assumes we are worthy. This is the kind of hospitality that we have experienced from God, and all that God asks is that we go and do likewise—particularly to the alien among us.

How do we make war against the beasts? Not with their weapons. Not with violence. Not with shaming. Not with mocking. Not with belittling. No, that is not how we make war. To do so would be to join the beast in what they're doing—to become like them.

What's our call? Faithful endurance. What does it look like? It looks like confession of sin, guys. It looks like there'd be no space for it. And you'll—you just violently—John Owen, one of my favorite Puritans, right? "Be killing sin, or it'll be killing you." That's what the stakes are for you to get that.

I'm going to confess. I'm going to repent. I'm going to fill my life with worship and prayer and fasting. Like that's going to be a normal part of my everyday life. And it looks like hospitality. It looks like dining room tables with people that are different than us sitting around them that we might show them the love of God that we have received as His people.

Now all of this must be woven into the makeup of our lives. This is—I can't say it enough—this is not adrenaline. I can't ra-ra you up every week to go out and try to live righteously. That's not what this is even meant to do.

And I know that many of you have experienced this already where you do go, "I'm gonna do it! I'm gonna go get it!" And then you just, like, go out, and like three weeks later, you're getting your face punched in again.

This needs to be woven into our lives. And this is what I keep saying—that the reason that the Village Church exists in this local entity is to help shape and call this up and train and release you to do these things.

Like God's got a call on your life. I keep telling you guys this. Like I said, like something—my call—you've got a call on your life. I'm not—we're in ministry; I'm not in the fight. We're in the fight.

But man, you have got to want that more than you want your sin. You have got to want that more than you want to worship at an ideology that is only a six.

And so I'm just here going, "I want to come." This is where we're headed. And then I do—I love you. I don't want anybody to ever feel shame about this. I don't do something just not there. It's like, "I just can't see. I'm just not there."

I just—then I love you. This is where we're going. So you can hang on with us, but this is where we're headed.

We're going to organize this way, execute this way, preach this way, train this way, release this way, hold accountable this way, celebrate this way, rejoice this way together, and keep calling sin sin. Keep calling us to holiness. Keep training you to share the gospel and to live righteously in a world that's growing more and more perverse.

We're going to point out these two beasts as often as we see them. We're going to try to point them out in here as well as out there. We're going to seek to be faithful to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords because we look right at me, and I'm done.

We were made for this moment. You can go back to sleep; I can't.

Let's pray. Father, bless these men and women. I know it's a lot today. I know I've been hot. I just pray that no offense lands for any other reason except the offense of the gospel.

I pray specifically and particularly for my brothers and sisters who are just bound and caged—some in some far-off country, no threat to the enemy at all, weak, chained, enslaved to their sin, to a past shame.