Going Deeper | Part 3

Hey guys, this is the New Heights Church Podcast, and we just want to welcome you and thank you for joining us today. We hope this message inspires and encourages you. Here at New Heights, we exist to love people and point them to Christ. Enjoy today's service.

Amen. Come on, let's all lift our hands. Father, I'm asking that your people would hear your voice today and not mine. Let your word shape us, change us, and mold us like only you can.

In Jesus' name and all God's people said, amen. Please be seated if you can, and open your Bible to Psalm 119. Psalm 119. Everybody say, deeper.

2022, we're going deeper. We're going deeper in the Word. We're going deeper in our relationship with God. And to be honest, your depth in the Word oftentimes predicates the depths of your relationship with God.

Because if you don't know what the Bible says, you know what you felt. There's been times in your life where you have felt something that was inaccurate. There's been times in your life where you responded to somebody emotionally, because you felt some kind of way, only to regret it, because what you felt was incorrect. If I look at me right in my face, if you're real honest, you might have felt something that felt good, but it was inaccurate.

You might have felt something that felt right, but it was wrong. You know, the Scripture indicates that when you give over into anger or you lose your temper, you have gotten your reward. I've lived long enough to know that if you decide to spout off at the mouth and you live uncontrolled in your mouth, see how I smile when I'm saying it. If you live that way, it's not like you're not rewarded for it.

You just get an immediate reward. That little bit of satisfaction, if I told them. Oh, you've never felt that? You've never felt the immediate trophy of, boy, I got them, didn't I?

They're not going to tell me anything. Look at who I am. Rawr. That's your reward, though.

The Bible, though, says we can store up our treasures, our trophies, in heaven where moth and dust doesn't come in and corrupt it. So it's not like going and acting out doesn't have a reward. It's just the wrong kind. And what will happen is you'll get so addicted to it that you won't even know you do it.

Somebody say, go deeper. Thank you, genuine. We're going deeper today. Because you can't live a halfway life with God.

God is all or nothing. You walk into a restaurant, a lot of times you'll see a sign on the wall that says maximum occupancy. That is what the Fire Marshal says is the legal occupancy of that particular room or establishment. And if you go above that, you have broken the law that is based on the occupancy that they have said this room is legally allowed to have.

Now, here's the scenario with you. You ready? The maximum occupancy that you have is one. You cannot be full of God and full of yourself.

You cannot be full of God and full of yourself. You will either be full of the Spirit or you will be full of you. There's not room for both. That's why the Scripture says, I no longer live.

But Christ lives in me. I have decided the being that I am created in His likeness and in His image. I have decided that I am going to render over the maximum occupancy of my life to Almighty God because God Himself is not in the competing business. How many of you know somebody you wish would get saved, but they're not saved or at least they don't live for God right now?

You cannot. There's not a prayer you can pray. There's not a confession you can make that controls somebody else. They have to make that decision.

So it's the exact same thing when you're born again and you live for God too. Nobody can make you change. God Himself can't make you change. He will just change your environment until you do.

Oh, Saul was walking. I don't go kill me another Christian. That's what I'm going to go do. I can't wait.

Look how holy I am. And every time he did it, he got a little bit of reward. And every time he threw on a jail, he got a little bit of reward. He felt like he was doing the right thing.

And I believe he was earnest. You know, earnest what to kill. I believe he was sincere. I believe he really believed what he was doing.

That's why when the Lord came to him, he said you're not honest. He didn't say you're not honest. He said it's hard to kick against the prince. What does that mean to this?

In those days they would have an alleyway where they would run the livestock down the alleyways and they would take a limb or a piece of wood that had nails driven in it. And they would put it behind that cow or whatever they were moving down that alleyway so that when that cow backed up, they would run into those nails and it would poke it and make it go forward instead of backwards. But if a cow was really honoring, it could kick against the prince. In other words, God's sitting there trying to direct you your whole life, trying to tell you you're going to have to make a change in this area.

You're going to have to listen to some people that you can trust around you. You're going to have to make some changes. But you don't want to make changes because it's easier a lot of times to kick against the pricks than it is to just open your eyes and move towards the direction that God's actually causing you to go, calling you to go. This was Saul's life.

So God took Saul and had Jesus encounter him on the road and the Bible says that scales came on his eyes and he couldn't see anything. He didn't change Saul's heart. He changed his environment. Jonah said, I don't want to go to Nineveh.

God said, Jonah, go to Nineveh. I don't want to go to Nineveh. I want to get on a different boat. I want to go to a different direction.

I want to go on a Disney cruise. I don't want to go to Nineveh. He gets on the boat and the waves start rocking and everything starts changing and the whole thing is just shaking and everybody around is going, we don't know what's going on. Jonah goes, I know.

What do you mean you know? Well, God told me to go to Nineveh and I'm not doing that. And so he has changed my environment with an effort to change me. Just throw me over, boys.

It's funny. They didn't argue. You got a friend like that. If they just told you, throw me out.

You're like, no, we don't want to sit in the belly of a fish. Something changed in Jonah. And he said, you know what? I'm going to do what God has called me to do.

Because your life has a maximum occupancy of one. Somebody say deeper. You can't be full of yourself and full of God. Can I say it differently?

I really wanted to say, Jake, you can't be full of God and full of it. Well, I just don't like that. I want to be this way. I'm that way.

Anytime you start off a conversation with this, I'm this way, you already decide if you don't want to change. Somebody say, go deeper. If you're going to go deeper in your relationship with God, you're going to have to find out what God is like, and then you're going to have to find out what God is expecting you to be like. Somebody say fruit.

The fruit of the spirit is beautiful. It includes a lot of different things, long suffering. It includes being faithful and just godly in general. But the fruit doesn't come like that.

The fruit grows over time. And by the time we can see the fruit in your life, it means you've been working on it for a while. So when you get born again, you have to understand your entire system of operation should change. As a Christian, you're not supposed to think like the world anymore, but that doesn't come by default.

That comes by renewing your mind daily. But you can't just renew your mind to an idea or feeling because we've already covered your ideas and your feelings will lie to you. You have to renew your mind to what the word of God says. Open your Bible to Psalm 119.

We'll pick up there somewhere around verse 97. Let's go to verse 95. Psalm 119 verse 95. The scripture says this.

The wicked have waited to destroy me, but I will consider your testimonies. If you're going to understand anything about the Christian life, you need to understand that the wicked one is trying to destroy you. If somebody or a person is involved in that process, that does not mean that you still now all of a sudden have the right to wrestle against flesh and blood. On the contrary, you still need to recognize you are wrestling against principalities and powers and strongholds in high places.

But our god is mighty, the most somebody, and he will tear down strongholds, but you and I have to get to the understanding that not only is the wicked one trying to destroy us, but the way that we combat that is to consider his testimony. One translation says, but I think on your word, think about it like this. He says it like this. It says, the wicked one is trying to destroy me, but I concentrate on your rules.

Somebody say rules. Now, if you're immature, rules bother you. If you're not immature, rules are your protection. The 10 commandments are not a list of things that are fun to do that God is trying to keep you from enjoying.

They are the recipe for the abundant life and the blessed life. The rules of your household. If you're a parent, they are not there because you don't like your kids. They're there because you love your kids.

And if your kids do not follow those rules, that means they have not reached a certain maturity level in that area. And they are kicking against the pricks because your desire for your kids is probably greater than your desire for yourself. You will go without a new jacket, but your kids will have new school clothes even if you have holes in your shoes. But it's very hard for a kid to see that because kids oftentimes are immature.

Kids are not picking on you. Matter of fact, I'm going to help you in just a minute. But if you're too immature to understand that rules are what sets you free, then you don't get access to the good rules. If you don't want to love your neighbor as yourself, then you don't get access to the no weapon formed against me so prosper.

Because it's just rules that bring me comfort. The wicked one wants to destroy me, but there's some rules out there. If you can't lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets you, then you don't get access to the rule that says the enemy may come in like a flood, but gods will lift up a standard against him. It's not a two-way streak.

It's all in with God or just leave him. It's all in with God or just go serve another God that you can magically decide which parts you want to put in there. But if you want to serve our God, then you have to understand the wicked one that wants to destroy you, what stops him, is the fact that you live inside the guidelines of God and you don't go dancing out there where the devil plays and then ask God to keep throwing a rescue ring to you because instead of living in the safety of the ark, you decided to test the flood waters. Somebody said go deeper.

There's a difference between serving God and lip service. There's a difference between a form of godliness. I look the part. I sound the part.

When everybody's looking at me, I know exactly how to act. I'm the greatest actor you've ever seen. But in reality, you deny. You reject the power they're off because the power comes from the inside of the rules, not from the outside of the rules.

The Bible says God hates divorce. Doesn't say there's no place for it. Doesn't say sometimes we don't need it. Takes two to tango.

But even the best divorce usually has a lot of collateral damage. This is why God establishes these precepts because he knows what's going to come of it. Now, if you've been married 25 times, I believe you're 26 times going to be a good one. But don't blame God for the rules you broke.

Here's another level. Me too. Here's another level of maturity. Don't blame God for the rules somebody else broke.

Somebody else breaking the ordinances of God does not relinquish your obligation to follow after them. Maximum occupancy of one. You can't be full of yourself and full of the spirit. Verse 96, I have seen an end to all perfection.

But your commandment is exceeding broad. One translation says, I realize that everything has its limits. But your commands, your word is beyond full comprehension. This is why you can't just read the Bible one time.

This is why you can't just read your Bible once a year and act like it's going to impact you for the rest of the year. The Bible, the Word of God is beyond your comprehension. In other words, it's not like we don't get anything out of it. We just don't get everything out of it right now because what you need is for now.

And sooner or later, you're going to need something else. And God supplies your needs according to his riches and glory. So you got to go back to the same trough where you drank that beautiful water of the Word where you never thirsted again and go back to the same place because there's a difference whenever you know the Word of God and you know to continue to know the Word of God. The Bible is without full comprehension.

That's why when you get a revelation, it feels so good. And God speaks to you in a way that you go, I was talking to my brother yesterday and he was telling me about a revelation that he had. And I thought, man, that's so good. And we were talking about some other revelation that God has revealed to us.

We were talking about scripture and bouncing it back and forth. And the truth of the matter is, ten years ago, fifteen years ago, we didn't know we were talking about in that area. But now we've got some truth in that area and it sets us free in that area. You don't know when you're going to need it, so you've got to keep going back to the well.

Somebody said, deeper. You've got to know who God is. You've got to know who God made you if you're going to have a deeper relationship with God. And you're going to have to stop leaning on all of your excuses.

I'm going to preach this out of the room. You've got to quit leaning on your excuses. They did this, so I did that. Shut your mouth.

Do you want to go deeper in God or do you want to be a jerk the rest of your life? You know, you'll be saved. I'm not saying you're going to hell. I'm just saying, you're not going to fulfill what God has placed on your life, being full of yourself.

Somebody say, go deeper. The Bible says this, verse 98. Through your commandments, God, thank you for this. You've made me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me.

Now, there's so much in this verse, I could literally do a series on this one verse. I'm going to come down here because this might be heavy. I get so sick of hearing about how smart the devil is. What kind of a moron leaves heaven?

What kind of a moron insults Christ? But you know how it started? Pickering about Christ with anybody who will listen. Approximately one third of the angels were, doesn't say that they said what he said.

It said they entertained what he said. Your commandments have made me wiser than my enemy. Your adversary is not smarter than you. And if he is, it means you don't have enough word in you because it is his word that has made you smarter than the devil.

I was talking to another guy this weekend. He said, yeah, the Lord told me to do this one thing the entire year of 2022. And instantaneously, not three weeks in, all of a sudden, it was so radically clear why the Lord said that. Because the word of God will make you smarter than the devil.

Here's the heavy part. One of your neighbors said, this is heavy. Your enemies are going to be with you forever. You can either get offended or get over it.

You can either cry about it or cry out in victory. But your adversary is not going to leave you alone. Why do you think he's the devil? Forever.

I remember when we first started the church and our first service was 20 people. I think we had, you know, I'm a family five. My parents were there. And then, you know, almost everybody else would be related to me or paid to be there.

If I don't know, I should just pay more people. We're going to fill the thing up. But what was interesting is, and I hope this doesn't sound arrogant, but I was like, I cannot believe there's not like 300 people here. I really thought that.

Not because I thought, man, you know, I'm the greatest preacher on the planet. I mean, I am, but I wasn't thinking through that lens. What I was thinking through is for two years, the Lord had been telling me what he wanted to do in this area. Just just literally just saturating crystallized prayer life.

Got to the point where we couldn't hardly go on a date unless our date was driving around the Brazos Valley. We lived about 8,500 miles away. So we were going our date nights over here. We were just driving around and praying.

It's not a good date night, huh, ladies? We're going our date is driving around and praying. I remember thinking, I'm so shocked that there's not like, you know, 18,000 people here. God's about to do a move.

We're going to raise the bed. Blind eyes are going to open. We've had that happen already. And if God doesn't want somebody, he'll do it again.

Cancer's going to die. We're going to see prodigal sons and daughters coming home at a rapid rate connected to a new high church. So all these things I know are coming. I'm like, man, I'm just shocked.

I'm not upset. I'm just shocked. But I remember thinking, Lord, if it's brick, by brick, then hit me in brick. Because that's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to follow you. I'm going to pursue you. And when I'm 120 years old and I'm about to die, I'll look at my children, my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren in the face. And I'll say to them boldly, follow God with all your heart.

Do everything he tells you to do, just like you watched me do. I don't want to say on my death bed, baby, don't do it like I did. Don't live a life filled with regrets. I didn't listen to God.

I didn't follow the things of God. I didn't do that. Sometimes that's some real powerful teaching. But I don't want my children having to do what I was supposed to do.

I want my children standing on my shoulders and springing off like the offspring that they are. And that's your children and your children's children and your children's children. Come on, let's give God a hand of praise. We're not going to be arrogant, but we're not going to back up just because the enemy is not comfortable around our confidence.

The Bible says, put that verse back up there for me, 98. The Bible says they're ever with me. That means the first thing you should stop doing is you should stop being shocked that you still feel that urgency to do something you wish you wouldn't. That means the devil's with you.

It doesn't mean God left you. Does that make sense? Verse 99, please. Just keep them up there for me.

I have more understanding, I love this. I love this. I have more understanding than all my teachers for your testimonies or your words. They're my meditation.

They're my muse. Your word is what I think on. What he's saying here is I have more understanding than all the world's teachers combined because I understand by faith what everybody else questions indefinitely. How did God do it?

Why did God do it? When did God do it? I have more understanding than all the world's great philosophers. You don't start with the fear of the Lord because the fear of the Lord the scripture says in Proverbs is the beginning of wisdom.

Therefore, if you do not fear or revere God, Jehovah God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. If you do not recognize Jesus Christ as the Son of the living God crucified, risen from the dead and soon returned. If you do not recognize Him, then by default the dumbest Christian on earth is wiser than the smartest person who rejects that fact. I don't have to preach that, Jake.

Everybody say this. Say I'm wise in the word and I cannot be defeated because the word never fails. The dumbest Christian is smarter than the smartest person who rejects God. The dumbest Christian is smarter than the smartest person who rejects God.

The Bible says, well let me just ask this, is Christ smart? Did you know he said you have his mind? So when you think down about yourself, you're thinking down about the mind that Christ gave you. That's why I never do the devil's job.

If you want to rid it, you'll mean you go right ahead. I'm not going to agree because it's the devil's job to tear me down. Not mine. That doesn't mean that we're going to live in arrogance, but most people don't need humility.

Most people need confidence. And you put a little humility in people. It's a lot easier to put humility in somebody than it is confidence in somebody. When you find out that your confidence is actually in God and not in you anymore, now all of a sudden you can walk around as if everywhere you put your foot, you own it.

See Christians aren't supposed to be second-right citizens. We're supposed to be kings and priests on planet earth representing the kingdom of God while we're still here. We're supposed to be calling things that are not as though they were until they show up. We're supposed to be everything we put our hand to is supposed to prosper.

The dumbest Christian. If I look right at your neighbor in the face, just kidding, don't do that. The dumbest Christian is smarter than the smartest person that rejects God. Because the foundation of wisdom is the fear of God.

Here's some, you ready? If you're a medical doctor and you don't think a baby's a baby, you're a mon. Let me say that more respectful. You're an absolute mon.

You're a buffoon. You want to have your life stripped from you. If you don't think a baby's a baby, if you don't medically see two genders, then you're a fool. You have been deceived.

Glades to six. Be not deceived. The entire world is walking around deceived. I got this new podcast we started.

People send in stuff they want to talk about. They want to talk about current events. But when it drops tomorrow, I hope you'll listen to it. It's all about controlling your emotions.

But one current event we might be covering might be what is the stupidity with allowing boys and men to compete against girls and women in sports. At what point? At what point do we just go, that's it? You guys have lost your complete mind.

The dumbest Christian is smarter than the smartest person that rejects God. You've got to get your mind renewed. God is correct. In the beginning, he made them male.

Who made them? That means you don't get to pick what you are. He, before he formed you and your mother's womb, he knew you. He developed plans for you.

Now if you're confused in that area, you can get unconfused real quick. It's called the washing of the water of the Word of God, but the beginning is the fear of God. The dumbest Christian is smarter than the smartest person that rejects God. Verse 99, I have more understanding than all my teachers for your testimonies or my meditation.

The reason that I do is because your word is what I meditate on. I'm not smarter than everybody who's against me because that's when I am. I am smarter than everybody that's against me because I meditate on the Word. Look at me.

Therefore, if I don't meditate on the Word, you don't get to walk in the promise that you're smarter than your adversary. The only thing that makes you smarter, more prepared, more capable than your adversary is your depth in the Word of the living God. Everything else is feeling and your feelings are thickle. They will change like the breeze.

They will change like the weather. They will change like a breadstick from Olive Garden. Those things are wonderful. Just let them sit around by themselves and all of a sudden you can literally build a house with those things.

Give them about 10 minutes. I understand more than the ancients or the elders. Listen to this, not because I'm young and young people are smarter than old people, but because I keep your precepts or your commandments. In other words, I don't understand more if I'm outside of your commandments.

The scripture is very clear about honoring your father and mother. The scripture is very clear about having honor and respect for elders, people older than you. But if someone's older than you and trying to drag you into sin, they are not smarter than you just because they've taken more laps around the sun than you have. The Bible says that I am in a stronger position than even people older than me when I keep his precepts.

One verse says this, and I'll just read it. 1 Timothy 4, 12 says, let no man despise your youth. Everybody say, but. But being an example of believers in the Word in conversation, that's how you talk.

In love, charity, in spirit, in faith, and in purity. So if you're young, feeling like what young is, young used to be, under 30. Now it's under 50. We'll just keep moving it.

Praise the Lord. How many of you young is under 80? Just wave at me. I like that one.

Young is under 80. You don't look at young and act like that gives you some kind of a dominant position unless you are focused and living out his precepts. And if you are, then don't let somebody who's trying to lead you astray talk you into something else. I grew up, my family lived in a small town.

We always had different businesses and different projects going all the time. And lots of times, as a young man, I was doing a lot of what they call manual labor. It seemed like, it seemed like I was the doer of it. If it needed to be done, Brian was asked to do it.

Praise the Lord. But I would get in these trucks with these guys and God bless them. But roughest hobs, roughest hobs. And then we'd be going for a ride somewhere.

Now we had to take a trailer somewhere and go pick up a piece of equipment or something. And they would tell me the most God-awful stuff. And even as a kid, I knew down deep. You're older than me.

I'm going to be respectful. My parents were real big on yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, ma'am, no ma'am.

I'm not saying you have to do that, but it doesn't hurt. I'm going to be respectful, but that's not right. Even as a child, that's not right. I remember I had coaches that would try to talk kids into doing things that they shouldn't do.

Both on the field as well as extracurricular. I had teachers that would turn a blind eye or even go by. Listen to this. Go by their students, things that students were too young to buy.

I'm not saying all teachers like this, but I had a few. I was respectful, at least I hope I was. But I knew. Even as a child, that was wrong.

That's not the way it should go. So all you young people, I'm talking about maturity. I was talking about living in your household and how to live. Listen, if you're following after the precepts of God and the fruit of the Spirit is emulating out of you and love joy, peace, kindness, these things are flowing out of you, don't you let somebody lead you as straight just because they're older than you?

Don't you let some social media personality lead you in some direction just because they got more followers than you do? The devil is a liar. The dumbest Christian is smarter than the smartest person that rejects God. Come on, let's give God a hand to praise right there.

101, we're going to move quicker now. I've refrained my feet from every evil way that I might keep your word. Someone said, go deeper. If you're going to walk with God, you've got to understand the occupancy of your life is one, and the quickest way to ask the Holy Ghost to leave is to go somewhere or do something where the Holy Ghost is not comfortable.

I've refrained my feet from every evil way that I might keep your word. I have not departed from your judgments. One translation says, your regulations. For you have taught me.

When you get born again, you become a lifelong student. A lifelong student of the Word of God, and I just want you to know here this real clear, and I say it with all humility, what you are today is not what God's expecting from you next year. He is wanting you to go from glory to glory. If you haven't felt, I really sense the presence of the Lord right now, if you haven't felt the beautiful, sincere conviction of the Holy Spirit, then you're probably stuck at whatever glory, of whatever glory level you were at then, and God's trying to take you up.

One of the worst things that could ever happen to a believer is to become calloused, because when you're calloused, it doesn't mean the friction or the sensation is not there. It means you just don't feel it anymore. It doesn't happen overnight most of the time. Most of the time, it happens because you've just gotten so accustomed to getting away with sounding or talking however you want.

Nobody checked you and called you out, so you assumed it was right, and now you have a calloused. You have no idea that you're hurting the people that love you the most. And your family has had to tolerate that side of you. If you come home from work, it was a stressful day, and you take it out on your kids.

I don't mean this rude, but I mean exactly how it sounds. Shame on you. Shame on you and change. Because if you act like that, like two different people, or three different people, and then you try to convince them to follow the precepts of God while you're ignoring the most fundamental things, how to talk kind, how to walk kind, how to be long-suffering, how to be gentle.

Yeah, most people would be more gentle to the drug addict on the side of the road than they are their own spouse. So your spouse, because you know they love you, has to tolerate you. He knows how I am. He married me.

She knows how I am. I'm just stressed out. Your enemy will ever be with you. Is that going to be your excuse next year, too?

We're going deeper, Church. I'm talking about I wouldn't be surprised if we started having the fire department call in our church because it looked like the Spirit of God was burning on the roof. Because when people get free, and I mean really free, when they decide what God says has preeminence over anything I'm feeling in the moment, that's whenever we see flesh crucified and when flesh is crucified, there's only room for one. Because you can't be full of the Spirit and full of yourself.

How sweet are your words? They're like honey to my mouth. Your precepts through your precepts I can understand. Therefore I hate.

Somebody say, hey, you know, there's a time for love and a time for hate. You can't go around hating people, but you are supposed to hate things that are contrary to God. The reason we have so much stuff that is snuck in to the public square is because we didn't hate it. Because anything you tolerate, the next generation will celebrate.

Anything you tolerate, the next generation will celebrate. Therefore I hate every false way. One translation says, every deceitful action. Everything that pulls in the wrong direction.

That doesn't mean we hate people, they don't agree with us, anything like that. I'll tell you this one thing and I'll close with this. When I was in school, when I was in college, I was committed to winning the campus for God. And I would walk the campus and look for people and I had a lot of people born again.

I thank God for that. I would go get these study rooms, you know, sometimes you have to rent these study rooms and I would get a crowd in there and I would write out the plan of salvation and I would draw pictures because sometimes there was a lot of language barriers with a lot of people I was talking to. There's a lot of people from the Middle East that were in the engineering school and I would draw pictures and I would quote a description and I would say, well, it's like this and I'd have to draw it out. And then I would do it into a math problem.

I'd say, look, look, and just just droves and droves. I would say, man, that's what I want. That's what I need. I said, well, his name is Jesus and I can lead you right to him.

Let's pray and we would pray and it was amazing. And then one time there was a meeting on campus and it was a Muslim meeting. This was not long after 9-11. And it was a chic coming to our campus to give some kind of a talk.

And they said it was going to be a question and answer session. And I thought, man, I want to go. I got some questions. And the main question I had is who's Muhammad's parents.

That's what I wanted to know. By the way, which I found out and you can look all that up yourself. But I went to the thing and I walked in and I'm telling you, just darkness. Just darkness, like darkness.

There's maybe three dozen people there. I look over and a friend of mine's there. My friend, he was a church of Latter-day Saints. I don't agree with all of their teaching.

Matter of fact, I think a lot of their teaching is completely contrary to the word of God. I can point it out in the Book of Mormon because I have read the Book of Mormon. But he goes on and we're sitting there and I said, what are you doing here? He said, well, I don't know what to say.

I said, well, me too. So we're sitting there, me and my Mormon buddy, who's still a friend of mine today, by the way. We're sitting there. And one of the things they gave us was they gave everybody a Quran or a Quran.

And I thought, well, cool, I'll read it. Because I want to know what it's said. Give him my life, you know, you want to know when you're getting your life or something. What are you up against?

So they gave me this book. I left and I forgot it on the chair. I was sitting there. But on the way out, they had another stack of them.

I thought, well, they got all these stacks of, they sent, you know, so I took one. And I took it. And so I could read it. And I read great portions of it.

And there's so many things that are just crazy in there. Crazy from a standpoint of contradictory to the Bible. That's the definition of crazy to a Christian, okay? Crazy to a Christian does not mean look crazy because there's a lot of stuff about Christianity.

It looks crazy. You ever seen me speak in tongues? It's crazy. But crazy to a Christian is whatever doesn't line up with the Word.

So there's a lot of stuff in the Quran that's very contrary to Word of God. Primarily that Jesus wasn't crucified. That's what they believe. That's the big thing.

They actually believe that Jesus was born to a virgin. They believe that Jesus ascended to heaven. Just like we did. They just believe he wasn't killed.

And if he didn't die, then your sins aren't paid for. That's the stark difference. I have truth. There's a whole lot.

Anyway, I get to the next day at school and there was a class called differential equations in linear algebra. It's calculus four. Real good time. Like P.E.

And I get in there and my friend who's church of LDS, he sat next to me. His name was Tori. We were good friends. We lived waste together.

We played racquetball. We constantly talked about the Word in the Book of Mormon. And I was like, nope. Can't be because this.

Nope, can't be because this. This is what this says. That's different. I stick with one.

I would believe your book if it didn't contradict this book. But it contradicts this book. So I cannot believe that book. We would talk.

And he goes, hey, man, just for the record, you forgot this Koran by your chair last night. And so I brought it to you. I said, thanks. And I stood up and I went and I threw in the trash.

He goes, what are you doing? And there was a guy there that just really got upset. He goes, he goes, like he was going to jump on me. And I said, look, man, I said, you can have that book if you want.

But it's not coming out of my hand. You can go get it. But it's not coming out of my hand into somebody else's hand. Because I believe the words to life and death are in God's holy Bible.

And I believe the words to death are found in that book. So it will not have my fingerprints on it when somebody else puts theirs on. My friend looks and he goes, you shouldn't have done that. I said, if you don't believe in your book enough to do that, then you don't even believe in your book.

What I'm trying to tell you is the word of the living God puts you in a place where his precepts will protect you, raise you up and nurture you, allow you to go deeper. But a part of it is you have to hate every deceitful way. Don't hate the people. Don't hate the region.

Don't hate none of that. But you cannot look at it and act like we're just talking about recipes in a cookbook. We are talking about heaven and we are talking about hell. And many are deceived.

Remember the Bible says don't be deceived. Many are deceived. And part of it is because the church doesn't hate things that leave people astray. What took you from God?

Why you keep going back to it? Because you don't hate it enough. What kept you from his presence, from hearing his voice? Why you keep going back to it?

Maybe nobody ever told you you have to hate what deceitfully entices. People away from God. If you're going to go deeper, you've got to know there is one way and one way alone. His name is Jesus.

Everybody else is a thief and a liar. See what I'm saying? You go to church building conference first thing they say is don't preach like Ryan Hallam. That's why I go to the word so much.

Because when you go line up on line, precept upon precept, you can disagree, but you can't argue where it came from. I hope you enjoyed the podcast today. If you did, there are a couple of things that I'd love for you to do. Number one, subscribe to our show.

That way, the most recent episodes will always be in your feed waiting for you. Ready when you are. And secondly, follow us on social media. That is the best way to stay up to date on everything happening at New Heights.

We look forward to you joining us next time on the New Heights podcast. And if you are ever in the Bryan College Station area, we invite you to come out to New Heights Church for a live service. I promise we'll make you feel right at home.