"Ready & Willing" : The Ripple Effect of Obedience and Neglect

Worthy of my praise there's a call there's a call so give me faith Give it to me up give it to me up from my replace you setting my feet standing my feet on the ground again I come on you they waste of my promise Come on When you let it away every sh you set up my S.C. you turn down the devil to show me I'm your you said you never would be you promise I keep your word? I can trust your word? I believe in power in the name. Healing in the name? Breakthrough in the name? Deliverance in that name? Joy is in the name? Peace is in the name. Just call on the name. Come on. Your name is Jesus. Jesus, Jesus. Your name is Jesus. Come on, just sing his name. Jesus. Your name is Jesus. Jesus was never you promise I'll keep you settled my score? You tore down the ve to show me I'm yours. You never did.

Good morning. Good morning. Happy Wednesday to everybody transitioning from prayer to Bible study. Every week there's more and more folks who are on the. The prayer. Do you feel. I'm sorry. Do you hear a little feedback with me speaking? I have my tablet open as well. I have it for backup for zoom.

But sound good to me, Christian.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, it's good. It's good. Cool. All right, we're good here. I think my WI fi will hold up. You know, these la Quintas in these remote areas, they don't have the best WI fi. So I'm in McAllister, Oklahoma, this week, but we should be good here. I'm excited to get into the Word with you guys today. As the. The last few weeks, four weeks or so since we finished the book of Revelation, we've been doing some topical studies. And the first of those topical studies, we really dove into Isaiah 6 and his. His confession, his cleansing, his commissioning, and when God called. Isaiah's number. When God called. As God is always seeking to and fro throughout the earth to see who's. Who's willing, Isaiah said, here I am. Right, Hanani? Here I am, Lord. Use me. And what we're going to be talking about today, the passage we're going to be in is 2nd Samuel, chapter 11. But the theme for today is being ready and willing. But also the kind of the butterfly effect, the ripple effect of simple acts of obedience and some sometimes simple acts of omission. Right? Just those simple acts that are seeds that just spur a domino effect where in the case of David and 2nd Samuel 11. I don't want to get too ahead of myself. Where it had consequences and repercussions for generations. Generations. One simple decision. And it wasn't even. It started not with an act. It started with an act of omission, a decision to not do something. But as I said, we. We talked about hanani being ready and willing. And Isaiah is a great example of scripture of one who was ready and willing. Last week, we dove into Nehemiah 4 and talked about the practice of prayer plus positioning, right? Not just praying, but then acting after we pray, not just sitting back and. And, you know, waiting for that miracle or, you know, thinking of Gideon even where, you know, the Lord spoke to him, and he was like, okay, if it's really you, God, then, you know, tomorrow morning, make the fleece wet with the ground dry around it. And it was. And then he still wasn't convinced. And then the next day, it's like, all right, if it's. If it's really, really, you know, then make the. The fleece dry with the. The grass all around it wet. And so there was a little bit lack of. Of readiness there on behalf of Gideon. But when we pray, prayer should always be followed by actions, right? We're never to just be. I mentioned it last week, and I did give Riley credit for this, where Riley often says, God blesses our footprints, not our butt prints. So prayer and action. But I want to talk about the difference today of being ready and willing, because willingness is really the heart of surrender, and readiness is the preparation of character. And your discipline, right? Willingness says, yes, Lord, I'll go. But readiness says, I've been trained. I've been disciplined. I've. I've been obedient, I've been pruned, and now I'm equipped for the task that's at hand. And you could think of probably examples of this. I remember that there was a kid on my basketball team, this was like youth basketball that never showed up to practice. And it was evident he was a good athlete, but had some fundamentals that he wasn't really great at because he never showed up to practice. And then when time for the game came, he was always willing to get in the game, always wanting to get in the game. And it's like, no, no, no. But you're not ready, right? You skipped all those practices where we're going through some fundamentals, where we're learning the plays. So you could probably think of some examples. But the. The posture of being willing but not ready is you have passion, but you lack preparation. Right? And I think right now we're in a Season right now where we see. And actually, let me pull this up real quick. I screenshotted this yesterday. Just where there is revival going on right now. Bible sales are up 41%. Christian app downloads are up 79. Christian music streaming is up 50% right now. A lot of this since the, the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk, which just woke a lot of people up. But we're in a season right now where there's so many folks willing. It's like they have the zeal, they have the passion. Yeah, here I am. Put me in the game. But we need to be ready as well. Now I would say certainly willingness is probably more important than readiness because you could kind of get ready as you go. In the case of Gideon, like I just mentioned, it was more encounters with the Lord that just kind of increased his faith. And that readiness is really just having a heart that's surrendered and you're, it's a faithfulness, right? Faithfulness to God. Faithfulness in the, the disciplines that keep you close to God. That prayer time, that devotion time, doing things like this, you know, hopping on Bible study on a Wednesday morning. But when you're willing and not ready, you're probably going to burn out or take a misstep. You're gonna, there's gonna be hiccups along the way because you're not really prepared. But when you're ready and not willing, you're equipped but unsubmitted. And that's a more dangerous place to be. You stagnate, you rebel. Obviously the goal for all of us is to be ready and willing, right? It means that you, you've surrendered your will and you, you've stewarded your preparation for whatever it is God has for you. And in general, the, the, the preparation and being used by God, it's just getting closer to God, right? He, he's going to direct you. Every has been blessed with different gifts, talents, abilities, and God will use you in different fields. You know, there may be somebody out here that's more effective at ministering to a certain demographic or group of people and somebody that's more effective at somebody else. But it, the way we get prepared for that is not. Recently I was talking to somebody and they wanted to spend like all their time in the Quran just so they could be prepared to, to potentially minister to a Muslim. And I said it's good. I mean, it's great to know like different religions and know where different people are, are coming from. But like the, the way you're prepared, period is if you know the Truth. If you know the Bible, right? Get closer to God. So willingness submits to God's call and readiness sustains God's call. An example of somebody who was willing but not ready. Our boy Peter. You know, Peter, a lot of us could relate to him because he was a knucklehead. Just like a lot of us, right? Just like a lot of us in Luke 22, Lord, I'm ready to go with you both to prison and to death. And then within hours, he began to curse and swear, saying, I don't know that man, right? So he, he had a willingness, but he wasn't really ready to, to put that into place yet. Moses at the burning bush. He's one of the examples in the Old Testament where the Lord called him, called him from the burning bush. And he said, here I am, right? But when he gave him the assignment, he's like, ah, well, you know, I, I don't speak very well. I got this stutter. Maybe we should get Aaron to come along with me. So he, he had a willingness, but he wasn't really ready at that point. And then God obviously used him and worked through some of his insecurities. See, the disciples in the garden, they promised, stay awake with Jesus. It's like they had the willing heart. Yeah, we'll stay awake with you. Then what happened? It was like they took an Ambien, right? Those jokers were sleeping, so they, they had the willingness, but they, they weren't ready quite yet. And then you have those who are ready but not willing, right? And the big one and the one we're gonna dive into, we'll circle back to this. This is King David in Second Samuel, Chapter 11. He was anointed. He was victorious. He was about 48 years old at this point. He was trained in warfare. We know all the, the great stories of David. We know that he slayed Goliath as a teenager. When I was in New Jersey, I visited a good friend of mine up there, and he was talking about when he had taken his sons to Sight and Sound. Sight and Sound. If anybody hasn't been to Sight and Sound, there's one in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and I think Branson, Missouri. But it's phenomenal. It's like Broadway level production, but it's always a play about the Bible. And he said, yeah, it took my boys to see David and they were like crushed because it got into some of David's mishaps. And, you know, David made some mistakes along the way. So the, the example of him not being willing, we're going to circle back to here in just a second. But another example of being ready but not willing. The prophet Jonah, right? He knew God's voice. He had a history of ministry. But when it came to ministering to those, those evil folks in Nineveh, he's like, no, no, no, Nineveh, this way. I'm going that way. And so he. He was willing to serve God, but he wasn't ready for the task. I'm sorry, he was ready, but he wasn't willing for, for that particular task. You have the rich young ruler, right? He was morally upright, he was religiously trained, he was successful, but he wasn't willing. He asked Jesus straight up, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus tells him, he said, sell everything you have. Give the money to the poor. Take up your cross, follow me. And, you know, he had already established, you know, he's obedient in most of the ten Commandments. He's like, I don't murder, I don't steal, I don't lie, I don't covet. I honor my mother and father. But when it came to that, what the answer was, what Jesus was actually requiring. He wasn't willing. And says the Word says he was Sad. In Mark 10, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Can you imagine that, that you actually walk this earth. Here you have Jesus in front of your face. You ask him, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And he tells you, you're like, yeah, it's a little, it's a little much. That's a little too, too high of an ass right there. And, you know, by all accounts, you know, he's. He's in hell, right? That he never, I don't know, maybe we'll be surprised. We'll see him there and he'll be like, after that story that you guys read about in the Bible, I actually had a change of heart and I repented and I turned to Jesus maybe, who knows? But I'm not counting on seeing him in heaven, quite frankly, right?

That joker was about to be the 13th disciple. And it's just like, right, right.

It's like, no. So. So everything I have, no, I'm not going to do that. Examples of being ready and willing. I talked about Isaiah already. Abraham is a good one, right? When the, the Lord sent him out to the unknown, it was like, yeah. And he's another example of one in the Old Testament that said, here I am. That word hineni. And then also years later, when it came time to sacrifice his son Isaac. He was willing, right? He was ready. He was willing. Obviously, God spared him from having to sacrifice his own child, but he was ready. He was willing. And that, that story there always makes me think, all right, I like to say I'm ready, I'm willing, but if God asked me to do something that seems super egregious and just kind of see where I'm at with, with my faith, it's like, when I do that, would I actually, you know, tie Ezzy down to a rock and, and get the dagger out just because the Lord said so? Right. I don't think God would test our faith, probably, and that means nowadays, but God will. Will test our faith at times. You have Noah, obviously ready and willing. I mean that. Now think about him. What, what made him ready? The fact that he was the only faithful man in a whole generation. Right. So it came down to his faith. A lot of times we're ready just based on how close we are to the Lord. But his willingness, I don't know how many people would. Would work on an arc more than a couple hours without getting, like, further instruction from the lord, let alone 100 years. Right. Building this big boat. I. I don't know. I guess it's gonna rain. It's never rained before, you know, but he had that, that willingness to just do what the Lord says, and God is going to ask us to do things that just seems totally, like, illogical. He will. He's going to ask us to do those things, and once we either do it or don't do it, it'll probably make sense a little bit further down the road as to why he has to do something that made no sense in the moment. And, I mean, sometimes we think it makes no sense when we feel prompted to just even, like, talk to that stranger. It's like, oh, God, you know, this is weird. This doesn't make sense. Those are little things he's going to ask us to do. Illogical things that don't make sense. I was sharing this with. With Andre, who I'm on the road with here in Oklahoma, and I've shared this with you guys. When Lucy and I got married and our finances were both a wreck from our individual lives, me just out of, like, being where I was in my life, where I was a mess. But Lucy just being a single mom of four and we got married, we were good stewards over everything. And every time we, like, putting decent money aside to buy a house, the Lord will put on our hearts to just bless somebody with that Money. And it's like, oh, hold on, God, I know you have a plan for us. You blessed us. We're married now. We have this family. I know you're going to give us this home. And now you're telling us to give this money away. And I told Andre yesterday, it was like the math wasn't mathing. The more money we gave away, the more money was. That was in our account at the end of the month. It was wild. It was wild. It was. It was wild. Didn't make sense to us. Like, all right, Lord. And then it got to the point where Lucy and I, where it was so frequent that God was telling us to just give this money to. To people who needed it. We would both pray individually, come back, and we would literally go, okay, 1, 2, 3. And both blurt out the number that the Lord gave us. And it was always the same number, always the same number. So. But that's. That's our God. That's what he does. Mary is one in Scripture, Luke 1, who was both ready and willing. She was humble. She. She had faith. But her response tells you that she had full surrender without hesitation or fear. In Luke 1:38, she said, Behold, the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. Let it be right, Let it be. She was willing and able to be the. The one that brought forth the Savior of the earth. And then, of course, Jesus is the ultimate example of both willing and able. Not my father, not my will, but father, yours be done right. It's always even if. And God knows what we struggle with. He knows what we wrestle with. And sometimes we're called to do things outside our comfort zone, outside of what we want to do. My pastor back in New Jersey, I met up with him. We met up with him and his wife when we're up there a couple weeks ago.

And.

They. He had a good job in the city. He was vocational pastor, making good money at a. A nice big house in the town that we lived in, in the town next door to the church that was in the hood. And the Lord called them to give up the job and live in the little parsonage that was a wreck on the property of the church. And it's not an ideal place to live. There is a bus stop that is literally outside their. Their front door and front windows that any corner like that in the hood. There's a lot of activity going on late at night. But they did. They. They. It was. And if you struggle with it, the Lord knows that the Lord knows that. But if your heart is always that, I'm gonna do it. God is going to bless you with the peace and obviously the strength to sustain you. So willingness matters because God's not ever going to force obedience, right? But readiness matters because he's not going to bless unpreparedness, right? And if anybody. And you may not know what blessings you're lacking because of your unpreparedness. And I think that we're in a culture today where people are kind of okay with that. Where, where I am in life, it's, it's good enough, right? It's better than that guy down the street. It's better than my, my sister or something like that. It's good enough. So you, you just don't prepare and you're okay with just kind of coasting and just kind of making your way to heaven, which, which is cool, right? Ultimately, if you all get to heaven, by all means. But what John says in First John, where he says that people are believers, are actually going to be ashamed at the coming of the Lord. I don't know what that looks like. I don't know how long that will last. But I don't want to be one of those jokers where, you know, when the Lord comes back, I'm ashamed because I didn't do what he was calling me to do. So willingness gets you called, but readiness keeps you commissioned. Now, I don't know if I use this term yet, but it was in the email that we sent out. The butterfly effect, right? There's a ripple effect with every action that we take, with every word that we speak. There's always a ripple effect. Obviously, spiritually and scripture wise, the law of sowing and reaping. We sow seeds all the time without even realizing we're sowing seeds. We sow seeds when we speak harshly or speak death, right? Death and life are in the power of the tongue. We're sowing these seeds. But the butterfly effect was first discovered by Edward Lorenz. He was a meteor urologist and mathematician, and he noticed while running weather simulations on a computer, an early computer back then, that tiny variations in input numbers, differences as small as 0.0001, produce drastically different weather outcomes. And ultimately, a few years later, he did this lecture. It was called does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas? And that's where the term butterfly effect came to be. And the idea of it now, if a butterfly flaps its wings in, in Brazil, can it affect the weather In Texas, maybe, maybe not. But I know that scripturally and spiritually, it applies to us that everything that we do, or sometimes the things that we don't do, it'll set forth a series of events based on that one action or inaction, right? There's a ripple effect, there's a butterfly effect of everything that we speak. I remember when I went to rehab after I got saved, so many people there, they, they talked about how, you know, they remembered like one time when their mother just like shouted at, at them or their father like just, just like one time and it did damage that led them down this life of trying to seek fulfillment in other things and seeking a refuge and everything, especially as us as parents. Everything that we do, everything that your kids see, see you do see us do as parents, that that's going to have a ripple effect for good or bad. I remember if you guys are familiar with Philip Anthony Mitchell, the pastor in, in Georgia when he was like in the streets and not living a very godly life when he was younger, he would remember hearing his mother like 3:00am, 4:00am just praying, praying like hearing his name in her prayers, just crying out to the Lord. And now he, he's one of the, the most passionate, fired up preachers that, that's around right now, right? And that ripple effect of his mother's prayers, even him hearing those prayers planted a seed. It sowed a seed within him. Now in second Samuel, chapter 11. And actually what I'm going to do real quick, I mentioned this on the prayer call, I mentioned last week we created that Christian breathwork video. It's phenomenal. All right. I'm not tooting my own horn because we did it, but it's great. If you've ever done Wim Hof breathing and think it's good, it's phenomenal. The problem with Wim Hof breathing is that as good as it is for you physically and even if you try to meditate on scripture when you hear Wim Hof's voice and for forgive my language right now, but one of the videos is like in with the good, out with the. And I'm just like, ah, that's tough to meditate on scripture when I'm hearing that, right? So we created the Christian version of it and I think it, it's really good. So I'm going to throw that in the chat. If everybody starts breathing like this, I'm going to know you're paying attention to that video rather than Bible study. So click on it, kind of save it, put it aside, but do it later. Okay? Now, the butterfly effect of not an action, but a decision not to act that we're going to dive into is David in second Samuel, chapter 11. And this is the sin of omission, right? James says that if we know what to do and don't do it, that's sin, right? The sin of not doing something that we know we're supposed to do. And it. This was a season. This was springtime. This is when the kings went out for battle, right? I kind of think it's funny when it's both. It's the Christian version and the Christian version because it's my voice. I recorded it thinking that our Jace, our tech guy, was going to run it through AI. I was going to have this nice, like, Australian accent or something, and I'd sound nice. And he just kind of made my own voice sound a little bit better. So it's my voice. If you don't like my voice, then you're probably not on this call anyway, because I do a lot of talking on these calls anyhow. This was a season where the kings would go out for battle. And if you backtrack to chapter 10, God clearly told David that they won the battle against Syria, you know, David and his mighty men, because David was there and engaged in the battle with them. So now springtime, another time, and I think it's kind of comical. It's like, all right, weather gets cold, stormy, weather gets cold. We're gonna cease from battling right now, and in springtime, we'll start fighting again, right? But that's kind of how it was back in the biblical days. So it's springt time. And verse one said it happened in the spring of the year at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabba. But David remained at Jerusalem. David remained at Jerusalem. That. That lack of action, that sin of omission, him staying behind, especially when the Lord had just told him that they. They won the previous battle because he was with them fighting. It's that. That's the seed that sparked this ripple effect, this butterfly effect that affected generations. For. For David and his family now, the. The act of sleeping with Bathsheba, that. That wasn't the start of it. Start of it was because he was actually there in Jerusalem when he wasn't supposed to be in Jerusalem. He wouldn't have witnessed Bathsheba on her rooftop if he was actually in battle where he was supposed to be. And that there's so many ways that this message can be taught. One, if you're unwilling to engage in battle, what are the ramifications going to be, right? David should have been engaging in battle, but he wasn't. And we all should be engaging in battle. We always should. In the spirit. That's how we, We. We. We fight. That's how we. We win. Warfare, spiritual warfare. It's in the spirit that we. That we battle, right? The weapons of our warfare are not, not carnal, right? We. We don't fight our battles in the flesh. We. We fight in the spirit. And how many battles have we disengaged from? How many times have we said, you know, I should get up and pray right now? Or how many burdens have you had on your heart? And ultimately just said, you know, it'll play out. Whatever happens, happens, right? I think sometimes we, we lack the discernment to. To realize how powerful our prayers are. How powerful our prayers are. So with David, the, this seed, it wasn't like David was this. Obviously he was a mighty warrior. We know he. He had a heart for God, right? God anointed him and filled him with the Holy Spirit. Said he'd never take his spirit away. But the seed of, of lust, it didn't just come out of the blue. David was disobedient by having multiple wives. If you look up how many wives David had and all like. And I mean, when you look at all the different kids he had from different wives, all his baby mamas, right? It's like a Maury Povich episode, right? That he had a lot of them. And it was disobedience to the Lord. Now, at the time, in that in ancient days, kings would have multiple wives, one to. For power, to make sure they had a lot of heirs for the kingdom. So it was culturally accepted. But God established in Deuteronomy 17, 17, when he laid out all the instructions for the future kings of Israel, that was one of the instructions. Don't multiply. Your wives only have one wife. A reiteration of God back in the beginning of Genesis, right? One man, one woman. Come together. That's what marriage is. So readiness without willingness breeds passivity. And we've talked over the last few weeks about passivity and compromise. But readiness without willingness breeds passivity. And passivity invites temptation. Passivity invites temptation. So his first failure wasn't adultery. It was apathy. And apathy, like in. In the Greek, it literally means lacks passion, right? So. And I think it's what it means in the English as well. Sometimes you don't always have to say what it means in the, in, in Hebrew, excuse me, it, sometimes it means the exact same thing. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it does. But it, you lack passion. You're just indifferent about something. So that there is a progression of his neglect. It started with the decision to stay home, to not engage in battle, not being where you're supposed to be. He sees Bathsheba, right? And he saw, and it said the woman was very beautiful to behold, right? Like she was a dime piece. That's what God's saying here, that she was a dime piece. Like she was hard to resist, right? Bathsheba, you know, she, she was a 10. She was a 10 out of 10. And now David, who should have been like, overlooking his mighty men engaging in this battle, is now overlooking his rooftop, his balcony, and seeing Bathsheba. And when, when there's a desire to sin and it meets an opportunity to sin, you're gonna say, right? So, one, you want to protect yourself from opportunities to sin first and foremost, right? Especially if you're married. You know, I don't like to have any, I always like to be available, but I don't like to be on any chats with just a woman unless our spouses are involved on that chat. There's just things like that, it doesn't matter. Like, you may not be a dime piece, right? But I, I, I'm not going to think I'm above failing at any point, right? I want to guard myself, but also I don't want to have that desire to sin. There's a desire to sin, then we got to kill that. We got to take that to the altar. And that desire, if it starts with a little desire, a little temptation, everybody, and this particular sin of lust and then ultimately adultery, and then after that, murder, right? Having Uriah sent to the, Bathsheba's husband, sent to the front line so he could be killed. But just darkness begets darkness. Because even the way that this happens, David sleeps with her and he knocked her up, right? She got pregnant. And he's like, oh, man, Uriah is actually at the battlefield where I'm supposed to be now. Everybody's gonna know nine months from now that Uriah wasn't even around, right? So he calls Uriah back from the battlefield and he kind of encourages him to sleep with Bathsheba. And Uriah was a better man than David at this moment because he said, I, I can't do that. I can't do that, right? Now my men are out there fighting. I gotta get back to them. So it, it showed you just the character of Uriah. And David's like, yeah, we're gonna send him out to the front lines knowing that he was going to get killed. So they're gonna try to. You're not really hiding the evidence because a baby is still going to come from it. But it was an attempt to, to cover up the set, right? And then Uriah gets killed. Excuse me. Excuse me. Word gets back that he's been killed. Bathsheba hears that her husband is dead, and she mourned for her husband. This is now chapter 11, verse 26 and 27. And when her mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house and she became his wife and bore him a son, right? For a moment, seems like David got away with it, right? For a moment, it's like, okay, she, she has the son and David's probably stepping in like, yeah, I'm gonna take you as one of my wives, that we'll, we'll raise this son together. But it says in verse 27, the thing that David had done displeased the Lord and any pleasure that we get from sin, anything, right? I don't care how it could be a day. We're elated or euphoric from the sin, but it's probably going to be a short period of time, especially when we're dealing with, with sexual sin, right? But the, the ramifications, right? And then whenever you try to cover up one sin, whenever you don't come clean with one sin, you try to cover it up. Oftentimes, if anybody has kids, you've probably seen this, they'll. They do something that they know they shouldn't have done, but then they lie about doing that one thing, and the lie is now the bigger issue than what they actually did. Like, you're a kid. Like, kids don't. Aren't always obedient, right? Spoiler alert for anybody who hasn't had kids. They're not always obedient. But you know better than anybody when your kid did something wrong. And you especially know when they lie, right? I told my oldest son Isaiah, said, Isaiah, if you are going to lie as much as you do, at least get good at it. Like, it's not believable at all, at all, right? You're like the worst liar. And usually what he was lying about was just something stupid that he shouldn't have been doing. Get in trouble at school, whatever, whatever it was. But then the lie, because the lie now breaks this bond of trust that you have. Lies will break that bond of trust. Now, David's sins of adultery, murder and cover up were exceptionally evil in God's sight. He effectively broke commandments 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, right? Murder, adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, covet. He did it all right here in this, the short story, the short passage and what happened. God and his faithfulness to us, thank God that the Holy Spirit convicts us when we do wrong, right? And I don't know if my beautiful wife Lucy is on this, but I, I say this in jest. I say it in just now, but there has been times when we've been in a bit of a back and forth and. Because I know just from past experience, 13 years of marriage, that if she is in the wrong, and you know, that's just like 1% of the time compared to my 99, I'm gonna admit that, but that 1% of the time, the Holy Spirit will always convict her. Always. Holy Spirit's bat in a thousand. Whether it's a big wrong, a little wrong, in between wrong, no matter how few and far in between she is wrong, the Holy Spirit will always convict her.

It.

I've made the mistake though, of reminding her that in the heat of the moment that once she sits with the Lord and she's convicted, she's going to come back and apologize. I should have kept that to myself in the moment. No, I'm just trusting the Lord that that would be the process. Because saying that in the moment, how fleshly you are, and you know, I'll wait till you actually take time for the Lord and feel conviction of the Holy Spirit. Probably shouldn't have said that in the heat of the moment, but lo and behold, I was right. She got convicted and she apologized. And whether it's a big thing, a small thing, I love that the Holy Spirit will convict us. And if we don't feel conviction from the Holy Spirit, it could be one, because the Holy Spirit is not living inside of us to begin with, right? But two, darkness begets darkness. So if we're convicted, right? But we, we lie, we wiggle to try to find a way out of whatever we just did. We always have to lie to cover up other lies or things that we did. Now as darkness begets darkness, lies, we get more lies. Now that conviction of the Holy Spirit becomes less and less, less and less. When, when I see like, like pastors fall, right? You see a pastor who had an affair or something like this, it's like they didn't just Wake up one day and that happened, right? It didn't just happen. It wasn't somebody who was walking in righteousness and just made an oopsie, right? That there, there was progression to get to that point, most likely. And when they were convicted, well, did they try to hide, did they try to keep it secret? Right? And that's why I love these Wednesday mornings. I love the transparency on these calls. I love that where a community where there's no judgment, I, I thank God. And I understand as somebody who carries the, the weight of pouring into other people, it's like, okay, if I, if I'm teaching them what, what the Bible says about this, and I stumble and I fall, they can't know because I, I made a mistake. I'm not practicing what I preach. And that's what most pastors feel. But that's why all pastors need people in their lives that are going to keep them accountable. I have those people in my life. Some of them are on this call right now. And I'm so grateful for that. Because if you don't have that, if you don't have that community, and if you can't have that vulnerability with others, when you stumble, you're going to try to keep it secret. And then all of a sudden that secret is going to get bigger, bigger, bigger. And then all of a sudden there's going to be a big fall and it's going to come to light eventually. There's power in confessing, not just to God, obviously, we confess our, our sins to God. He's faithful to forgive of our, Forgive us of our sins and cleanses of all unrighteousness. First John 1:9, but also James 6, right? We confess to one another that we may be healed. There's power in confession. There's power and confession, just getting it out. There's power and just the confession. Just not even like to a brother or sister, just the actual, the actual getting it out, right? What, what's hidden in darkness? Just getting it out, right? It's not necessarily the counsel of your brothers or sisters that you confess it to, but just getting it out. Because now you're making the choice to bring that thing that you're keeping hidden in darkness out exposed. So what does God do in his faithfulness? In chapter 12, he sends the prophet Nathan to David and he tells him. And Nathan, he's instructed by the Lord, he's to confront David about this sin. And he tells a parable about a rich man stealing a poor man's lamb. And David was outraged and said, that man who's rich and steals a poor man's land deserves to die. And Nathan says, well, aha, you're that man, right? And in that moment, David, sin is exposed and there are more ripples begin to unfold. See, Joe, going through security at airports. Hopefully your flight's not for like, three hours, Joe, Depending on. I. I heard DFW haven't flown in a couple weeks. I am next week. I haven't heard that. I've heard DFW is one of those bad airports right now. Anyhow, What Nathan says here, and this is the Lord speaking through Nathan, he says, why have you despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword. You have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammonia. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Those are some powerful words right there. Powerful. What God is saying is that because you committed this act, you. You think you just sinned, you made a mistake, you slept with Bathsheba, which, truth be told, in this day and age, I don't want to say it's commonplace in the church, but if any pastor right now, you found out, oh, they had an affair. Would you be surprised? At this point, probably not, right? You'd be disappointed. You'd be disappointed. But I. I mean, there's not too many things that would shock me in this day and age, right? What. What with what you see day in and day out. But he despised the commandment of the Lord, right? Because he, he one, he took multiple wives. That was the seed of all this. But the judgment is the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me. The word despise in Hebrew means to treat contemptuously, to scorn, to make of little account. Thus, by David's actions, he was declaring God to be of little account and unworthy of his love and devotion. When we sin, we don't think about that, right? When we give into the desires of the flesh. But what we're really doing, we're showing our lack of devotion, the lack of importance that God is in our life. Because no matter what the sin, we're sinning against the God of the universe, the. The God that went to the cross in our place. And so those words, and this is why it's so important to read Scripture, guys, because I don't know about you, but, but this convicts me if I sin. And I'm not saying here, I'm out here walking in sin or anything like that, but if anybody is walking in sin, that this should be a clear message to them. And if you're not walking in sin, this should be a clear message to continue to not walk in sin, right? So this message hits no matter where you are on that scale. Now, David essentially despised God, according to God, and by the killing of. By taking Bathsheba, killing Uriah. And God pronounced this judgment and the judgment of the sword shall never depart from your house. Now, Psalm 51 is a phenomenal psalm, phenomenal prayer even to just pray through yourself, not just to read the words if you're confessing your sin to God, but to actually mean the words that you say. But Psalm 51, this is the time that Psalm 51 was written. David actually repented. He was remorseful. He had a godly sorrow in his heart, and God did forgive him, right? God is faithful to forgive. But some of the words that God says in Psalm 51, have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, right? So it's not just saying this when you sin, it's actually meaning it. Now, if you're willing to be washed by the Lord, you got to be willing to be. Go through the ringer. Like, what's that process to wash me clean, right? And God will do it, but you got to be just totally surrendered, totally vulnerable to the Lord. And it says, for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin always before me against you, you only have I sinned. And then he uses words like purge me with hyssop, right? Like. Like purge me, wash me, cleanse me, create me a clean heart. Do not cast. Cast away from me your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me, right? This is a desperate plea from David. And God in his faithfulness did forgive, but also God had already declared the judgment is that the sword shall never depart from his house. So what is this sword that shall not depart from his house? And again, this butterfly effect, this ripple effect, these are the ramifications. We could be forgiven from sin and our. Our relationship with the Lord restored and healed and reconciled, but still have the consequences to contend with. And sometimes those consequences last the rest of our lives. And we have to be okay with it. It says in Scripture, David was okay with, with Whatever God had coming to him, right? Because I, I did it. I deserve it. God, however you want to deal with me, deal with me, right? It's important that we have that heart when we do mess up. But this butterfly effect. Now David lived another 25 years after this moment. Now, when, when David was told this parable by Nathan about the rich man who stole the poor man's lamb, he didn't just say that man deserves to die, but he, he said the restitution should be fourfold, right? And that was somewhat prophetic on his own behalf because the, the restitution for, for David, for killing Uriah was fourfold. Now the, the baby that Bathsheba had, that son died at birth, right? And that's in chapter 12. Then his son Amnon was murdered by another son, Absalom, after Amnon raped Tamar, his daughter, right? So that, that's two sons that are dead now. Then Absalom was killed by Joab, one of David's mighty men, after rebelling against David. And then Adonijah was executed. This, this one was after David had passed away. But it wasn't David that declared Solomon would take the throne after him. It was. It was God himself. God declared that Solomon would be the heir to the throne. But Adonijah wanted, wanted to sit in that throne. And ultimately Solomon ordered Ben and I to, to murder Adonisa. Right? So it's not just you got, you got four sons that are killed there. Two of them are by, by, like, by your, by other kids that you have, right? And, and then you look further from that with Solomon and his son Rehoboam, and ultimately the split between the northern kingdom of Israel and Judah, the 10 tribes in the north, two and two in Judah. Like, the ramifications of not sleeping with Bathsheba, not killing Uriah, but just making the decision to not engage in the battle that God's called you to that set off the series of events that lasted for generations. Generations. So we think about that, right? Everything that we do, everything that we say, it's a seed. What's going to bring forth. If a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, there's going to be a tornado in Texas. Think about the butterfly effect. Everything you do has impact. Everything you say has impact. What's that impact going to be? I'm catching up on the notes here. If anybody has anything to, to comments, questions.

So well taken. Uriah the Hittite was one of David's mighty men, right? Yes. Like, come on, dude. Like bros before, like ladies, right?

Yeah, yeah. And With. With Bathsheba. Bathsheba was the daughter of one of his mighty men and the granddaughter of one of his counselors, right? So it's like, think about that. Yeah, Uriah was one of his. His bros, one of his mighty men, but she was also the daughter of one of his mighty men and the grandfather of one of his counselors. It's like you're just that. That's why I'm saying it wasn't just like an oopsie. Oh, I see this woman. I made an oopsie. Like the, just the, the wickedness of David's action there. But it all started if he was just where he was supposed to be, fighting that war, fighting that battle, none of this would have happened. None of it would have happened.

It also, sorry, goes to Bathsheba. She had no choice in all of this. She was married and her husband's away. And then when the king calls her, it's not like she has any option to say no. And so there was a total abuse of his power and kind of an imposition on his part because he lusted after her, her. But she had already, you know, vowed to her husband. So that was just another thing that, you know, Bathsheba's side doesn't get told that much because it's not in there. However, you know, just David abusing that position of power and abusing that authority that he was given.

I'll ask you as a woman, and I'll ask any woman that's on this call, do you think that Bathsheba knew that she could be seen by King David where she was?

I don't know if I know culturally enough about how bads were taken at the time. I mean, if I take my clothes off anywhere outside my bathroom, it's weird. So, you know, it's possible, but it's not. It does. I don't know. I don't know if that was like the custom. Is that where women took their baths, you know, and yes, the positioning is weird. So it's hard to say. I can't answer that.

Okay. I. I would venture to say that she knew. Maybe she didn't know on that day. David would see. But I would. I would say. I would say there's 100 chance that she knew that there was at least a possibility of David seeing her when she's out there, right? Not. Not saying that. That she's to blame by that, but I would just say she probably knew. Right. I'm not saying she was trying to seduce him or anything like that, but I don't think she was going out of her way.

Seen.

Objection. That is speculation.

And. And that's why I said, I'll ask you, Leslie, and any other woman, because a woman would know better than. Than I would. But I would. I would. That would be my guess, right?

Yeah.

It does come down to things like, you know, like, say, in our culture today, you know, how many times women are accused of blame for, you know, acts against them, you know, because, well, you were dressed provocatively. And it's like. But that's not inviting other people to come on to us. You know, like, dressing provocatively doesn't mean that you are allowed to take that action against a woman, you know, whether she was asking for it or not. So it's kind of like, you know, it may be hard to say the custom of the time, but just because she was kind of doing something provocative, you know, even. Even today, a woman dressing provocatively, you know, can cause another man to stumble. But.

But.

So there's maybe a little bit. But then there's a lot of it on David of.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. 100. And I'm not one of these guys that's going to blame Bathsheba for this. I'm not gonna blame the fall of man on Eve rather than Adam. Right. She. She played her part. But I. I'm. I'm not trying to place this on Bathsheba. Zach. Oh, yeah, Zach and Roy.

Yeah, I think that's a good point that you just made, Christian, because, like, the likening this to Adam and Eve, because Adam was right there, like, within our arm's reach of Eve, based on the way that that reads and the meaning of the words. And so he was just silent.

Right.

And so in the same way, like, I think 100% of this falls on David in the sense that, I mean, he should be on the guard against this. Meanwhile, instead of being out on the battlefield, he's at home. And then he's, you know, idle hands or the devil's playground.

Right.

I will say a few chapters later, Absalom puts a tent up on the.

Roof.

To go sleep with all the concubines to make the place. So I don't think that rooftops were some private place, like, that's intentionally public, so just like, culturally reading into it. But at the same time, I mean, just like any person of influence in general, like, like, even today, like pastors, there's ladies who are just trying to get with pastors. I mean, there's rock stars, there's ladies who are just Trying to get with rock stars at the same time, it's fully on that guy. You know, David was not a victim in that sense. Right, but that's not to say Bathsheba was innocent either. Right. Because, I mean, rooftops were, like I said, a public place. So it's kind of like.

And.

And it's not. I agree with what Destiny said, too, saying, well, all the guys were supposed to be out the battle, yet at the same time, like you just said, she's Uriah's wife and, you know, her dad was a. Another person in the army and that her grandfather was an advisor, so she likely knew David was home. That's not to say that that's all on her, but there's a lot of factors there that. That point to maybe a lack of innocence as well. But I wouldn't. I wouldn't pass any blame to her in the sense that, I mean, David was fully in control of the situation.

Yeah. Brandon just said, your inability to resist temptation is not anyone's fault but your own. 100. Go ahead, Roy.

But I would say, you know, we are playing. We're playing this really silly, very human blame game when we're like, how much percentage is blah, blah, blah, right? If you're one person and you sin, you are 100% guilty of the sin and responsible. If two people decide to sin, each one is a hundred percent guilty for what they did, and therefore. 100. It's not 50. 50. It's a 25. 75. You know, it's just like, well, she dressed provocatively. If you give in, you are 100% guilty. If she decided to entice him, she's 100 guilty. But so is he. For doing it, for giving him.

Yeah. Amen. And I don't want to discount the fact that Bathsheba, like anyone else, can be used in the enemy's plan. Right. Even if it's unbeknownst to her to. To. To stumble. David, right? Now, if you're dealing with, say, or just in general, I. I've said this before. If your cup of tea is. I don't have a cup of tea. My cup of tea is Lucy Edwards. Right. The one of a kind. That's my cup of tea. It's not short, feisty black woman with short blonde hair. That ain't my cup of tea. That's my. That's my cup of tea in Lucy Edwards, period. But if that's your cup of tea, best believe when you're working out, especially if you're, you know, if you're kind of entertaining sin or whatever. It's like that. You're gonna see that cup of tea stroll right past you, right, in a skimpy outfit and try to tempt you. You, right? And that person who walks past you in that skimpy outfit, it may just be she walks past everybody at the gym in that skimpy outfit. But. And for you in that situation, that enemy is using that person to get you to stumble. So, yeah, I don't want to place blame on Bathsheba, but. But she could have been used in the enemy's plan against David, even unbeknownst to her, right? Unbeknownst to her. Because the enemy. The enemy could use believers too, right? Which we could get into. But the enemy can use the believers as a part of his plan. That's another conversation for another day. Sean.

Yeah, I have a few different thoughts here. I'm going to try and make them as coherent as possible instead of as disjointed as they are in my. In my brain. So our. The mortification of the flesh is so important. You know, our appetites have very limited vocabulary. It's now and more. And I think it was Zach who was mentioning all the concubines that David had, all the wives that he had. Like, he has this urge, go be with one of his wives. You know, it's as simple as that, and put that to death. I tell. I tell my daughters sometimes, too. Like, if you. If you. If you strap a bunch of raw steak all over yourself and then go out on a safari and jump off the safari truck, don't be shocked when you get ambushed by a bunch of lions. So don't put yourself in that situation. And I also was, when. When reading with my daughter this morning. She's got a. A book that we like to read together in the morning before she goes to school. Just making the point that as a Christian, in your relationships, if it's like a triangle and Christ is at the peak of that triangle, if you're drawing closer to Christ and the people around you are doing the same, then you're going to draw closer to those people and you'll be more considerate of them, of their particular weaknesses and whatnot, but also you're going to be putting a distance between yourself and non believers. So, yeah, a few thoughts that I had this morning.

Yeah, that's good stuff, man. Roger.

So the Bader Meinhof principle phenomenon comes to effect. You know, it's like, you know, you start to see a world full of. You've never seen a. A Fiat on the road until you buy a Fiat, and then all of a sudden you see him. So because you. Because you've kind of got something, something comes more familiar. I'll be really open and honest with you. My palms are sweating a little bit. A lot of you guys. A lot of you guys know, early on in my.

I wasn't faithful.

I stepped out of my wife, and it was because I was taking BB shots at. @ my. At my sanctification, right? My purity. I was like, there was. I was opening little cupboards and I was, you know, and I was. I was looking at things, you know, I got into. I got. I got into porn and stuff like that. And when you do that, you start to.

You.

You start to unintentionally look for opportunities. So to your point, Christian, when that cup of tea walks by, your mind immediately goes back to what you took to a cupboard that you've opened. And maybe you saw something that wasn't there. Maybe you thought, like, oh, she's flirting with me. She walked by me on purpose. Something like that. So I'm just wondering, you know, like, at this point in David's life, you know, where he's, you know, got some affluence and he's kind of exploring the things of the world. You know, that opportunity was, you know, subconsciously, I think he was looking for it. And when the timing is right, when enough BBs have hit your stained glass, it only takes one more for. For. For the entire window to fall out. And that's where we have to be really careful. You know, when we. When we start to. When we start to step out on things, we start to open cupboards that were never intended for us to open. The, the, you know, the Lord says not to. That we know that are wrong.

So, yeah, Brandon, that's good. Thank you for sharing that man. Brandon wrote James 1:14 15. When desire has been conceived, it gives birth to sin. Yeah, it's the. The desire. And the desire comes once you start entertaining it a little bit, right? When you start poking around, opening those. Those cupboards, who. Who was more tempted? Was it David by seeing Bathsheba on another rooftop? Or Joseph in Potiphar's house, right, by Potiphar's daughter. It was surely Joseph, right? He, you know, it's like one of those movies where the, the girl, like, slams the door and the guy behind starts to close a situation like that, and what do you do? He. No, he didn't give in to that temptation. He ran, he fled so he was surely more tempted than David was, right? But he, he was more of a man of God in that moment than David was. Certainly, Certainly just a couple thoughts to leave you guys with. Every battle left unfought becomes a burden left inherited. Every battle left unfought becomes a burden left inherited. Okay? The battles that I don't fight, my children are gonna have to finish. If I don't confront something now in my life, my kids are probably gonna have to contend with it. Neglect is not neutral. It's sewing. Sometimes we, we think if we just neglect something, it's no big deal. But think about, you know, so weed pops up in your garden. Just starts with one weed. It's like, ah, you know, I'll get that tomorrow. I'll get that tomorrow. Then all of a sudden your whole garden's overtaken with weeds, right? So it's simple disciplines every single day, simple habits every day to make sure that those, those weeds, If a weed pops up, if a temptation pops up, you nip it in the bud right then and there. You don't entertain it. You, you like Joseph, where you shall know and you run, right? Because think about this. No matter how seductive the temptation is, talking about wives and concubines, Solomon was even worse. 700 wives, 300 concubines. Guess what? If two or three is not enough, a thousand ain't going to be enough, right? There's an issue with that. There's an issue. And all the desires, the, the, the, the passions of our hearts, that they're to be fulfilled in the bedroom with your spouse, right? Like we're not to. It's not like we can't engage in these passions that, that we have sexually, but they're, they're restricted. God has a set of rules for it. Yes, you, you could act this out, but it's with one woman for the rest of your life, period. And I, I believe that when you find your wife, it, there's obviously more to it aside from the, the physical pleasures of it, obviously. The, the spiritual intimacy, the oneness that yada that we've talked about, right? That's the word that the Bible uses. When Adam knew Eve, right? They came together certainly sexually, but more so intimately too. And that, that yada is the same word that David uses when he says, God, search me, right? Search me and know me, right? Obviously David's not saying I have sexual intercourse with me, but that intimacy that's involved. So every pleasure that, that's, that, that's sought out outside of marriage, it'll never be fulfilled because it's reserved for the bedroom with one wife. Thor.

Hey, what's up, guys? So, just listening here, I know that I. I'm just kind of walking this out as a. I would say baby Christian or a teenage Christian, but I'm still working on it. So we're talking about going back to what you say, Christian, about how the evil one uses believers. And in my sense, what. What David was doing, hanging out in the kingdom instead of going to war, disobeying God. I feel that God was like, all right, so you want to do this on your own? Well, I'm going to test you. And I feel that's what. What God does, even for the believers that are walking the straight line. I've always felt the closer you get to God, the easier temptation is just getting right in your face. And I think that's what happened there. God put it in Bathsheba's mind to just go bathe because David was going to be gone. Well, David decided to stay back. So I feel that God had said, well, I'm going to test you. You're going to fall out. I already know what you're going to do. But when it comes to that, if. If David had truly, you know, listened to God and went to war, that wouldn't have happened. But now he's getting tested. He fails. And then once we fail those tests, then, you know, time to repent. But David just never did it until all this stuff fell out. And I think for a lot of us, especially me, I won't speak for.

Myself.

When it comes to that egregious sin. It doesn't look like sin. It looks like, okay, well, this is fun, but I've still got. I've still got Christ. I'm still doing my things. And then like you said about the pastors, it's that one little. One little butterfly effect and one little thing that just dissolves into. Into death, because that's what sin leads to. And I think it was just a big test that David's, like, he didn't even know it was a test because he was so wrapped up in his own kingdom and his own kingliness instead of God. So, yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't put it all on the evil One. I'd say that it's probably. Or maybe it is in conjunction with that, but I think it was a test that David did not perform very well on.

Yeah, I appreciate that, man. And even, like I said, it's a whole nother conversation because we could get deep in the woods. A lot of times in God's testing of us, he will allow the enemy to be a part of that plan. So, whole nother conversation, but to your point, what one generation excuses, right? Because we're. We're in a day and age where, you know, everything is at our fingertips. We. We see stuff in front of our eyes. We talked about with Charlie Kirk. Everybody's seeing that blood shoot out of his neck. But not just that, but, you know, I live in a state in Texas where I think a couple years ago it was on the news, like, they banned porno up, right? It's like, fantastic, right? Because that, like, that's a wonderful thing when you think of how many teenagers, and even younger than teenagers, have access to. To the Internet just day in, day out. So we now, the enemy, he plays the long game, right? He's very. He schemes, he plots, and he's.

And his Internet almost lasted the entire time. Christian, if you're there.

Oh, he's gone. Can you hear me? There you are. Okay, I know that's Riley's face up there, but I'll keep my video off as I finish this. Just. I don't disconnect. But if the enemy can make us numb to things. If every time you go on social media and even like, social media, it's crazy. You're freezing on me again. Can you hear me?

Yeah, we can hear you.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Like, we become numb to these things and it starts to be just kind of like gawking over girls. It's just commonplace. And if you're married, that. That shouldn't be right. If a girl was right in front of your eyes and your wife was standing there, if your wife was peering over your shoulder, would you be looking at that same thing? Probably not, right? But we've become numb to what's acceptable. And even, you know, I don't know what these pastors think who. Who are falling, but it's like, are they thinking, oh, you know, everybody's doing it, you know, you know, it's just. And I'll just be one of those pastors that has to sit down from. From ministry, whatever it may be. But ultimately, what one generation excuses, the next embraces and the third celebrates. So it will get passed down from generation to generation. And I talked about a little bit earlier about if one weed sprouts up in a garden, if you just don't pluck it, don't nip it in the bud, eventually it's going to choke out your garden. Well, start those little habits Right. Those little actions that will start a butterfly effect of. Of goodness. Right? Like, like, what do we want? What do. What do we want to be known for? Know that every action today or inaction, decide, decision to not act could have ramifications of. For our children. I'll share this real quick and then we'll hop off. I want. I want to be respectful of your time. I. At my house in Texas, since I moved in, I've had a lot of people come stay, a lot of house guests, right? And most of them make their beds and tidy up. You would never know they're there. And then I've had a couple that don't. And you're like, oh, my God, did like a teenager have a party in this room last night? And when you look at the lives of those folks, those who make their bed, who. They leave a place better than they found it, you see their lives and you see the fruit in their lives. You see the discipline that. That's paying off in other areas in their lives as opposed to see the. The lives of those who just simply don't make their bed. How. It's just. It's a mess, right? It's all over the place. It's all over the place. So simple disciplines, daily disciplines, daily habits can start that butterfly effect. And you know, there's nothing in scripture that says every day, wake up and make your bed, but a simple discipline like that can start a butterfly effect of further disciplines, where maybe now you're going to become more discipline. It's not you. You stayed in my house, Roger. You stayed in my house. You're not one of the. The messy bed ones. Okay, so, yeah, it's not you, Raj. But if you could become disciplined at just simply making your bed every day, then you're going to get better at discipline in other areas. Maybe just simply. Simply your prayer time, your devotion time with the Lord, that. It's a butterfly effect. So you guys keep pausing every few seconds on my end. So I'm not sure if you're hearing every word.

We're here or not.

Okay. Okay. Well, I'll see if I could turn this on so I could at least use it. Well, I could see you so you can see me as I say bye to you. Not that that's so important, but we'll wrap this up. I appreciate all the inputs, everybody who's on this, that contributes. We're all blessed by, by every thoughts, by everything that everyone contributes. The transparency, the vulnerability on these calls. I appreciate it. But think about today. Just every action or something. Maybe you've been putting off procrastinating about. Think about the butterfly effect of that. What. What's that going to lead to now? Will it lead to the. The havoc that David had? Maybe not necessarily, but it's going to have an impact one way or another. So plant the seeds for. For greatness, for goodness. Be ready, be willing, be able, seek God. Our readiness is based on our faithfulness, and our willingness is just based on that passion, that zeal. Right? I. I love the Lord. If you. If you have a relationship with the Lord, if you feel his love, you should have that passion. Because the. The fact that Jesus Christ died for us, that's the greatest gift that could ever be offered to human being. And if that was the only thing he's ever done for any one of us, it's enough for us to get up every single day, say thank you, and worship him with our lives and love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. So with that said, yes. I love it. Discipline begets discipline. It does. Darkness begets darkness, and discipline begets discipline. Love it. Guys, check out that breathing video. I'll drop the link here in the chat one more time. Raj, it's my guy. He makes his bed. Makes his bed. If Roger, I guarantee, if Raj didn't make his bed, he probably wouldn't be my guy. Okay, he probably wouldn't, but he does. Love you guys. Have a blessed week.

See you all next week.