I want to talk about something. I felt like the Lord brought it to my attention this morning.
And then after Mary spoke through prayer, I went, yeah, I believe that's God.
They had a couple of people get saved again last night at TBO, which is awesome.
And I want to show you some things that she sent my direction.
Well, one picture. I want to show you a picture as soon as this connects.
There we go. Look at that.
That was put on the platform by someone who got saved last night as far as I know they were a young teen, teenage person.
For those of you who say what the world is that, that's a meth pipe.
So they got rid of a meth pipe.
So now I want to address something, because this is important.
Sometimes it feels to me like there's an attitude that develops against TBO because they're those kind of people.
And it's either coming from pride and arrogance, like the Sadducees and Pharisees, or it's coming from fear.
So I want to address this just a bit, because if we're going to be effective in reaching and ministering to the younger generation,
that's a reality of life.
And we have to embrace what's needed to deal with that.
Statistics say high school graduates between 35 and 40 percent of them have dealt with illicit drugs.
Consumed.
Of course if you throw alcohol in on that, now alcohol is a drug.
And I just want that to soak in. Alcohol is a drug.
If you throw alcohol in on that, 35-40 percent is way low.
Okay, so that's coming out of high school.
Now if you go into coming out of college, college is where it first gets weird.
I would think that number easily doubles coming out of college.
70 to 80 percent have worked in the realm of illegal drugs.
And if you throw alcohol, which is legal in on that, well then it probably even goes up from there.
That's just a representative. That's not necessarily any particular thing.
But I want to make this point. Many people who started at TBO have ended up here.
So to get an attitude towards that kind of person, we're actually getting an attitude with ourselves.
And you know what's real?
There's numerous people in a group this size who are struggling with drugs here.
It is so prevalent in society.
And the thing that keyed this morning, what Mary brought up that I want to touch,
she was talking about divination and how that divination is actually just the thirst for the supernatural.
When we're hungering for drugs, we're actually hungering for the Spirit of God, the supernatural of God.
We don't know it, but we are.
This is the way Paul expressed it.
Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation.
That's how the New King James reads that.
But be filled with the Spirit.
He connects the supernatural, the Holy Spirit, with why people get drunk.
Okay, so I want you to see something here that I thought was quite interesting.
Here is Strong's definition of that word dissipation.
It can be debauchery.
I think the NIV and the King James used debauchery.
It's that word.
That's the word translated from the Greek to the English.
It is a compound as a negative participle, and it's presumed to be derived from 4982.
And I'm not going to show you that yet.
I want you to see this first, and then I'm going to shock you with 4982.
So it's a negative participle, or it's the opposite of 4982.
The Strong's number 4982.
It's dealing with unsaviness, profligacy.
I don't know if that's the correct pronunciation. I don't use that word every day.
Excess, okay?
So that's what it's talking about.
It's the opposite.
See if I can expand this.
It won't expand for me. You have to have good vision.
Anybody read the third line down on the right side?
No?
It's the word sozo.
What is sozo?
It's the Greek word for salvation.
It's the Greek word to be made safe, to be protected, to heal, to be delivered, to be made whole, to be made well.
Do not be drunk with wine.
No, it's not going back to it.
Let me go in a different way.
Ephesians 5 verse 8, 9, 4.
Give me a second. You're watching me work live.
518.
Oh, you're playing.
Is this on now?
Oh, there you go.
Scared me for a second.
I thought I did something.
Okay, you go ahead and adjust that.
There's the word that he uses there in Ephesians 5, 18, saying excess, dissipation, debauchery.
It is the opposite of sozo.
So it's totally separate.
Okay, one word in...
Let me go back.
One word there, and I wish I could expand it.
It's profligacy, or however that's pronounced, as one of the definitions for dissipation.
Now this is interesting.
I had it here, but profligacy.
The quality or state of being...
Yeah, hell.
Okay, so let's go see what that is.
Completely, it sucks about wildly extravagant.
Completely given up to dissipation or licentiousness, shamelessly immoral.
What is dissipation?
The act or process of dissipating the state of being dissipated.
Now take that, put it back into Ephesians 5, 18.
Do not be drunk with wine, which is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit.
When we're pulling in, because when you're dealing with drugs, according to Revelation, you're dealing with the spirit realm.
It's called sorcery.
So you're hungering after something more than just the drug.
You're hungering after the thing that goes on in the spirit realm, and your spirit is trying to find something here to feed it, and it doesn't even know it.
But when you're hungering for it and you go after it and participate, now Paul used alcohol.
Of course, back then I don't think they had meth.
I doubt that they had some of the other drugs we're dealing with.
So he pulled out the drug at the time, alcohol.
When you're after the drug, you're actually diffusing or in the state of being made less and less and you're dissipating.
As you're pursuing that drug, you are not becoming more, you're becoming less.
And the longer you pursue that, the less you become and the less you have and the less you are and the more confused and the more frustrated and everything that goes with that becoming less.
Which is the opposite of sozo, which that is what builds us up and makes us something.
Changes our life into good. Changes our life into profitable things.
Changes our life so that we're moving forward in good things versus wasteful expenditure or excessive drinking will do that.
So my whole point is this, with the percentage of people 25 years old and under messing with drugs,
we are seeing without them even knowing it an entire generation pursuing spiritual things or the supernatural.
Paul says, don't go the route of the drugs. And of course, Paul is writing for God.
He's being directed by the Holy Spirit. What to write?
Don't go the route of drugs. If you need pursue the Holy Spirit, which will satisfy that hunger and that thirst for something inside of you.
Because if you go the route of drugs, including alcohol, because Paul specifically mentioned that,
it's going to make you less and less and less and less and less.
It's going to dissipate you. It will not...
Well, I can't wait to Friday and then I can add something to my life.
No, actually, you're subtracting every Friday that comes.
Less and less and less and less.
That's why you watch people who have been involved in drugs all their life and they're 60, 70 years old.
You look at them and it's like, wow, they're just a shell of a person.
There's just no substance there anymore. It's just like, wow, I feel sorry for them. Look at them.
That's because the drug has dissipated it all their life.
If they would have gone to the Holy Spirit and entered into the spirit realm,
the things of the supernatural that the Holy Spirit wanted to do inside of them,
it would do just the opposite and rather than making them less, make some more.
So I say all that to say this.
The world needs us to understand it more and more and more
because that is an example of what's getting worse and worse and worse.
They are looking for what we have.
And when they can't find it, they end up going a route
that is actually a realm of divination.
They're actually tying in to the spirit world from a direction that will just eat away at them until they're gone.
People need you. People need what you know. People need what you have.
And if you don't have it, let's fix that before you leave today
so you get it and get going the right direction.
Just that easy.
But as she was going through the prayer time and explaining that
and what she's going to be getting into and dealing with,
I thought, you know, that is...
that's important enough.
I need to touch what I felt the Holy Spirit gave me this morning.
So I touched it.
Did you get anything out of that?
Hopefully that gave you something to consider and ponder.
Because it's important in the time we're living in.
It's important.