 I just want to express how grateful I am that you came to my birthday party. I really appreciate it all this way. I'm 63 years old, you guys. How about that? I'm getting older and I felt, I've been, I was feeling it more this year in different parts of my body. And at one point during COVID, I was, I was in my room in the morning, mid-morning praying. And I was reading scripture and my heart was just filled with joy. And for the second time in a week, I got up and I went into my living room. No one was home. And I started dancing and singing to the Lord. I'd never done that before in my entire life. And I was hoping no one would come into the house, you know, and see me. But I'm dancing around the room and all of a sudden, pop! My knee popped. And all the years I played sports, I'd never had a below-the-belt injury. And here I am limping around my living room saying, you are too old for this, her back, just slow down. So anyway, before we get started, why don't we stand, brothers, and just stretch for a minute, okay? Just let the blood flow, stretch, reach for the sky. All right, now Ben down, let's touch our toes, every one of us. Some of you brothers are saying, what are you kidding, I haven't seen mine for two years. How can I touch it? Yeah, let's do it again, just stretch a little bit, yeah. Blessed be God. Okay, very good. We have been blessed profoundly this week so far, haven't we? You know, and yeah, amen, amen. Sister Miriam gave a laser shot to our hearts the last night and today, and the Lord did some surgery. How many of you felt like God was really doing something deep in your heart along the lines that she was leading? You feel kind of freed and healed more than when you walked in the door. Thanks be to God. I'd like to continue that, but tonight, brothers, I also want to speak about, she's talking about healing and the renewing of our hearts. I want to talk about the renewing of our mind. Because as we go forward, as we go forward into what the Lord has in store for us and the battle that lies before us, he wants us to be healed, which is why he's gone out, he's helped us so much internally and in the heart. Because when we're internally battling things, carrying weight, it's difficult for us to believe and to have faith and to be able to move into what God wants us to do, what he says he's calling us to do and what he can accomplish through us because we're stuck. And so part of what the internal work that the Lord is doing is helping us get free for the work that he wants us to do moving ahead. And what I want to talk about tonight is the Lord's call in each one of us. Every one of us is a prophet. Amen. Say with me, I am a prophet, not only a priest, not only a king, but a prophet. And it's my conviction that one of the things the Lord is doing, the Holy Spirit is doing, is restoring, renewing, and empowering the gift of being a prophet. Not only of giving prophecies, but to walk as Christ did in his prophetic ministry. You know Christianity, brothers, is a prophetic interpretation of reality. Christianity is a revelation about what's true at its most fundamental level. Christianity is the revelation of human, what is a human being, of human identity. It's a revelation of God and God's plan and God's purpose. We're living at a time when there's an extraordinary battle over those very things. What is it, what does it mean to be human? There's a battle for identity going on. And brothers, the world has never seen anything like this before. The battle is intense. The devil's going right for the core, right for the foundation. He's going to try, he's going to bite his own tail because he always does. He's going to end up, you know, being part of his own demise, but he's going to do everything he can to destroy as much as possible. He comes to deceive, he comes to destroy, and one of the fundamental weapons that we have that the Lord has given to us is the Word of God. And the power that's in the Word of God, and the power that's in us, when these two realities come together, this is the most powerful thing on the earth. God in us in terms of us engaging and extending the kingdom of God. Now, did you notice in tonight's Liturgy of the Hours in Ephesians chapter 3 verse 20? There's a declaration that happens in the Scripture, especially the beginnings of the letters that the apostles give us. They tell us so much about who God is, what God has done for us, and who we are before they call us to do what we're supposed to do. Chapter 3 verse 20, now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we can ask or think, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. To him who by the power at work within us, there's a power in you, there's a power in me, that's literally the Lord's antidote to bring about the renewal and the transformation and to lead the church in the battle in this moment. It's not your smarts, it's not your bank account, it's not your personality, your persuasive ability, it's none of that. I mean God uses nature, but fundamentally there's a power that's at work within us that when we believe it and we walk in it and we stand in it in the power of the Holy Spirit, we're able to break strongholds, help renew the mind and set captives free. Now you may not like the idea, but priests and deacons, you guys are on the front lines of this battle. Isn't that great? Doesn't that just make your day? It's all hitting the fan right now and the Lord, what does the Lord do? He puts you on the front lines and you're like, are you serious? Look around. I mean I'm looking down and thinking, wow we're in trouble. If I look with natural eyes, right? I mean we're like the halflings, the hobbits in the Lord of the Rings. Who actually brought down the kingdom and who actually went to the mountain, who actually broke the back? Was it Aragorn? He played a role. Who was it? It was these little humble halflings. There's a message in that for us. I mean they were the last people in the whole story that you would want to follow into the fire. And that's because it's not about our strength, it's not even about Aragorn's sword. It's about the Lord. It's about His mighty power. He brings the victory, brothers. Amen. All right. You kind of believe it. Let me say that again. The victory belongs to the Lord. Amen. Amen. And the crazy thing in, He's calling us at this moment to go with Him now into the heat of the battle. So what I want to do tonight, I want to talk a little bit about the battle that's going on. The battle, Acts 26 describes Paul, our theme passage. Paul gets a revelation of who Jesus is. He receives an assignment from the Lord. That revelation of Jesus, there was an impartation in the revelation of anointing that the Lord passed on the Paul to accomplish the assignment that he gave him. But not only did he give him something Paul needed to see the King. He needed to see who it is who has the victory. And it changed his whole outlook about reality, about himself, and what's possible. Amen. This is what the Lord always does, because the answer is in us knowing who is in charge, knowing who the Lord is, and our confidence in the gift of the Holy Spirit, the fire of the Spirit reveals to us the majesty of Jesus, and He gives us confidence, and He gives us courage. He gives us the fear of the Lord. He gives us zeal, and we move out of our natural lethargy or timidity or fear, and He gives us supernatural strength. And then He expects us to do something with it, to actually walk in it and to believe with a big faith that the victory belongs to the King and just declare what He tells us to declare and do what He tells us to do. He said to Paul, now I've appeared to you for a purpose. You are my servant. We are servants of the great King. We are servants of the word of the great King. And what we do is we exist to follow His commands. Wherever He sends us, it doesn't matter how much it looks like it's over our head, or that we can't handle it anymore because I'm too old, or my faith is too small. It's possible because He's the one sending us, and in humility we are His servants, and we obey Him, and we go wherever He tells us to go. And He says, you're my servants, and you're my witnesses to what I've shown you. And so Paul tells us here that Jesus said to him that He's being sent to open people's eyes. Because their eyes are blinded, as I read two nights ago, where Paul said that the devil veils the eyes of human beings. So they can't see the one thing that changes everything. They can't see the glory of God that's shining on the face of Jesus Christ, on a human face, on the God-man, who is the new creation, the beginning of the new humanity, and He's the answer to the fundamental realities that humanity is facing and can't come to on its own strength, when it's slaved in darkness. And He said, and you're called to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. That is your commission. That is your assignment. You can't do that on your own strength, but He's given you supernatural power to be able to do it. And one of the ways, and one of the fundamental ways He does it is through the preaching of the Word of God. There's power in the Word of God to break strongholds. Now, in this battle, brothers, that we're facing, it's important for us to understand the perspective that the apostles walked in. I want to read Revelation chapter 1, verse 9. He said, I, John, your brother, share with you in Jesus. How many of you know what John's about to say? I'm just curious. So John's writing a letter to the seven churches in Asia Minor. And he's writing a letter and he says, I'm sharing with you, he says three things. You biblical scholars, tell me, what are the three things he's sharing with all his brothers and sisters in the seven churches? What's the first one? What's that? What I've seen? No, not exactly. In the in the ballpark, but no. Here's what he's saying. This is normal Christianity. This is what every generation faces to one degree or another. Listen to what he says. I, John, your brother, share with you the persecution. Another translation is the tribulation. What are we sharing as a community of those who are baptized into Christ? He's identifying it. Who are these small little Christian communities in a massive pagan empire who's claiming that the emperor is God and that everybody needs to somehow some demigod that everybody needs to acknowledge. They have no power. They have no influence. There they are right in the center of this and they're being persecuted. Some of these churches are literally being persecuted. Some people are being martyred. Some people are being thrown in jail, right? So he said, I'm sharing with you the persecution, the kingdom, and the patient endurance. The kingdom. We're living together with the king. Our Lord came to establish his kingdom. He's saying, and we're with him. Do you see his faith vision? Do you see the prophetic understanding? He knows what's going on. He's not facing tribulation and saying, wait a minute. What's the deal? I didn't sign up for this. Isn't this supposed to be different? I mean, Jesus is my Lord. I'm supposed to be prospering. I'm supposed to be protected. I'm not supposed to be in this situation. But he's saying, no, this is the reality. We're living in the tribulation. We're living in Jesus. What did Jesus say about the tribulation? He said, brothers, deacons, priests, seminarians, he's saying, in this world you will have... Okay, there's one guy alive tonight. Okay, in this world you will have... No, tribulation is right. Let's say it together. In this world you will have tribulations. But what does he say? Draw back, get fearful, get somebody else to explain why this has to happen in my life because this isn't what I signed up for. He said, no, in this world you're going to have tribulation. You inhabit a fallen world. You're in a battlefield. But here's what I want you to do. You who serve me, here's what I want. I want you to be of good cheer. Really? How much pain and fear and anger and insecurity has gone through your mind and heart over the last couple of years. When you see the condition of the world and its growing hostility and the weakness of the church that's being exposed at the same time. Tell me the truth. Is your response to that, hey, I think I'm going to be of good cheer. That's what I'm going to do. Right? How much discouragement, how much negative talk, how much fear, how much anxiety has kept you up at night. You can say it's like, Jesus, what do you... I mean, really be of good cheer? He's not talking about being silly and living in denial and trying to pretend something's not real. He knows you're in the tribulation. He called you forth in this hour. But he's saying, be of good cheer, why? I have overcome this world and I live in you. So you have overcome this world. Now act like you overcame the world. Do you hear me? This is what the Holy Spirit wants to help us with. Because the devil wants right now for you and I to be timid, to be fearful, and to not respond in confidence and strength. I'm a man of God. Yeah, I'm weak and I'm broken, but the king lives in me. And the one, just like the Bible, we read these, you know, liturgy, the hours, we say these things over and over again, there is a power in you that's greater than any power on this earth. And you know that, and you know that that power is going to lead you from death to life and that nothing will separate you from the love of God that's in you. Everything is temporary on this earth and you already, you already have a down payment of the eternal hope that's in you. You should have a deep confidence that I'm not afraid of anything on this earth, because I know where I'm going. I know who I am. So I don't care what you do to me. I really don't. You believe that? There's one guy over here, praise the Lord. I actually paid him to say it, thanks. I paid him to be my amen corner tonight. Yeah, that's really good money, that's right, that's right. The persecution of the kingdom and the patient endurance. Now, book of Revelation, I want to recommend to you brothers, I don't know how well you know it. I recommend especially the first three chapters to chew on, to meditate on. There's over 30 titles of Jesus in there. Who is Jesus is the key? Who is he? Who is he to you? How do you know him? How he's revealing himself to you? He's the faithful witness. He's the firstborn from the dead. He's the ruler of the kings of the earth. He's the bridegroom. He's the king. He's the judge. And that whole beautiful, the revelation is the drawing back of the veil. It's the showing forth, not just of dimensions of God's plan, but it's the showing forth of the person of Jesus. And so here's John, on the island of Patmos, living what he's describing right here. He's celebrating the Lord's day, and he's in the spirit. I love that. He's in the spirit, and the Lord comes, and he comes to comfort him as a pastor. Because what's on his heart is the condition of the seven churches that he's leading in this super difficult environment, cultural circumstance, and he's crying out to God. And what's God's solution? God's solution for John is a revelation of the glory of Jesus. The answer is knowing Jesus. And so he goes on to say, I, John, your brother, who share with you Jesus in the tribulation, the kingdom, and the patient endurance was on the island of Patmos, I was in the spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet. And then he goes on to say, he hears the voices said, no, right to these churches. And he names the seven churches. And then he reveals himself to John, eyes flaming fire, from his mouth issues a sword, and the Holy Spirit is helping John see. It's the fundamental mission, brothers, of the spirit to reveal the glory and majesty of Jesus. It's the first mission of the spirit. And so John sees him, and as the Lord draws nearer, further and further, he says, when I saw him, I fell to the ground as though dead. But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, fear not, I'm the first and the last. I'm the living one. I die to behold, I'm alive forevermore. I have the keys of death and hate. He's now right what you see, John. John sees the king who's conquered anything that John could fear for, for his own life, or for the churches that he's shepherding. And the first thing John needs to see is that. That's what we need to see. That's what the Lord wants to show us. And then what does he do? People today say, you know, where is the Lord in all this stuff? All this stuff going down. Where's the Lord in the church? Where's the power? Where's the life? John gets a revelation, and Jesus says, I'm right in the midst of you. He's standing amidst the lampstands of the seven churches. He's right in the middle. And then he says, you leaders, you are in the palm of my hand. The bishops or the priests leading those communities, where are they? They're right in the palm of his hand. And I want to ask you, brothers, how much conviction do you have that he stands squarely in the center of your church community and that you're literally in the palm of his hand? That's a reality. That's the source of your strength. That's the source of your confidence, knowing and believing that. That's the power of faith, confidence and hope. And then he goes on and he, John communicates to them what Jesus is saying to each of the seven churches. And it's worth reflecting on these churches. I'm not going to do it tonight, but encourage you to do that because they represent different dimensions of what the church goes through in time. Throughout history. But I do want to talk about one that is rarely talked about because it's so interesting, because of what it reveals about Jesus and about who he is as a shepherd and as a prophet. You know, the ones we know the most about are like Ephesus, hey, you lost your first love, or Laodicea, your lukewarm, I'll spit you out of my mouth. I want you guys to listen to this one, because this one just shocks me and grips me. It says, and the angel of the church of Fiatira, write this, these are the words of the Son of God whose eyes are like a flame of fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. This is the Lord, he said, I know your works, your love, your faith, your service, and your patient endurance. I know that your last works are greater than the first, but I have against you the following. How many of you know what he's about to say? I'm just curious. How many know what he's going to say to the church of Fiatira? Raise your hand honestly if you know it clearly. Okay, there's like three guys. Are you guys Baptists? What are you? Are you? Yeah. So he goes, notice what he said here. John said, I share with you the tribulation, the kingdom, and the patient endurance. This is a really important two words to take in, because what he's saying and what's at the heart of what we need to do as a response, brothers, is simply to stand. We're fighting in a battle that's, there's no battle like this one in history. And fighting it, we have to fight it in a way no one ever has. All we have to do, brothers, is to stand, is to endure and not to quit, because the battle's already been won. We need to witness to it. That's why he's talking about patient endurance. That's what courage helps us do, to stand. Scripture says do all that your duty requires and hold your ground. We're losing ground in the Catholic church today. Will they ultimately lose the ground? No, the gates of hell will never prevail against the kingdom, against the church, but in lots of places the church is losing ground. Would you agree with me? Okay, because we're in a fierce battle. So what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to stand and just don't quit. And why can I stand in the face of all that? Because I can see my king and I know who he is and I know where I'm going and I know there's power in me to live it out. Now buckle up, you guys, because this is pretty rare what you're about to hear about Jesus, okay? He's the shepherd. I know your works, your love, faith, and service, and patient endurance. Those are pretty high qualities for a parish. Could you say that about your parish? Okay, never mind. I want to ask you, okay? I know that your last works are greater than the first, but I have this against you. You tolerate the woman Jezebel. Now scholars say it's probably wasn't her name, but it refers to Jezebel of the Old Testament. And you have a teacher, a prophetess in your midst who's like Jezebel of the Old Testament. Listen to what he says. But I have this against you. You tolerate the woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophet and is teaching and beguiling my servants to practice immorality and idolatry. Now, how many baptized Catholics are openly practicing immorality, you know? Look at the sexual revolution. Look what's happening in our culture. How many Catholics are standing up in places like the governor of New York a few years ago dancing, you know, in the legislature in Albany because we just passed a bill to be able to kill babies all the way up to our last breath. Let's celebrate. And then he goes out and he lights up the capital of the world and sets up a tower pointing up to heaven. I just thought to myself, oh my gosh. Oh, that's a demonic stronghold. A demonic stronghold of a culture. We talked about strongholds that are in us that we dealt with, this with Sister Miriam. Lies, unbelief that we believe. And the devil built strongholds. He puts up walls around us to just make sure those lies stay in us. You're no good. You'll never be forgiven. You should be filled with shame. Look at the regret. Look at your life. Those are all personal strongholds that God's word comes against. We believe what God says about us, not what the enemy's saying about us. We dialogue with God. We don't dialogue with the devil. We believe what he says and he breaks the strongholds and we become free. Cultural strongholds are similar. The devil's building walls. He's planted these seeds in people a long time ago through the sexual revolution and the lies. And now these things are becoming instantiated in law. We even have in our midst in the church people promoting sexual immorality and calling us now to change the teaching of the church. Even some bishops in the world are doing it. So here's Jesus. Here's his pastoral strategy. I want to recommend this to you, okay? He says, but I have this against you. You tolerate the woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophet and is teaching and begalling my servants by teaching sexual immorality and leading them to idolatry. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses. She refuses to repent of her fornication. Beware. I'm throwing her on a sick bed and those who committed adultery with her, I will throw into great distress unless they repent of their doings. And I will strike her children dead. He's talking about the disciples, not her biological children if she has them. Is that Jesus? Could that be Jesus? Sounds Old Testament, doesn't sound like... I mean, could it be Mr. Rogers, the Mr. Rogers that most people think Jesus is? Here's Zeal. Here's the authority of Jesus. Look what he says. I'm doing this that all the churches will know that I'm the one who searches the minds and the hearts. And I will give to each of you as your works deserve. There are brothers throughout the Gospels, words of Jesus where he talks about the serious consequences of not responding to his word. We did a Bible study this last year. Ralph Martin and I and some of the young men were working with just to go through the Gospels. We started with Matthew. Say, let's, we had one goal. Let's read, let's find out how many times Jesus talks about the eternal consequences of following his word or not. You know, and, and we thought we knew. We thought we were pretty confident. We had a pretty good feel of that. I thought, you know, maybe five or ten key points are going to be hit in the Gospel of Matthew over fifty times. Jesus talks about the eternal consequences of not responding to him. And we're both sitting there saying, we're all sitting thinking, does our preaching correspond to Jesus' preaching? I mean, do we, just in terms of percentage, do we talk about the things Jesus talks about and the way he talks about them? Because I'm his servant and I'm meant to go forward with the words that he's given to me. And notice what Jesus is doing here. What sometimes God has to do is bring his discipline to instill a healthy fear of the Lord. Because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And wisdom is what? How to rightly align myself with God. How to walk in righteousness and walk in holiness because God is holy. And if I don't know that, it's the definition of being stupid. I'm going to walk in foolishness. We're living in a world, brothers, that people don't fear God anymore. There's no cuts. This is why you scratch your head and say, wait a minute. How can we actually be saying that a circle is a square in our country? How can we be believing the crazy things? How can we actually believe it's a good thing as a country that if a five-year-old comes to kindergarten class or a first grade boy says, I'm a girl, that the entire adult population in that school has to recognize that boy, that he is who he says he is, and they don't have to say a word to the parents. That's crazy, isn't it? How do we get here? One of the fundamental reasons is we lack wisdom. Why do we lack wisdom? Romans 1, because humanity, the constant temptation of humanity, Paul tells us, is to suppress the truth about God, refusing to acknowledge God and to give God thanks. Why? Because I want to be God. That's why. That's what's happening in our culture, and we're calling it wisdom. We're calling it freedom, and we're celebrating, and our president is, I don't know, I don't even want to say. But anyway, there's stuff going on. We can't gain wisdom. We can't lead people in wisdom without a healthy growth of fear of the Lord, which Garagag Lagrange, you know, the famous spiritual writer in the Catholic Church, he said Jesus had the fear of the Lord. Healthy fear of the Lord. Not the punish, you know, the slavish fear like, oh, I'm going to be punished. No, it's the healthy fear of a son before the Almighty God. Confirmation. I wrote a little book, you guys, a little booklet, Fear God and Give Him Glory, because I was so struck that the spiritual gifts in confirmation, they end with the fear of the Lord. And at the end it says, and he had the fear of the Lord, the Messiah, and his delight was in the fear of the Lord. How many of us would say we delight in the fear of the Lord? Really? How many like to teach on the fear of the Lord? How many like to teach on the judgment of God? When was the last time you did it? Right? I mean, I know we don't do that in our culture. Somehow, man, you don't want to talk about fear in God in the same sentence because some people get the wrong idea and you maybe have to encourage people and you don't want people to feel bad, and it totally misses the point. The holy fear of God is a precious thing, and it gives people strength, and it gives us strength to resist what comes. It's an important piece of what God wants to equip us with at this time. Now, I was, I want to tell you a couple stories that motivated me to write a little bit about this. My wife, Debbie, I told you I married to a lovely woman named Debbie, Hebrew Catholic who loves her faith, and she was asked to come to a parish not far from Ann Arbor, a good-sized parish, to talk to the parents of confermans. And so the woman in charge of the parish of the formation had heard Debbie give a talk to young women. She's been working with young women for many years on identity. There's the battleground, right? The battleground is what does it mean to be human, right? What does it mean to be a man or a woman? And she basically talked about finding our identity in Jesus, and about halfway through the talk she stopped for a minute. She said, you know, the reason it's so important is I just want you to know I work with kids all the time, and this is a really, really hard thing for them, because everywhere on Facebook and Instagram and this and that, everybody is celebrating their self-creative identity, and they put pressure on kids to think that this is your burden to create yourself. That's all she said, and then she kind of went on. Well, at the end of it, so there's like 90 parents there for this sacrament, right? So what is confirmation? Your kid's about to come into full membership into the church, soldier of Christ, disciple, right? It comes into maturity, the parents are excited, so they have a Q&A, and my wife is just kind of a small, gentle woman, and I'm at home, by the way, I wasn't at this thing, but I got a full report after, and they have Q&A, and this woman raises her hand, and she says, I work for the local public school, I'm in the health department, and she looks at my wife and she points at her, she goes, you are the most hateful person I've ever heard. And my wife just kind of froze, because she's not like, you know, she's not that way at all, and this lady goes on to a diatribe about how important trans and this, that, and the other thing are, okay? And how we need to be open to this, and the whole room froze, and another woman got up who was angry and said the same thing, nobody said a word, and my wife, anyway, my wife comes home that night, and I'm sitting down, I'm fighting a good fight, I'm on, I'm a lazy boy watching a hoops game, I got some chips and a beer, and I'm going for it, you guys, I'm like absolutely living it for the kingdom. And my wife comes home, and this is a woman who's wise and gentle, seriously, and she comes in, and I said, hi honey, how'd it go? And she'd look like a deer in the headlights, and I said, what's the matter honey? And she goes, boy, was that hard tonight? I said, really, why would it be hard? So she sits down and explains it to me, and she was shaken by it, and I said, honey, were there any men in the room? And she said, yeah, I even knew some of them, and after these women were really upset and saying these things, I looked at one of the guys and he turned his head away, wouldn't look me in the eye. So the next morning, by the way, I just, I shout, I said, Debbie, I am so proud of you. Wow, you took a hit, you took a hit for the king, you took a hit for the truth, unfortunately it happened in a church in a confirmation class with parents who are supposed to be disciples. So the next morning she gets an email from this woman who directed a beautiful email, she said, Debbie, I want to ask your forgiveness. You said exactly what I wanted you to say, but I have to tell you when that woman got angry, I was frozen in my seat and I couldn't move. So the angry woman, you know what she did? She went to the pastor and she chewed the pastor out. You know what the pastor did? The pastor called the woman in who works for him and said, you will write an apology letter to every adult who was there. And if you don't, you're fired. Hello? That is a picture of where much of the church is at today filled, shot through with the fear of the Lord, or fear of man, I mean, the fear of man, which is a stronghold that has to be broken. I called that pastor and we had a conversation together, which I won't mention what we talked about. Oh, man, that was my wife. And I know her. So anyway, never mind. That was like over 18 months ago. A week ago, you guys, I was at a wedding reception, beautiful, beautiful wedding. And I'm there and this guy comes up to me and he goes, Peter, can I talk with you? And I said, yeah. And he goes, my name is so-and-so. And I was in the crowd that night. I mean, I'd kind of forgotten about the holding. I was in the crowd that night. And I am so ashamed. I was afraid. I was afraid to say a word. Nobody could even stand up and say in a gentlemanly, ma'am, thank you for sharing what you had to say. But I think that Debbie didn't say a thing tonight. That's not in the Scripture or the Catechism. And I think your issues are with the church at this point and not with her. Just something simple like that. Nobody said a word. And this man stood there at the wedding. He looked at me and he he said, please forgive me that I didn't protect your wife. And I hit him. No, I'm kidding. And then I, no. And I said, brother, I love you. I understand. We're entering territory. None of us have been before. We're not trained for this kind of stuff. But the king wants to train us to get there. Amen. Amen. This priest basically had a kind of strong like, don't ever upset anybody. You know that feeling? Anybody like that? Don't disrupt. Don't upset. Pope Benedict XVI in Verbum Domini. He says, it's time to preach not so much a message of consolation. He said, but a message that disrupts people. Wow. And he's not talking about a thundering condemnation, nothing like that. But preaching, helping people understand and see who Christ is, what the stakes are, and beginning to help them lay hold of their calling to be priest, prophet, and king. Second Corinthians, chapter 10. For though we live in the world, we are not carrying on a worldly war, brothers, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. These strongholds that grip people, friends, it's gripping people now. I got an email yesterday from a math teacher in a big Catholic school in a prominent city in the country. I've never met a guy. He said, hey, a month and a half ago two guys who work here at the school came out and said they were gay and they were going to marry each other. Okay? And he said, so it kind of destabilized things. At the same time he said we had students who are running for government, you know, you know, student government, and they're running on gender, race, and all. They're doing just what's happening in the culture. Choose me because of my, you know, whatever woke category I'm in. This happened in a Catholic high school. And he goes, so I thought, gosh, we got to have a, I can't wait. We're having a staff meeting at the end of the week. And they had a staff meeting and one of the most prominent teachers in the school stands up and says, because teachers were putting up LGBTQ flags and things like this, this teacher stood up in front of the faculty and said it's time for the church to get beyond the outdated approach to human sexuality and to get with it. And he said, almost the entire faculty clapped their hands. That's a spiritual stronghold of the mind. They don't see. Brothers, there's not a human being on the planet that's my enemy or your enemy. Human, the human race is in a spiritual battle. And the church is in a weak place. It's compromised in many different places. It's accommodating in many different places. And the Word of God, Paul goes on to say, through the Word of God, we destroy arguments in every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God. And we take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience when our obedience is complete. We destroy strongholds. God's Word has power. One of the reasons so many people are so susceptible to strongholds, you guys, in positions of fear and compromise is because we've lost confidence in the authority of the Word of God. So many in the church. And we don't preach it with conviction. We don't preach it with confidence. I did a retreat for a group of priests on the east coast a few years ago. And I was talking about the fear of the Lord a bit and talking about preaching the whole counsel of God's Word to say, don't edit the mail when it comes. You guys know the cycle of readings that come every year. And some of them, sometimes some of the harder sayings of Jesus are on there. Some of the more complicated things that the culture doesn't like. And it's a fair amount of the time, guys don't preach on those things. Because they don't want to. Because they'll take a little part of it. They don't go right after it. And they don't teach on it. So I said to the guy, I said, hey, guys, look, just whatever cycle comes, just take up that Word. And then don't judge people. Just take the Word of God and say, wow. Wow, today, you guys, there's a word from Jesus or there's something from Paul in the Scripture today that's really hard. It's hard to read. And it's running counter to our culture. But I want to read it. I want to talk with you about it today because we all stand under the Word of God. And I have to align my heart under the Word of God, under the Lordship of my King, because he's never said a single thing that's not perfect love. And he's teaching this and we need to know it so that we don't get trapped. We don't get sucked into the broader culture. And we don't get weakened slowly, but we understand it. We have renewed minds. And so this one priest, he was about 40, he said, you know, there is a whole, in front of his brother, he said, there's a whole set of things I just don't preach. He said, I'm an associate in a really upscale parish, highly educated folk. And some of the things that I think I'm supposed to preach on, I know some of them are not going to like. And so he said, I just don't do it. You know? And he said, the pastor doesn't either. And he named a number of subjects. And he asked me, he goes, what do you think I should do? Hmm. This is what I said to him. I said, brother, I love you. But if you're not going to preach the whole Council of God's Word, turn in your caller, turn it in, because you're going to have to face the King, because you're editing his Word. Don't do that. Trust him. He'll help you. He'll teach you how to communicate it in love. Communicate it. We need it now. The very things we most need teaching on and God's Word on are the things that the culture doesn't like. And those are the very things we're tempted not to talk about. Am I resonating at all, you guys? I don't, I'm honestly, tell me the truth. Tell me the truth. I mean, is this at all resonating with you? So, we ended the session. Next morning was the last session. So we start the session and he wasn't there, you know? And I'm kind of feeling like, oh shoot, maybe, maybe I shouldn't have said anything like that. You know, that's all I said. But we went on. So we're about 15 minutes into it, and he comes walking into the room in front of his brothers. And he said, Peter, excuse me, can I say something to my brothers? And I said, yeah. He goes, guys, I'm going to tell you what happened to me yesterday. I left this session and I was troubled. I couldn't sleep. He said, and last night about three in the morning I went down in front of the Blessed Sacrament and I laid down on my face before the Lord. And I said, Lord, help me, help me. What's wrong? And he said, the Lord told me loud and clear, Son, I love you, but you are shot through with the fear of man with an ardent self-love and you're afraid, you know? And he stood up in front of his brothers and said that. And he said, you know, you guys, it's true. And he said, I want to repent before you. And I want to say from this day forward, I'm going to communicate the whole counsel of God's word in love. And I'll wash people's feet while I'm doing it. I'm not backing away anymore by the grace of God. And his brother stood up and gave him a standing ovation, you know? I said, okay, I'll hold off my applause, come back in a couple of years and give me an update how it went. No, I really didn't say that. I'm just kidding. So, you are in a unique place. You are in a position of enormous responsibility. God has put his word, his sword in your hand. And you, priests in particular, you raise the body of the Lord, which is the fundamental, the most important identity-forming reality on the planet. We gather God's people to say, this is what's being communicated here, the reality of Jesus Christ risen. This is for us the meaning of life. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. This is what he communicated right there. He's communicating to me that love is the greatest thing and speaking the truth in love is part of that. And he showed me that human fulfillment, the absolute apex of existence is to humble yourself and to become obedient even unto death. This is our path to freedom. This is our path to life and to submit to him. And we, you guys gather us around that table and we say amen to it every time it's lifted. And that lifting is so important, but it's Word and sacrament, guys. The Word of God, the sword needs to be lifted. And it's not clubbing somebody over the head. It's not judging anybody. It starts with the sword in my life. It pierces my heart. And I bring the whole counsel of God's Word because he wants to free people's minds so they can walk in freedom. Now, in the book of Revelation it ends right. We all know the reality of the martyrs who it says that they conquered by what? By the blood of the Lamb and by the Word of their testimony. They stood. They bore witness to the end. And now they're being celebrated. And their life is like an aroma. It's an incense that goes up in the heavenly places before God. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, it's amazing. Absolutely amazing. How do we, how do we in this hour when it's so challenging, what do we do? I love St. Francis. He said this to preachers. Father Dave has this memorized. I could ask Dave, do you want to just say it? No. He's not even here. Okay. He went to bed. All right. Here's St. Francis. The preacher must draw first from secret prayers what he will later pour out in his sermons. He must first grow hot within before he speaks words which in themselves are cold. These are the life of the body. These are the attackers of devils. These are the light of the world. It made me think of something Father Francis Martin said here at this conference many years ago. He said, brothers, take your day off on Monday, Tuesday, do your zits and laban and your form geschickt on the passages you're going to preach on. Get the background on it. And he said, once you're done with that, what did he say? Anybody remember? He said, get on the floor, on your face, and beg God to put a living word in you for his people that you shepherd. And then he said, don't get off the ground until the Lord gives you an anointed word to proclaim. And then you give that word and watch what the Lord does. It's so important, brothers, the reason I told that story the other night about Father Tim Nolan who got the fire started in my family, you know, here he was meeting with three young moms who would have known what was going to happen. But he came and lit a fire. He just lit the match. He goes, he said, look, I hear, can I just share with you what God has done in my life? Can I share what he wants to do in your life? And he shared it with them who maybe their babies were crying. Who knows in the background they're coming back for this. Before I leave, can I pray with you? Sure. And boom, the current of grace went right through that guy, right into my sister, and it made its way. It's not complicated. It's simple. But it comes from an awareness of what's in me. And going forward, brothers, it's the spirit that breaks the yoke of slavery that's on people. It's the word of God that brings down strongholds. It's not just we're so heady in the church when we preach. I feel so sorry for men a lot in church because so much homilizing is so heady or it's just so flat. It's not urgent. It's not full of zeal. It's not full of an eternal perspective. And brothers, we need men. Look at every statistic out there and how much men influence the conversion of their own children. If you want to grab men, you got to grab them. You got to speak with fire to their heart with urgency. You got to tell them how great their king is and that it's worth selling everything they have for him. Communicate urgency to men. Give them a mission. Let them see the king that you're I don't mean you have to shout and dance but with conviction you communicate who the Lord is to you and you say I'm following the king and why you guys want to come with me and you watch some of those guys line up behind you. Most guys, I'm telling I've done men's ministry for years, most guys feel like they feel spiritually out of water because they don't feel like they're very spiritual. They come to church and the church is a kind of passive reality and they don't engage much of anything. And what they end up feeling like is what the church is is what it reminds me of is I need to be a good boy. I need to behave. You know, like Sister was saying Christianity gets reduced to sin management. Target your homilies to those guys and challenge them and help them and they'll follow you. St. Francis, one more thing here. Here's the here's the assignment when he sent out the brothers to preach. He said you should aim as you preach for the advantage of the spiritual growth of your listeners. So he said tell them briefly about vice and virtue. Tell them about punishment and glory. Wow. St. Francis said that the guy who talked to birds and hung out with Bambi. He said that. This is the charge he gave to the brothers. That's right from the rule of 1223 chapter 9 to preachers. Let me say it again. He said for the advantage of their spiritual growth. Well, what is to the advantage of their spiritual growth? Teach them vice, teach them virtue. Teach them about the reality of punishment that comes from not following God's commands but teaching about the glory that God is giving to them. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that amazing? Amen. Amen. I'm going to stretch just for two minutes to end with a story. During COVID, you guys in a nutshell, the first month I was pushing against the goad, so to speak. I was frustrated. We had so much going on in 2020. And I'd like all of you, I just had to let it go. And I felt like Jesus said to me, you know, Peter, the world doesn't get shut down without the King signing off on it. I'm permitting this to happen. It's in my permissive will. But I want you to be still now. And I want you to come and listen to me. Because I need to heal you. I want to help you for what I'm going to lead you into. So, here's what happened to me almost every single night since then, even happened in the hotel last night. You know, in the middle of the night, when you get older, you get up, anybody do that? I've got this thing I do every night. I don't know about you, but, man, it's there. And I used to, and I'd come to bed, I used to get anxious like, oh, shoot, I can't get back to sleep. So the Lord just said, be quiet and lay down. I'd lay down every night, you guys, almost every single night. And I'd put my hand on my heart. And I'd listen to something St. Francis said, and I'd say it to God. Lord, who are you and who am I? Show me. Many nights, dead quiet. It's okay, right? This is how prayer goes. I want to tell you about one night. One night, I'm laying there. And all of a sudden, I get like a picture of myself. And you know, they have these beautiful pictures of standing like I'm, like the movie, Mel Gibson's movie, the, you know, the one about Jesus, you know, passion. And it's like that scene, member reigning on Calvary's on the cross. And all of a sudden, I saw myself, and I had, I had my arms around his legs. And I was leaning on it. And the blood from his foot was touching my cheek. And I looked down and no one was here except our lady. And she's looking up at him. She's not looking at me. She's looking up at him. And she's just gazing at him. And then all of a sudden, you know how dreams can go. I find myself sitting right next to her. And she's there. And she, and it was a beautiful Marian moment. You know how married leads you to Jesus kind of thing? This is the biggest moment I've ever had in my life like that. It was really precious. And my wife was sleeping. I didn't want to wake her up. I'm laying there. And, and I, and I see myself sitting next to Mary. And she's looking at, she looks at me. She goes, Peter, is he beautiful? Look at how beautiful he is. And then the next picture, she's holding him. And she's stroking him. And she's, she's just smiling at him. And then she turns and looks at me and said, would you like to hold him? Yeah. And then it's just like, you know, all of a sudden I'm holding him. And I'm sitting there. And I just, I was crying in my bed in the middle of the night. But I was crying about how beautifully is, you know, what he did for us. And I was crying because I said, Jesus, please, I'm begging you. Help me be your best friend. Help me be loyal to you. I'm such a weak dude. I'm so compromised. I got all the stuff I preach about to people. I got it all in me. You know what I mean? Please help me be your friend. Then the last thing, and this was the kicker. All of a sudden I just saw him like he was rising, like he was ascending. And Mary's there and saying, do you see what he's done? Look what he's done. And he's, he's rises up into the presence of God, the Father. And all of a sudden it hits me like never before in a human body, a human body now is rising up. It's ascending. And it's entering into the life of the Trinity in full fire. And I don't know if this is theologically correct, but anyway, I had this picture like Jesus was stepping into the family of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And they were there. But he came back with a human body, the beginning of the new creation. And while he was there, the fire of God's love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from which everything was made and created is burning in this renewed, resurrected, glorified body. And he turns and his eyes are flaming fire. And his heart is on fire. And he sits down and the Father says, my son begin to rule. It's all yours. The kingdom has been established. All glory belongs to you. And the angels started singing and bowing down before him. And the saints and everybody's saying, wow, wow. And Mother Mary was right. Look what he has done for you. And this is what it means to get a revelation of Jesus Christ his Lord burning in our hearts. When you get that revelation, that's what I'm going to pray for tonight. I'm going to pray that the fire of God come on you again, brothers, and give you a fresh and a new revelation of God and give you conviction of his glory. How much he loves you and how much his power is at work in you. Do you want that? Yeah. Let's pray. Stand up just for a minute. I'm going to just pray a prayer and the brothers are going to take us off. I'm ready like five minutes over time. Mother Mary, we see your son. How proud you are of him. And she's thrilled and fascinated by it. She's a Jewish mom and she loves bragging about him all the time. Lord Jesus, we are thrilled and fascinated and overwhelmed. Yes, we can broken men who you love. We do come tonight and we ask you that you would pour your holy fire on us. You cast fire into our hearts tonight as we worship you, as we adore you. And then tonight, brothers, let's just confess our weakness before him tonight, whatever compromise, fears, whatever stuff is there, give it to Jesus tonight. Say, you know, Franciscan is not only a mountain top experience, it's kind of a garbage dump too where everybody comes and they leave their garbage and they go home, you know. And the Lord wants you to leave it here and just let him fill your heart. So let the brethren lead you.