BISHOP NOEL JONES - I KNOW WHO TO TRUST

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Episode Transcript

(00:33):
Dance a situation where you're always embattled, it's good when you can find somebody
to trust. God expects individuals toalways have some expectation and have some hope

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in the attitudes and the dispositions ofothers, to the point where it brings
peace, tranquility, and serenity.It's good to be able to trust.
The Hebrew thought is actually the substratumof the total Bible concept of trust,
because even when you look in theNew Testament to faith, it is derived

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from the Hebrew concept of trust.We call it faith in the New Testament.
In the Old Testament it was trust. It is this word that really
spells out the meaning, and it'snot similar to what we call faith today.

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In fact, it's sort of contradistinctiveto many popular concepts of faith,
because we give faith an air ofpossibility and it may happen, and really
we teach possibility thinking for faith.But the word omens carries with it certainty
or firmness. It is not thathe may do it, or he may

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bring me out, but there's afirmness, there is solidarity in the fact.
The hippil that's just some language thing. It's causative and what it says
is that there is something about Godthat causes me to feel certain or sure,

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to be certain about something, tobe assured in one's spirit, just
believe beyond doubt that what he saidhe will do, he will bring it
to pairs the conjugation in the Biblicalword for to believe, and it shows
that biblical faith is actually an assurance. It's a certainty. It's not like

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the modern presentation of possibility or hopefullytrue or but not so. It is
certainty. And anytime you have aconviction, you look at faith. It's
a substance of things, hope forthe hoopostasis of things, hope for the
elocaust of things not seen. Andthat elocance means conviction. I am convicted,

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I am persuaded beyond doubt that whatGod says he will bring to pass.
And then of course comes the wordbatah, and it now expresses that
sense of well being and security whichcomes from having something or someone on whom

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you can place your confidence. Ihave to have somebody that I can trust,
Somebody that I can lean on andknow they won't break, Somebody that
I can lean on and know theywon't fall. I need somebody to handle
what it is I trust and putin their hands. The significance now of

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this word is to in whom toplace confidence, and it's very subjective.
I have to decide who to placethis confidence in. And because I've decided
to place my confidence a certain way, when my confidence is broken, I

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am broken for two reasons. Oneis you let me down. That's one
reason I'm broken. You let medown. You did something I didn't expect,
and you did something outside of whatI hoped for, and so I'm
hurt because you let me down.The second reason I'm hurt is because I

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was foolish enough to trust you letme go. There a bit, I
back up off that right there.I just saw some suff flash all in
front of my face. It's onething for me to have confidence in you,
and you let me down, andnow I have the guilt now of

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having allowed myself to believe in you. Guilt. That's why it's difficult to
overcome broken trust, because first ofall, you feel foolish, You feel
like I should not have opened up. And secondly, you are hurt because
what you expected you didn't get itback. And now I've got to end

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up not only having to deal withthe person who broke my confidence, but
now I have to deal with myselffor allowing myself to release into an individual
or person who has no trustworthy qualitiesor disposition. I feel it here,

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and it's really something that people donot wear do not trust me on their
sleeves. I wish you would comearound with a sign, don't trust me.
Shut your mouth, don't say that, don't say that, don't say
that, because I'm sitting here waitingto hear it, so I can expose
you in the middle of it.And now they come and they sort of

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cloak it. You know, Iget nervous when folks say to me,
you can talk to me, talkto me. I know, Bishop,
you need somebody to talk to youknow, and you can talk to me.
Amen. I'm not looking for nomore work. Amen, if you
can talk to somebody else, Iain't inviting anybody to talk to me.

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No, Lord, I got enoughof that. But people they cloak.
They're unworthy trusts, they're not worththe trust, but they cloak it.
They don't wear it. They don'ttell you. They pull you in.
And then when you release yourself.And so this word now is a word

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that the connotation is abata is feelingsecure, And the word is not translated
to believe, but it's translated ratherto hope, to feel secure, to
be unconcerned. And ah, yousee where trust is. Trust is where
you're unconcerned. I'm not concerned aboutmy brother. I'm not concerned about my

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sister. If I were concerned,I'd be a little more careful. But
TA then adds the dimension of ambivalence, because now it is folk who live
at ease. Can you imagine withtheir neighbors, and they suffer for their
credulity and their gullible attitudes because whilethey are at ease, the people are

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taking advantage of them. Have youever had any friends like that that you
were just at ease and you werejust relaxed around them, and you know,
you're going into your computer and youjust spell out your password, and
you're going into your safe and youjust punch out your combination. You're at
ease with the person around you.You have just let your hear all the

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way down, and you have allowedeven the ugliness that you would suppress if
you were around somebody who you didn'ttrust. But now you have let even
that down until they're not looking onlyat you from the outside, but you
have opened up and they have dissectedeverything about you on the inside and stuff

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that they couldn't find out. Youfreely released it. You see, it's
the gift now before the other person. Another word for trust is from the
Hebrew is to give before the otherparty has given. Are you with me
now? This is another word thatthe Hebrews have for trust. It's another

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dimension of trust. When I trustyou, I will give before you give
me. Because I trust you,I will open up before you open up
to me. I will just layit out before you lay it out.
You know, I will just telleverything about me before I know anything about

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you. I will give you beforeyou give me. Why, that's another
word for trust, because when youdon't trust, you put stuff in escrow.
That's what you do. When youdon't trust, you set it aside,
let somebody hold it until you getyours. I get mine. But
you see, when you trust,oh my God, you just give before

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you to do all the giving,and then you hope it will come back
to you. Trust. You know, trust is like walking to the edge
with somebody and we bound to fallin love and love is a big cliff,
and I trust you. So I'mstanding here with you, and I
trust that you will love me likeI love you, and I trust that

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you will treat me like I treatyou. So I jump off the cliff,
only to find that you were stillup there somewhere see and depending on
the fact that the individual will comewith you. Trust is to release yourself
and your ideas, and to speakthings about what you intend to do and

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not patent them. You know.Trust is to speak it out and be
open with it. And oh Godis to trust is to expect to receive
in return. And that thing thatmakes trust so impossible to repair and so
difficult to repair stretch the word impossible, but it's so difficult to repair is

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the inability to forgive oneself for believingin somebody in the first place. I
wish I could take it back.I made myself such a fool, made
a fool out of myself. NowI'm ripped in all kinds of pieces.
And the person that I trusted andleaned on the most is the one who

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is doing the most, talking behindmy back and smiling in my face.
Because now I have trusted, whatshould you have not believed. I have
a right to believe. I havea right to trust. It is the
disposition of people and the attitude ofour lives that have made us untrusting.

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I'm supposed to trust, yes,why not? Why shouldn't I trust?
This freedom in trusting, it's lifein trusting. What kind of life would
you have if you had nobody youcould trust? What kind of life would
you have if you could not releaseyourself to somebody. I mean, people

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are supposed to be able to befree. I feel something pushing me.
One of my problems is I'm notlike the rest of my friends. They're
more guarded than I am. AndI've got a point. You know,
maybe they got a point about beingguarded. They call me crazy. They
said, Jones, you're crazy.What did you do and say and act

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in front of folk? You gotto back up a little bit and become
more guarded. What they shame tome is you have to limit yourself.
You have to limit your life.You have to get in some little cage
and stay in a cage in orderto make your life work. Well.
I hate cages. I feel ithere. There's ought to be somebody in

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the group that you can get outof your cage, somebody that you can
pull the shades and open up yourwindows of your heart and your minds.
Some of us have become so guarded. We ourselves are not trustworthy. I
don't want to go there. Wehave become so guarded. Until you're sitting
looking at somebody on the other sideof the table, and they're looking at

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you, and you're looking at them, and they have already decided that you
are not going to be the bestyou can be, So they look across
the table with suspicion, and you'relooking across the table suspicion, with suspicion.
You're looking at me funny, ButI'm looking at you because I see

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some funny in the way you lookingat me. And so now you suspicious
and I'm suspicious. You guarded,and I'm guarded. What a way to
start a relationship. Everybody guarding,everybody guarding themselves. But trust, then
is when you open and when youbelieve and when you can understand people around.

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And you ought to be able tobelieve and to open up that there
is somebody around who is good enoughto take your trust and handle it carefully.
Can I take it further? Trustis defined. The one writer defines
trust as the absolute certainty of somebody'sbehavior and the absolute certainty, And now

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that means that when you break trust, it can't go back to absolute anymore.
Before you did that, I trustedyou. I was at ease.
I didn't worry about your behavior oryour disposition. I was free to be
with you and free to allow youfreedom with whatever I've had. I have
had some people who would steal fromme, and you should never steal from

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somebody who would give you anything.I wish I could talk to you here,
and immediately it puts a cloud overthat relationship. Immediately you don't see
that person in the same light anymore. Sometimes you try to trust again,
but trust is absolute certainty in thebe behavior or the actions of someone.

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And you want to trust, butnow you find yourself wondering what were they
doing? And what are they doingnow? Because now when you stop trusting,
you've got to begin to control.And I preach to you just a
minute about that controlling spirit. Controlnow, because the more control, the

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less I have to trust. Idon't have to trust you when I know
where you are all the time,I don't have to trust you That's why
I bought you that phone, yousee, so I don't have to trust
you. That's why I got thatlittle ankle. You thought it was an
ankle act. Now it's got ahoming device because now I know where you

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are at all times. I don'thave to trust you because I lock you
away in the room, I don'thave to trust you. You see,
people who don't want to trust halfto control. I'm on preach this thing.
I feel it coming people who don'twant to trust wine because once you
have broken my trust, you havenow moved me into a place where I

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have to control. So now I'mcalling you all hours of the night when
you're supposed to be on a businesstrip out of town. I'm calling you
at odd times, whine, justchecking on it, just checking to seeing
how you're doing. That's a longjust want to know. But it's three
thirty in the morning. You knowthat's fine. I'm just checking. I
just woke up and now just wantto know where you are. Why,

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Because I no longer trust you.You have added a dimension to the freedom
that I had, and you havelimited me now to where I can't even
trust you. I can't open upto you if you notice now this absolute
trust or certainty and the trustworthiness ofoneself or another has been broken. So

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now to lose faith in you isto lose my freedom to be around you.
To lose faith in you is tolose my expression. I can't open
up like I used to, andso to lose faith in you is to
limit my existence. When you talkabout the absoluteness of this word, I

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made an example this morning. It'salso suggests the infant in the hand of
an adult. And I used totoss my son up as far as I
could, and then catch him whenhe came back down, My oldest son,
and he would. One time hebroke my lip apart because I couldn't
hold him off. I had tossedhim so far and all he was doing,

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he was doing this, He wasdoing this. He wanted to go
back. Little did he know howclose he came to breaking himself up.
But he trusted me to the pointwhen Jesus talked to us about our relationship
with him, he says that weought to trust him as little childs unless
you become like a child. Youknow, that kind of child trusts because

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the child has not yet figured outwhere the pain and where the hurt is
the child. Just trust. That'swhy you've got laws about adults dealing with
children, because you've got to putlaws on wicked folk because they'll take advantage
of a child's trust. I hopesomebody's here here today that needs to waken

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up and you understand trusting again.My life is in your hands. And
if my life is in your hands, there's some things I gotta be certain
about. It is Mike, then, who is prophesying during the reign of
AHAs, and it's a bad time. If you look at Second King seventeen
fourteen through seventeen, you will seethe times that he is prophesying. And

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it's people who eight times bad.Can I preach to you here, If
you go through your life and remembersome rough times that you had, it
would be people who made your timesbad. People talk about living in LA
and living in New York, andhow I enjoy New York or LA.

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It's people who you enjoy in acertain place. It is not just the
place, it's the people. Thepeople who are around you can make you
miserable or make you happy. AndI've got news for you. I promise
you that the person who has madeyou the happiest is probably the person who

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has made you the saddest. Don'tgo there with me now. I'm gonna
leave that alone too. And youtalk about the absoluteness of this word.
I made an example this morning.It's also suggests the infant in the hand
of an adult. And I usedto toss my son up as far as
I could and then catch him whenhe came back down, My oldest son,

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and he would. One time hebroke my lip apart because I couldn't
hold him off. I had tossedhim so far and all he was doing,
he was doing this, He wasdoing this. He wanted to go
back. Little did he know howclose he came to breaking himself up.
But he trusted me to the pointwhen Jesus talked to us about our relationship

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with him, he says that weought to trust him as little childs unless
you become like a child. Youknow, that kind of child trusts because
the child has not yet figured outwhere the pain and where the hurt is.
The child just trust. That's whyyou've got laws about adults dealing with

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children, because you've got to putlaws on wicked folk. Because they'll take
advantage of a child's trust. Ihope somebody's here here today needs to waken
up and understand trusting again. Mylife is in your hands. And if
my life is in your hands,there's some things I gotta be certain about.

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It is Mike, then, whois prophesying during the reign of a
Hans And it's a bad time.If you look at Second King seventeen fourteen
through seventeen, you will see thetimes that he is prophesying. And it's
people who make times bad. CanI preach to you here If you go

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through your life and remember some roughtimes that you hand, it would be
people who made your times bad.People talk about living in LA and living
in New York, and how Ienjoy New York or LA. It's people
who you enjoy in a certain place. It is not just the place,

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it's the people. The people whoare around you can make you miserable or
make you happy. And I've gotnews for you. I promise you that
the person who has made you thehappiest is probably the person who has made
you the saddest. Ah, don'tgo there with me now. I'm gonna
leave that alone too. And itis weird. Now is the man who

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has to prophesy in bad times.And what God does to limit your life
is to have people around release peoplewho limit you because they're not trustworthy.
And the Lord, now, I'mconcerning the prophets, And Micah says,
thus saith the Lord concerning the prophetsthat make my people heir that bite with

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their teeth and cry peace, andhe that puteth not into their mouths,
they even prepare war against him unquote. Any time you are living in bad
times, you live with people wholie to you. And anytime you're bound
a lot of liars, you're arounda lot of bad times because it takes

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truth to release freedom. And whenyou live with liars, you live with
nothing. Because if it's not thetruth, it's not anything at all.
You might as well tell me.If I've got to make a decision,
tell me the truth. Let medeal with the truth, because truth is

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reality lies fiction, and I don'tneed to make a decision based on fiction.
I need a decision based on truth. If I won't deal with you
after you tell me the truth,then I don't need to be with you.
And don't let me deal with youbecause you're telling me lies because I'm

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dealing with nothing. I wish Icould talk to you here, and the
prophets would not tell the truth.And because they wouldn't tell the truth,
the folk thought they were all rightwith God when they weren't. I need
somebody bold enough to tell the truth. So if I need to get my

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life together, I'll get it togetherin God. Don't fake it with me.
I didn't come to church for youto fake it. I came the
church for you to tell it soI can understand how to deal with it.
I feel God helping me here.I'm waking. I got up now
I'm awake. You've got to understandthis. Where there's lies, there's confusion.

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And that's why the people in Micah'stime were giving sacrifice. And that's
why to the devils and sacrificing theirown children, all in the name of
pleasing God. God is not concernedabout your sacrifice. He's concerned about the
relationship you have with him, becauseif your sacrifice could be everything you got

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and he still doesn't accept it.If he doesn't accept you, will the
Lord be pleased with thousands of ramsor with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first born,for my transgression, the fruit of my
body, for the sin of mysoul. Micah says, he showeth thee,

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O man, what is good,and what doth the Lord require of
thee but to do justly, tolove mercy, to walk humbly with thy
God. Ah. There were fewin number now, and the corruption was
everywhere, and where there is corruption, trust is hard when you're dealing with

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a group of folk that they're corrupt, and dealing with a group of folk
that have personal agendas and self aggrandizement, and you're dealing with a bunch of
folk who are manipulators, wheelers anddealers who don't care for the whole,
but they just care for themselves.I wish I could talk to you.

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You just gotta walk through there carefully, because when people are corrupt, they
don't look for the best in youbecause they can't control you with what's best
in you, so they look forwhat's worst in you, and they want
you to slip up and do somethingwrong, so they got hold to you.

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Oh, I feel something pushing mehere. I ought to be able
to walk into any group of saints, and if I need somebody to pray
for me, I need to beable to say help me. The church
is the last place you can getup and tell somebody you need help,
because folk are looking to find somethingwrong in order to pull you down.

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The writer says, he opens mysaying the good Man is gone, And
I'll tell you this. Good peopleare hard to find. God. Can
I preach like I feel him?I've been around a lot of folk,
man, But I'm telling you tofind somebody genuine and real is one of
the hardest things. In fact,if you got anybody genuine or real in

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your life, I guarantee you Godput him there. You couldn't find them
yourself. The Devil's got a wholelot of folk who look good, who
sound good, but ain't no goodnowhere. All you gotta do is push
a fork in them and find outthey ain't done on the inside. Fear

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the Holyots. It was the Psalmistthat hollered out, help Lord, for
the goodly man sees that for thefaithful fail among the children of men.
You can't trust anything to anybody,hardly anymore, because as soon as you
turn your back, they mess upyour business. I wish I could talk

(28:08):
to somebody. You take your carto somebody to fix it, and it
comes back worse than when you tookit in the first place. You're paying
for five or six different things.Why, because the good man is gone.
I was walking out yesterday from thehotel and I tipped somebody for bringing
the car, and as I reachedover to tip him, somebody who was

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with me said, I already tippedhim. Now, a good man would
have said, I already got it, you know, just go on keep
yours. Somebody already bless me nowand not gonna say it. They'll take
that, and they'll take that,and they'll take that. Because the good
man is scarce. You can't justfall in love with anybody now, baby.

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You just can't let your heart goand talk about it. I'm in
love. I'm in love. They'lltear your cart apart, twist you upside
down. The good man is gone. You got folks out here today that'll
go to bed with you and knowthey got a disease and won't mention it

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till three weeks later. I wishI could talk to somebody. All look
like Alice in Wonderland. You'll bettercome back to reality up in here.
You can't just meet somebody here youdon't know, and be kissing on them.

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Can I preach to you in thishouse? They won't tell you.
I'm all messed up. A goodman is gone and violence is rempant.
You got killers everywhere. You gotkillers in Javon, she You got killers
in Mugler. They ain't looking likethey got a fatigue gone. They come

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in sweet and they come and drivenwith honey. But they got killing in
their spirits and in their minds.They'll kill your reputation, they'll kill your
character, they'll destroy your life,they'll mess up your home. They just
got chilling on their mind. Hesaid, I'll see killers everywhere. But

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my soul is hungry and I'm longingfor the first right fruit. I can't
even get some fruit up in thehere. I can't get anything to satisfy
my soul. You know you're introuble when you're hanging with folk and can't
get no satisfaction, can't get nosatisfying at all, spending your money and

(30:40):
your time, giving up your spiritof folk, and there's no satisfaction nowhere.
There is no right fruit. You'vegot killers everywhere, and not only
that. It's one thing for them. To be a killer and leave you
alone. But it's another thing whenthey sit around and connot to tear you
apart. I don't know who's beenwhispering about you, but God told me

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to tell you I got your back. Here. I feel the Holy hose.
They just sit around in little groupsand they plan for you, and
they set their evil devices, andsome folks don't ever get tired of trying
to put together another evil device.They've got all their energies in trying to

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bring you down. And I'm hereto tell you, if you're still standing,
it's because God has messed up somebody'splan. It's because God has shut
somebody's mouth. And you ought tothank God every now and then when He
pulls the cover off your friends andshow you they a't none but a snake

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up in the here. I feellike creatures in this house. They said,
the leaders and the magistrates think bribes. You can't even get any good
judgment anymore, because it's only theones who get paid who will give you
the right kind of judgment. Themagistrates and the leaders had to be paid

(32:15):
off. You got to pay folkoff now in order to get anything done.
Everybody's looking for a piece under thetable. Everybody's greedy, and everybody's
got to be paid in order forthem to operate with any kind of sincerity.

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I feel the Holy ghost in here. But you can't buy good people.
Because a virtuous woman, I heardher price is high above rubies.
Can I preach like a fill itbrothers, just tap your brother and said,
brother, if you can buy her, she ain't the one. Because

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good people can't be bought. Hesays, they got to be born.
He says the best are hypocrites.They're like rose bushes. And the characteristic
of a rose bush is the roselooks good, but don't go to grabbing

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the stem, because if you grabthe stem, it's gonna stick you real
good. You gotta look from afaroff. Tell your neighbor look but don't
touch. You've seen some folk inthis world that you gotta look but don't
touch. You better not get inncloser than looking, because if you're moved

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to touch, something's gonna stick you. You're gonna grab something you don't really
want. So you've got to letGod do the looking and let God do
the directing. I'm preaching as somebodyin here trying to recover from a mess.
God told me to tell you nexttime, just look, but don't

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touch knowsome. I might as wellhave some church in here. I heard
him when he said, well,unto you scribes and pharmacies, hypocrites for
you like unto white and some pokers, which indeed appear beautiful on the outward,

(34:29):
but within full of dead men's bones. And I'm all uncleanness. You
got some folk that want to tearyou down because they're unhappy with themselves,
and they don't like themselves. Andthe last people you need to be around
are a group of folk who don'tlike themselves. I feel like preaching in

(34:52):
here because I'm broke. That don'tmean I don't like myself. Because I
live in a one room house.You can come up in my one room
house and feel the joy because Idon't need no palace to have joy,
because I have joy all in myself. I feel like preaching in here.

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The man sends, you're dealing witha lot of folk who on the inside
of dead men's bones. And somefolk hate to see you happy and hate
to see you rejoicing. They hateto see you having a good time with
your life. Now, where didyou get that and who bought that for

(35:37):
you? You can't even buy acar now except somebody think you got some
man buying you the car. Thedevil is a liar, Honey, I
bought this car buy myself. Youwant to know who's on the pink slip.
Jesus is on the pace. Feelhere. I feel like lifting him

(36:02):
up. You've got to know howto love yourself and then let folk pull
you into their sadness because of insigntheir dead men's bones. He said you
gotta watch out for your friends.Now it's got so bad that you got
to watch your friends. They mightbe well intentioned, but most of them

(36:23):
are two weeks to help you outof your trial? Can I preach like
I feel it? The problem ismost of your friends are your friends because
they're leaching on you, and whenyou need something, they can't help you
because they've been around you sucking offyou. Can I feel this thing in

(36:45):
mouth blood? I got to preachas If I'll upset somebody, I'll call
the ambulance. If I hurt yourfeelings, call nine one one. I
want to know the truths the reasonyou can't anything from the folk when you
need something and you going through something. It's because the people you have called

(37:07):
into your world are there because they'retrying to get something from you. That's
why when you're broken and you're upset, you can't even get a prayer out
of one of them. Do youremember David at zick Lad when everybody came
and took his folks, the manhe was with turned on him. And

(37:30):
the reason they turned on him wasbecause they were with him only because of
what he had to give. Youneed some folk in your life who were
there not to take, but whowere there waiting to give, so that
when the hard times come, yougot somebody you can lean on. I

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feel like preaching in here. Isn'tit a sad thing that you got to
go waycross country to find somebody youhardly even deal with to bless you when
you got folk around you who havetaken everything you got and have nothing to
give you in return. He said, you gotta watch the guide now,

(38:15):
because even the one who's supposed tolead don't even know where he's going.
So you got to watch the guideunless he leads you astray? Can I
preach like a Phila? You knowlife is a mess when the folk who
should know don't even know, andthey won't tell you. They don't know,
they act like they know, andthey leading you down the wrong path.

(38:39):
He said, you gotta watch yourpillow talk. Now you got to
watch her that lies against your bosombecause you're fool around and got hold of
Delilah. Now it had got youa devil up in the bed witches.
And now you think you're safe aboutto him in the morning. And God
sent you got the one ship.The person that's leaving her eye missing up