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We have a promise that if we keep God's commandments and have our ways to be pleasing in His sight, God will deliver when us pray. What a deal! These requirements are not difficult for a child of God because Christ is walking with you and the Holy Spirit is dwelling in you. Both God and the Holy Spirit are instructing you in the way that you should go. It is simple to see that if you are keeping His commandments, then your requests are going to be within His will. Join us in this program, Talk on the Basis of Your Walk, as Kim Miller of Woman at the Well Ministries, takes us through I John 3:22, which says, “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.” Mentioned in this Episode 1 John 3:22 www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3%3A22&version=KJV  2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Thessalonians+2%3A16-17&version=KJV  2 Thessalonians 3:3 www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Thessalonians+3%3A3&version=KJV  2 Thessalonians 3:13 www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Thessalonians+3%3A13&version=KJV  Matthew 7:7 www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+7%3A7&version=KJV  James 4:8 www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+4%3A8&version=KJV  Philippians 4:6-7 www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+4%3A6-7&version=KJV  Did you enjoy this podcast? Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning into this podcast, then do not hesitate to write a review. You can listen to us on all major podcasting platforms like Apple Podcasts,  Spotify,  Google Podcasts,  YouTube, and Podbean. Check out Kim's latest Bible Bit book on Amazon! Do you want to bring Kim Miller to your church, upcoming retreat, or conference? Contact us! This podcast is brought to you by Woman at the Well Ministries and is supported by our faithful listeners. To support this podcast, please visit our support page.  

Title: “Providence and People” Part 1 Text: Acts 18:1-6 FCF: We often struggle balancing God's providence with our action. Prop: Because God's providence does not preclude human responsibility, we must engage in earthly and spiritual work. Scripture Intro: [Slide 1] Turn in your bible to Acts chapter 18. In a moment we'll begin reading in verse 1 from the Legacy Standard Bible. You can follow along in the pew bible or in whatever version you prefer. Last time in the book of Acts we saw Paul complete his ministry in the city of Athens. During the Macedonian portion of the mission, the theme that seemed to be on display was the logical and biblical nature of the gospel message. That against the tightest scrutiny, the gospel holds up in every way. The greatest test for this was standing before the Areopagite and defending the Christian worldview. Which Paul did successfully. As Paul travels now to a new city, Luke pivots back to the central theme of Acts. What theme is that you might ask? Well, it is one we've heard many times before and will hear many more times before we are done. God is at work to providentially grow His church to the uttermost parts of the earth. How does He do this? Through the church itself. Please stand with me to give honor to and focus on the reading of the Word of God. Invocation: Heavenly Father, we know that You are the source for our life and all that we have. We know that without You we are nothing. We confess that You are in absolute control over all things that You guide all things to happen according to Your will to accomplish Your purposes. We also confess that we are favored participants in Your will and do often receive the gift it is to join You in Your work. So Father I pray that as You communicate these truths to us today that we would listen and we would enter into Your service, appreciating the gift it is to join You in Your work. Give us eyes of faith today we pray in Jesus' name… Amen. Transition: [Slide 2] A great philosophical question that has made its rounds several times has been, what came first the chicken or the egg. Such a question is rife with not just philosophical debates but also religious debates. At the center of it all is the question of origin. From the scriptures we can prove quite readily that the chicken absolutely came first. God created His creation with age and maturity. But at the core the question is a seeming paradox. For if you say the chicken, you must ask but from where did the chicken hatch? If you say the egg, you must ask but from what was the egg laid? In the scriptures today we see another paradox that like the question about the chicken and egg can be answered by understanding what the scriptures teach. The paradox is… God has determined all that will be and man is commanded to obey Him. How do these fit? For if God has determined all that will be, man's obedience is already determined, isn't it? And if God has commanded men to obey, doesn't this mean that God has not determined whether they will or will not? And round and round we go. But as we will see today, God's providence does not preclude human responsibility. Let's look. I.) God's providence does not preclude human responsibility, so we must continue to work for earthly provision. (1-4) a. [Slide 3] 1 - After these things he departed Athens and went to Corinth. i. After successfully defending the worldview of Christianity against the wisest men humanity had to offer, they could not condemn him for teaching about new demons. But their “wisdom” could not allow them to accept the foolishness that is Jesus Christ crucified and risen again. ii. Nevertheless, the Lord led a few to Himself through the ministry of Paul in Athens. iii. After this, Paul continues to Corinth, the capital of the province of Achaia. iv. Let's take a few minutes to learn about the city of Corinth. 1. [Slide 4] The city of Corinth was positioned on an Isthmus which was less than 5 miles across at its narrowest point. a. The Aegean and Mediterranean seas posed significant risk to cargo ships being lost. Salling around the lowest portion of the Balkan Peninsula, called the Peloponnese Peninsula, only heightened that risk as cargo ships attempted to transport goods around Greece. b. The Isthmus provided a unique opportunity to short cut days off of that journey. c. A paved road called The Diolkos, was made to connect both ports over land. Grooves were set in the road so cargo and even some small ships could be loaded on a large wooden platform and wheeled by men or animals. They drug the goods 6 kilometers to the other port and then unloaded it so they could continue the journey. d. This process would take several hours to complete. e. What does that mean? f. That means that the sailors and personnel on these ships had time to kill. g. And that is where Corinth came in. h. Corith was an extremely wealthy city. Not only did this sea route offer many customers to their several marketplaces, but even a land route running North and South brought customers as well. 2. [Slide 5] This made Corinth a hotbed of trade, worship, and literally any vice that you could think of. a. The population is estimated to be around 200,000 people plus around double that in slaves. b. By the time Paul arrived Corinth had a reputation for being the premier city for banking. c. When Julius Caesar reestablished the city, he designed it to present the majesty of Roman culture, religion, and values. Thus, Roman pagan worship and emperor worship was on full display at the time Paul arrived. d. Corinth also hosted the biennial Isthmian Games. Resembling our Olympic games, this was a series of athletic and even musical competitions to honor the Greek God Poseidon. i. Since the games were played on the Isthmus, the sea would literally surround the games. ii. Victors would be rewarded with a wreath crown made of wild celery and later Pine which was a sacred tree to Poseidon. e. [Slide 6] Although there is evidence that indicates that much of Corinth's reputation for sexual license is primarily related to Athenian propaganda to compete against the juggernaut city – we certainly know that pagan worship and sexual immorality go hand in hand. f. Indeed, when Paul writes to the Corinthian church in a few years – he will address their continued need to kill off these sins in their midst. v. So, Paul arrives in Corinth. What does he set out to do there? The answer – may be somewhat surprising. b. [Slide 7] 2 - And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, and his wife Priscilla, who recently came from Italy because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome. He came to them, i. Early on in the book of Acts, we noticed that at the Pentecost after Christ's ascension, Jews from all over the Roman world were represented in Jerusalem for the festival. ii. One of those areas represented with a large Jewish Diaspora population would have been Pontus. iii. Pontus is on the Southern Coast of the Black Sea in Modern Turkey. iv. Aquila or as some pronounce it Akilla, was from this region. v. His wife, Priscilla or as is mentioned elsewhere in scripture, Prisca, is with him now in Corinth due to a rather interesting development. vi. Around the time that Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke were in Philippi, the Emperor Claudius issued a decree to expel all Jews from the city of Rome. vii. Why? 1. According to the Roman historian Suetonius, there was significant unrest and disturbances among the Jewish community due to disputes being raised between Jews and Jewish Christians. It is in Suetonius' works we find that the Christians were led by someone he calls Chrestus, which his most likely his misunderstanding of the word Christos or Christ. 2. And so just because Paul hasn't gone to Rome with the gospel – we ought not think that Christianity had not yet made it to Rome. 3. In fact, as we will see, the book of Romans is written to Christians in Rome, long before Paul arrived in Rome. viii. Apparently, Aquila and Priscilla were in Rome during this time (on the side of the Christians of course) but were still expelled since they were Jews. ix. So, Paul comes to them and joins with them… why? x. Certainly, because they were believers already living in the city of Corinth. But why else? c. [Slide 8] 3 - and because he was of the same trade, he was staying with them and they were working, for by trade they were tent-makers. i. Paul's primary mission for coming to Corinth most certainly is the evangelistic opportunity that such a large city would offer. ii. It was a strategic city to be in to share the gospel, of that we can be certain. iii. But on a more practical side, we see here and realize that Paul… is probably out of money. 1. Remember back to when he and Silas left Antioch of Syria. What was their intention with this mission? 2. It was to revisit the places they had preached the gospel previously and check in on those churches. 3. They had long since accomplished this mission. Having done so, Paul continued to search for new places which he could start an evangelistic work. Remember that the Spirit of God actually prevented them from going west toward Ephesus and then again prevented them from going east toward Bithynia. 4. Then the Lord led them via a dream to Macedonia. They have been in Macedonia while in Philippi, Berea, and Thessalonica. 5. Now he is in Achaia having spent time in Athens and now to Corinth. 6. In other words, the part of the trip they did not plan on has probably been as long if not longer than the part they did plan on. 7. While it is true that in Macedonia Paul was probably provided for by several people, in Athens his reception was limited and in Corinth he arrives with need to support himself. 8. Another potential reason that Paul needs to work, is because oftentimes, sheisters and hucksters would peddle their teachings for a price. Paul did not wish to be financially dependent on the contributions of those to whom he preached. This would ensure that his message and his livelihood were separate. iv. And so here we see Paul, not taking a break from evangelistic endeavors, but putting a priority on earning an income to fund the next leg of the missionary journey. v. Paul is a tent-maker by trade. 1. There is some discussion here as the word for tentmaking could be linked to leather work. 2. Since Paul was a Jew and this skill was no doubt one that he learned as a child, it is unlikely that he would have worked with animal skins to tan them and make leather, since that would be handling the carcass of an animal rendering him ritually unclean. 3. However, what might be intended by leather worker is some kind of artisan leather worker making specialty leather works. In which case he would work with leather already tanned and craft it into something unique. 4. But the arguments for leather worker are not significantly stronger than tent-maker. 5. So it could also refer to him making the outer rain proof layer of tents known as cilicium, a fabric which was produced primarily in Cilicia, which is where Paul grew up. vi. In any case, Paul had to work with his hands to support himself and build back ministry funds before he could launch into a full-time mission in Corinth. vii. But we know Paul don't we. viii. Do we think that he is going to take a vacation from preaching the gospel while he earns funds? ix. No… d. [Slide 9] 4 - And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade both Jews and Greeks. i. On his day off, the Sabbath, he would go to the synagogue and reason together with the local Jews concerning the revelation of the Messiah. ii. Reasoning here has the idea of discussing a topic and debating or proving it. iii. Paul is not taking a break from ministry. He is simply taking a break from full-time ministry in order to replenish his earthly resources. iv. But he is still trying to persuade both Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior, and the Lord. e. [Slide 10] Summary of the Point: In this first point we recognize some familiar themes Luke is emphasizing in the book of Acts. On display is the sovereign hand of God to bring about by providence all of His divine will. God obviously wills that His church and His gospel would go forward to the whole world. Paul is part of that work. But that doesn't mean he is all of it. Here we meet two individuals from the city of Rome who are believers already. Paul hasn't arrived there yet, and still the church has already been established in the capital of the empire. We also notice God's providential hand to bring them all together in the city of Corinth where the gospel will go forward again. Nevertheless, even though God's sovereign hand is putting in big pieces of the puzzle, and even though Paul is one of those pieces, God did not provide to Paul a limitless supply of earthly provision to enable him to continue to do his spiritual work. So what did Paul do? Did he spend time in prayer? Did he assume that he didn't have enough faith and that is why God wasn't providing? Did he start to question whether he was doing something wrong or not? While it is true that if we are doing what God wants us to that He will provide what is needed for us to finish our work – that doesn't' mean He will always provide in the way or in the timing we think He will. Here God provided to Paul by providing him Christian friends to join in work so he could raise funds. The application for us then, is that even if we are engaged in spiritual work for the Lord, even work that God is leading us to accomplish, it still may require us to use our talents, skills, energy, and time to provide for earthly resources for that spiritual work. We still have a responsibility, even though God is in control of all things. Transition: [Slide 11] So in this first point we see God's work in the flourishing of the church throughout the Roman Empire, even outside of Paul's missionary work. In this, Paul continues to provide for himself with earthly resources for the spiritual work there in Corinth. Both God's providence and man's responsibility are at work here. We'll see that continue throughout the entire Corinthian episode. II.) God's providence does not preclude human responsibility, so we must continue our spiritual labors. (5-6) a. [Slide 12] 5 - But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly bearing witness to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ. i. As we commented in an earlier sermon, the timeline here gets a little uncertain. 1. Silas and Timothy were supposed to join Paul in Athens and based on his letters to Thessalonica, letters he wrote during his stay in Corinth, Silas and Timothy did eventually join him in Athens when he was there. But Luke omits any of that. 2. Here we see Silas and Timothy coming from Macedonia. While this could mean Thessalonica, it could just as easily be any or all of the cities they had visited before. 3. No doubt Paul had met them in Athens and then sent them back to check on some of the churches throughout Macedonia while he went to Corinth to replenish the missions trip coffers. ii. Now Silas and Timothy rejoin Paul, having checked on the status of the Macedonian churches. iii. And with them there, Paul devotes himself once again to the full-time ministry of the word. iv. Why would their arrival enable him to do this? v. In a later letter he would write to Philippi from prison in Rome, Paul mentions and thanks the Philippian church for sending financial aid to him while he was in Corinth. vi. This reveals to us that the Philippian church helped to bankroll the ministry there in Corinth so he would not have to continue to be bi-vocational. vii. And what his the full-time ministry look like? viii. To the Jew first – as was Paul's motto. ix. He wanted to bear witness to them with all seriousness that Jesus is their Messiah. The next step in true Judaism. x. But as we have seen so many times before… the Jews did not have ears to hear. b. [Slide 13] 6 - But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” i. Again, we find the Jews being slow to hear the gospel. ii. They resist and even blaspheme their own Lord because they cannot accept the terms He offers. iii. That they were lost and needed one to rescue them first from the tyranny of sin and death and not first from the national oppression they faced – that was a mountain they could not climb. iv. To accept that Yahweh would don human flesh and die to save His people was something they couldn't quite wrap their heads around – in spite of all the prophesy which makes the teaching so plain. v. Paul says in Corinthians that he endeavored to make known to them nothing but Christ crucified. This was the stumbling block of the gospel for them. The one aspect of the truth that they needed to hear and receive. vi. But they couldn't do it. vii. So, Paul shakes out his garments. A sign of judgment and woe. It is a sign of leaving them to the fate they had earned. viii. He tells them in no uncertain words that he is blameless for their eventual judgment. And that he will now focus on the Gentiles. ix. We should be careful here not to think that Paul is forever abandoning the Jews. x. We should only apply this to his ministry here in Corinth. For as we go forward in the book of Acts we will continue to see Paul go to the Jew first. xi. We will also see that just because he goes to the Gentiles, doesn't mean he is done with all the Jews in Corinth either. xii. More on that next week. c. [Slide 14] Summary of the Point: In this second point we see the providence of God in a new way. God has provided to Paul the necessary funds for him to continue his full-time missionary efforts. By the sacrificial giving of the Philippian church, the Lord has relieved the financial burden on Paul so that he can devote himself to the preaching of the gospel. Which is exactly what he does next. For us then, we must recognize the providential hand of the Lord and respond in faith and obedience. Paul's primary mission was not to stay in Corinth and make money. He was probably making good money there. His primary calling was to preach the gospel throughout the Roman world. We too must keep our calling and mission at the forefront of our minds. We too can be easily distracted and must seek to recognize when God has equipped us to move forward in our spiritual labor. Conclusion: Even though this is only part 1 of this message, what have we learned so far CBC? How then shall we live? Doctrinal takeaway: [Slide 15] As we've seen several times in the book of Acts, the title of this book could easily be the Acts of God through His faithful church. This is the summary of the book and it is the summary of this text. Since this sermon is part 1, you can probably guess what next week's message will be about as well. God's providence is something we cannot deny. We must believe that the sovereign hand of God orchestrates and controls every detail in the world to accomplish His purposes. We must believe this because the book of Acts teaches it. We must believe it because the whole of the bible teaches it. We must believe it because without such a teaching, much of the things the scriptures command us to do, think, believe, or trust in, make absolutely no sense if God is not in sovereign control of everything. If every detail of His creation is not under His direct authority and control, then all of Christianity crumbles. But, just because God is in absolute and complete control over every single molecule, does not mean that God has nothing for us to do within that. God's providence does not preclude human responsibility. God's providence and plan did not stop Paul from working for a living in Corinth. It did not stop Claudius from kicking the Jews out of Rome. It did not stop the church at Philippi from delivering sacrificial gifts to Paul in Corinth. It did not stop Paul from preaching the gospel to the Jews and the Gentiles in Corinth. It did not stop the need for humans to do things. In fact, for God's people, it only fueled their faith to be used to accomplish His will. God's providence and man's responsibility work hand in hand and not against each other. Therefore, we must be found faithful to engage in earthly and spiritual work, with our whole hearts, and all our efforts, not because it depends on us, but because it depends completely on God who has called us to do so. And we will see Him work His will through us, around us, and in us as we do. But let me apply this a little more closely to our daily lives. How does all this affect us here and now? 1.) [Slide 16] Mind Transformation: “What truth must we believe from this text?” or “What might we not naturally believe that we must believe because of what this text has said?” We must believe that the Sovereign Lord will always providentially accomplish His will. a. Now why must we believe this? b. Of course because the scriptures teach us this. c. Of course because all of Acts so far is a testament to this very truth. d. But think of what is at stake if this is not true. If God most of the time accomplishes His sovereign will and occasionally He doesn't get what He has decreed… what would that mean? e. Think of all the promises God has made to us in the scriptures. Now which one would you be ok with God not being able to come through on? f. Think of all the future events He has predicted for us in His word. Which of these are you willing to not come to pass? g. Think of all that He has taught us as absolute truth. Which of these will you discard because God couldn't make sure it was true. h. You see my friends, there is much more at stake than merely the free will of men when we start tampering with this doctrine. i. Man's free will has become the battle cry but the outcome is ripping down the certainty of all that God has promised us in His Word. Man's free will, a teaching that cannot be clearly found in scripture, is the altar on which we sacrifice the certainty of God's promises. j. Oh my friends. Man is free in his will, but only to act according to his nature. Man is free in his will, but only to act according to the decrees of God. k. God always… ALWAYS providentially accomplishes His will. l. He may not always do that with a miracle. He may not always do that in ways we would expect or hope for. But God ALWAYS providentially accomplishes His will. m. And it is to our great comfort and joy to confess such a truth. For in doing so, we confess the surety that all that God desires will come to pass. n. But, of course, we cannot pendulum swing too far can we? 2.) [Slide 17] De-Exhortation: “What actions should we stop doing” or “What behaviors do we naturally practice that this passage tells us to stop doing?” We must stop using God's providence as an excuse for passivity, laziness, or disobedience. a. God is a delegator. b. He delegated humans to keep and tend the garden and exercise dominion over it. c. He delegated angelic beings to watch and care for the human race and point them to worship Yahweh. d. He will delegate rule to the bride of Christ in the New Kingdom. e. God can and does act unilaterally to accomplish His will. f. But MOST OF THE TIME God uses secondary causes to accomplish His will. g. In this the obedience of His people, the wickedness of men, the disobedience of His people, and the uncommon decency of the wicked are all used to accomplish His will. h. God works in and through our natures and our wills to accomplish His purpose. With enough grace He could prevent us from sinning or guarantee our obedience… why then doesn't He do that? i. Is there only so much grace to go around? Or is it possible that even our failure works to accomplish His divine purpose? j. We are neither robots only fulfilling what we have been programmed to do nor are we passive agents floating along and no matter what we do God will still get what He wants. k. We believe in the sovereignty and the providence of God… but that doesn't mean we are fatalistic. l. Fatalism says, “What will be, will be.” There is nothing I can do to change the outcome. No matter what I do, it does not change what will be. m. We deny this. n. But our belief is that though God has determined or decreed what will be – we contribute to that end with our actions. He has already baked our actions in to those decrees. We get to participate in what He has said. o. So sitting around saying –. i. If God wants me to get that job, I won't need to fill out an application. ii. If God wants us to have kids, we don't even need to try. iii. If God wants me to get married, He'll bring her to me. iv. If God wants me to be in the ministry, He'll make me serious about His Word at some point. v. If God wants me to stop doing this sin, He'll stop me. vi. If God wants me to preach the gospel in Corinth, He'll supply the funds. p. You see my point. q. Idleness, laziness, and passivity are not the appropriate response to confessing that God is sovereign and uses providence to accomplish His purposes. r. Instead, it should be obedience. 3.) [Slide 18] Exhortation: “What actions should we take?” or “What is this passage specifically commanding us to do that we don't naturally do or aren't currently doing?” We must obey our Lord and follow His guidance. a. No future surety should enter our decision making when we consider what we should or should not do. b. To act in one way or another in order to attempt to secure an outcome that God alone determines, is to exit our lane of influence. c. Human responsibility does not enter the realm of results or outcomes. It stays, always, in what we choose to do within the confines of our nature. d. All men are told to obey the Lord. The Redeemed are able, by nature, to choose to obey the Lord. e. But we must be very careful as we discuss God's providence next to man's responsibility that we do not allow our responsibility to breech into trying to secure God's decreed purposes. f. The study of ethics like whether we should kill to save our family begins with a premise that you can and will determine their fate by your actions. It begins… flawed. Why? Because God ultimately determines their fate. You are only responsible for your own individual decisions. g. Therefore, the question should not be would I kill to save my family… the question should be… Does God permit me to kill to defend my family. For that is truly the beginning of the issue. Whether or not your family will be saved is not up to you. You are only responsible for the spheres of influence you actually have. Which is primarily your own responsibility to obey the Lord. h. I say all of this, hopefully, to simplify what we so often muddy. i. If God is in absolute control of everything and uses human action to accomplish what He has already determined, then we must be very careful, for our own sake, to do what He has commanded us to do. Because our actions will contribute to what God has already determined. j. If that is the case, it is only harmful for us when we disobey. Our disobedience will not stop His will from coming to pass – whatever that may be. Therefore, for our own sake, we must do as God has commanded. k. Paul knew that God had called him to preach the gospel throughout the Roman Empire. But Paul neither went to idleness, nor did he cast his hands up and say “no matter what I do God will have His way” l. Instead, Paul obeyed the Lord and took opportunities that were presented that did not violate God's commands. m. We are responsible not for outcomes but for obedience. n. Obey the Lord. Why? Because He is God and He said to and it will go well for you. 4.) [Slide 19] Comfort: “What comfort can we find here?” or “What peace does the Lord promise us in light of this passage of scripture?” God will not allow His purposes to fail or succeed because of you. a. We have a responsibility to obey the Lord. We must do as He has told us to do. b. Paul preached because the Lord Jesus threw him down on the road to Damascus and told Him to do so. c. He preached because he loved the Lord he once persecuted. d. He labored in tent making because he wanted to be free of financial burden so he could preach the word of God freely to all who would hear. e. But this passage especially shows the work of God and His church to be much bigger than Paul. f. As big of a piece of the puzzle as Paul is… he is insignificant to the providential and sovereign work of the Lord to accomplish His own will. g. Let this be a great comfort to us Christians. h. God doesn't need us and will accomplish His purposes without us. i. But what a blessing it is to be used of Him. j. Let us therefore purpose in our hearts to be willing vessels for His honorable use. Let me close with a prayer by the English Reformer Thomas Becon Maker of heaven and earth, you have created a path for us to walk in, and you have commanded that we wander neither to the right nor to the left —according to your will, without adding our own good intentions or fleshly imaginations. So as you have commanded, good Lord, give me the grace to do. Help me not to follow my own will, nor the fancies of other people. And never let me be duped or beguiled by the mask of traditions, decrees, ancient laws, or any other person or thing that conflicts with your holy ordinances and commands. Help me to faithfully believe and steadfastly confess that true godliness is only learned in your holy Bible. Then help me to order my life accordingly, to the praise of your holy name. We pray this in Jesus' name…Amen. Benediction: And now O Lord, rain down righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness grow with it; So that your people may be mature and complete, never lacking anything. Until we meet again. Go in peace.

It seems in today's world pronouns have come into great controversy, but in simplest level when I'm talking about myself me, I use a word I, me, my. If I'm talking about somebody who's not in my presence I will usually use he or she. So for instance if somebody's not in my presence I go he's a nice young man or she's going to graduate college. I'm talking about somebody who's not present but I'm referencing them. We're going to take a look today at Psalm 23 verse 4 that has a very significant change in what happens. The Psalmist says in the beginning, "The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me the paths of righteousness for his name's sake." But now the Psalmist is going to change and talk about two things that are very significant related to fear that most people have that's going to come across in all of our lives. So see what the two things that the Psalmist talks about that gives us comfort at afraid of? Sermon Notes Psalm 23:4a Moving through the valley of the shadow of death Psalm 107:10 – 16 God saves from the shadow of death John 3:16 Whoever believes will not perish but have eternal life John 11:25 & 26 Jesus is the resurrection and the life 1 Corinthians 15:50 – 57 Death is defeated and we have the victory through Christ Job 19:23 – 27 My eyes shall see my Redeemer Psalm 23:4b Do not fear harm/evil because YOU God are with me Romans 8:35 – 39 Nothing not even death separates us from God Psalm 23::4c Both God's rod and staff comfort Micah 7:14 May He shepherd His people with His scepter

Send us a Text Message.We all want to be on the best path in life. The Word of God, Jesus Himself, is The Way, The Truth and The Life. Without Him we can do nothing. Without Him we cannot be on the best path. The devil therefore lures us to more familiar activities and distractions. We get to choose what we should watch, listen to, and who to be around. Our soul is being affected in a positive or negative way, moment by moment every day.Our old carnal way is what we are used to. It is what we used to enjoy. Things are different now that we are born again but the old man that died can be resurrected if we do not guard our mind from becoming re-conformed to the world (Romans 12:2 warns us against this.) Therefore there is a constant battle for our attention. Both God and Satan want our focus. God, for our own good because He loves us and knows the dangers of you slipping back into Satan's darkness. Satan wants to keep you from becoming transformed by understanding the Truth of the Word of God. Hence, the choice each hour, each minute is yours. What will you feed your soul? The World or The Truth so that you can be transformed into the person God created you to be?This program covers the following Scriptures from the Amplified Classic version (AMPC): Colossians 3:1-7; Ephesians 4:10-13; Mark 11:23; Proverbs 18:21; John 15; Mark 16; Matthew 28; Hosea 4:6; Matthew 7:21-27; Psalm 119:105; Romans 8:6-7.Support the Show.

We all want to be on the best path in life. The Word of God, Jesus Himself, is The Way, The Truth and The Life. Without Him we can do nothing. Without Him we cannot be on the best path. The devil therefore lures us to more familiar activities and distractions. We get to choose what we should watch, listen to, and who to be around. Our soul is being affected in a positive or negative way, moment by moment every day.Our old carnal way is what we are used to. It is what we used to enjoy. Things are different now that we are born again but the old man that died can be resurrected if we do not guard our mind from becoming re-conformed to the world (Romans 12:2 warns us against this.) Therefore there is a constant battle for our attention. Both God and Satan want our focus. God, for our own good because He loves us and knows the dangers of you slipping back into Satan's darkness. Satan wants to keep you from becoming transformed by understanding the Truth of the Word of God. Hence, the choice each hour, each minute is yours. What will you feed your soul? The World or The Truth so that you can be transformed into the person God created you to be?This program covers the following Scriptures from the Amplified Classic version (AMPC): Colossians 3:1-7; Ephesians 4:10-13; Mark 11:23; Proverbs 18:21; John 15; Mark 16; Matthew 28; Hosea 4:6; Matthew 7:21-27; Psalm 119:105; Romans 8:6-7.Support the Show.

Both God and Satan are working to build their kingdom in the earth. Every person on earth will part of one of these kingdoms. We will discuss God's Kingdom vs Satan's Kingdom --------------- 📚: Check out Jerusalem Prophecy College Online for less than $60 per course: https://jerusalemprophecycollege.com 📱: It's never been easier to understand. Stream Endtime+ and access exclusive content: https://watch.endtime.com/browse  🏥: Try Hope Health Share, an affordable, alternative solution: https://hopehealthshare.com ☎️: Stay connected even when cellular is down. Try Satellite Phone Store today: https://sat123.com ☕️: First Cup Coffee: use code ENDTIME to get 10% off: https://www.firstcup.com ⭐️: Birch Gold: Claim your free info kit on gold: https://www.birchgold.com/endtime 🥩: Back Yard Butchers: Save an extra 20% off your entire order (use code “ENDTIME”): https://www.backyardbutchers.com/endtime 🍴Ready Pantry: https://www.ReadyPantry.com/ENDTIME and save an extra 10% off your entire order + FREE shipping on all orders (use code “ENDTIME”). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every single person desires to have deep, safe, lasting relationships. We all want to know and be known. And that's because we are created for connection. In order to both survive, and thrive, we need relational connection with others. Both God and others. So how do we do this? Build, keep, nurture relational connection? 

In this episode Jeremiah is mourning over his people because of their unbelief. Both God and Jeremiah are weeping for God's people.  God bless you today and I encourage you to spend time in God's Word https://www.instagram.com/biblicaltapestry/https://www.facebook.com/HyperNike12

Today's gospel instalment- 03-10-2024--Message title- If God be for us--Text- Romans 8 vs 28-34--1..Lots of God's absolute sovereignty teaching in all matters of salvation..-2..We will revisit His decrees in salvation, their unfolding and what or how that should mean or be understood in the light of all the gospel parts.-3..If you were blessed by the ALL THINGS FOR GOOD message from 2 weeks ago, this one is exactly on the same level of treatment, if not a little deeper..-4..Salvation is grounded in God's eternal decrees. Thus, it is not a matter that man helps in the bringing of it.-5..Both God and man are cooks, but God only accepts His own recipe which He accomplished in and by His Son, the Lord Jesus.-6..Man's cooking is bad by nature, thus man has nothing to give to exchange for salvation. All matters of salvation are the free act of God and cannot be changed or frustrated by anyone.-7.. The elect though they may go through suffering in this life have God on their side. He works all things for their good and that good meaning being conformed to the image of His Son. And that conformation is not by elbow grease of progressive sanctification, but is by the free imputation of Christ's righteousness.-8.. The elect cannot be condemned. They are non-sticky pans. Yes, they are sinners, but none is able to bring a charge against them. Why-- Because Christ already made good on their sin debt and it is God who justified them. It thus is impossible to reverse this decree. -9..Christ is risen and seated to make intercession for them as their advocate. That and more and it is free--Remember to pray for sister Kimberly Ault and Joie.. They are in a different season of their lives.

Today's gospel instalment- 03-10-2024--Message title- If God be for us--Text- Romans 8 vs 28-34--1..Lots of God's absolute sovereignty teaching in all matters of salvation..-2..We will revisit His decrees in salvation, their unfolding and what or how that should mean or be understood in the light of all the gospel parts.-3..If you were blessed by the ALL THINGS FOR GOOD message from 2 weeks ago, this one is exactly on the same level of treatment, if not a little deeper..-4..Salvation is grounded in God's eternal decrees. Thus, it is not a matter that man helps in the bringing of it.-5..Both God and man are cooks, but God only accepts His own recipe which He accomplished in and by His Son, the Lord Jesus.-6..Man's cooking is bad by nature, thus man has nothing to give to exchange for salvation. All matters of salvation are the free act of God and cannot be changed or frustrated by anyone.-7.. The elect though they may go through suffering in this life have God on their side. He works all things for their good and that good meaning being conformed to the image of His Son. And that conformation is not by elbow grease of progressive sanctification, but is by the free imputation of Christ's righteousness.-8.. The elect cannot be condemned. They are non-sticky pans. Yes, they are sinners, but none is able to bring a charge against them. Why-- Because Christ already made good on their sin debt and it is God who justified them. It thus is impossible to reverse this decree. -9..Christ is risen and seated to make intercession for them as their advocate. That and more and it is free--Remember to pray for sister Kimberly Ault and Joie.. They are in a different season of their lives.

Today's gospel instalment: 03/10/2024Message title: If God be for usText: Romans 8 vs 28-341..Lots of God's absolute sovereignty teaching in all matters of salvation..2..We will revisit His decrees in salvation, their unfolding and what or how that should mean or be understood in the light of all the gospel parts.3..If you were blessed by the ALL THINGS FOR GOOD message from 2 weeks ago, this one is exactly on the same level of treatment, if not a little deeper..4..Salvation is grounded in God's eternal decrees. Thus, it is not a matter that man helps in the bringing of it.5..Both God and man are cooks, but God only accepts His own recipe which He accomplished in and by His Son, the Lord Jesus.6..Man's cooking is bad by nature, thus man has nothing to give to exchange for salvation. All matters of salvation are the free act of God and cannot be changed or frustrated by anyone.7.. The elect though they may go through suffering in this life have God on their side. He works all things for their good and that good meaning being conformed to the image of His Son. And that conformation is not by elbow grease of progressive sanctification, but is by the free imputation of Christ's righteousness.8.. The elect cannot be condemned. They are non-sticky pans. Yes, they are sinners, but none is able to bring a charge against them. Why? Because Christ already made good on their sin debt and it is God who justified them. It thus is impossible to reverse this decree. 9..Christ is risen and seated to make intercession for them as their advocate. That and more and it is free!Remember to pray for sister Kimberly Ault and Joie.. They are in a different season of their lives.

      Josh, an theist, sent out a 'prayer' to any supernatural being that might be listening. "If you exist," said Josh, "Give me an Experience." Both God and the devil were listening. ---------------------------------------------------- Share Your Story If you have a Touched by Heaven moment that you would like to share with Trapper, please leave us a note at https://touchedbyheaven.net/contact Our listeners look forward to hearing about life-changing encounters and miraculous stories every week. Stay Informed Trapper sends out a weekly email. If you're not receiving it, and would like to stay in touch to get the bonus stories and other interesting content that will further fortify your faith. Stay informed with our weekly newsletter by subscribing on https://trapperjackspeaks.com  Become a Patron We pray that our listeners and followers benefit from our podcasts and programs and develop a deeper personal relationship with God. We thank you for supporting our efforts and helping to cover the costs by being a Patron and getting lots of fun extras. Please go to https://patreon.com/bfl to check out the details. More About Trapper Jack Trapper has CD's and Downloads of his talks available for you to listen to and share. Download or order your CD now at our online store https://trapperjackspeaksstore.com Check out and subscribe to his Men's Morning Light weekly broadcast, or view the recording at your convenience on either YouTube or Facebook.  

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, this episode is focused on gratitude. Both God's Word and psychology point to the significant benefits of cultivating a practice of gratitude in our lives. When we are struggling with grief or pain, it can feel hard to focus on gratitude. But gratitude can be an important part of our healing journey. On this last episode of 2023, we would like to thank you for listening to our podcasts and for your support. We leave this year with an account from ministry volunteer, Cathy DiBella who shared the hope she clings to, even when Christmas doesn't quite look the way you want it to.ResourcesPodcast Episode highlights a blog from Cathi DiBella: https://www.motherlessdaughtersministry.com/2018/12/09/christmas-hope/Support the showThanks for listening! Find our podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon Music, and Audible. Also, find and follow the Motherless Daughters Ministry on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, this episode is focused on gratitude. Both God's word and psychology point to the significant benefits of cultivating a practice of gratitude in our life. When we are struggling with grief or pain in our life, it can feel hard to focus on gratitude. But gratitude can be an important part of our healing journey. Chris Fishel is a Motherless Daughters Ministry volunteer who shares her many skills and abilities for the growth of the ministry. In this episode, we share her story of discovery as she created an environment of gratitude in her household.The podcast Episode highlights a blog from Chris Fishel: https://www.motherlessdaughtersministry.com/2016/04/17/cultivating-thankfulness-cant-erased/More blogs by Chris Fishel:https://www.motherlessdaughtersministry.com/?s=Chris+FishelSupport the showThanks for listening! Find our podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon Music, and Audible. Also, find and follow the Motherless Daughters Ministry on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube.

  Jesus Final Prayers 1 Welcome back to our series, AGOG – A Glimpse of God. We are on Day 26 of our adventure, looking together at the life of the most amazing person in human history - Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Today we start looking briefly at Jesus final prayers in John 17:1-19. Jesus prays for Himself: Jesus starts off by praying for Himself. Central to this part of His prayer is glorification. That is the glorification of Himself in order that God the Father who sent Him will be glorified. In effect, Jesus is saying “Father, may people see me for who I truly am, your Son. And may they also through Me, see Your true nature Father!” Praying as He does, just before He knowingly goes to His death on the cross, shows the importance of the cross. For it is through the cross alone. Both God the Father and Jesus will be glorified. Jesus' death on the cross reveals a God of love, faithfulness and forgiveness. John 17:4 reveals that it was this purpose that He came, in order to complete the work given. Jesus' entire earthly life has been one to show divine love – to all people of every age and class. All Jesus' works and words were completed without even a hint of hypocrisy. His entire life was driven by the desire to see sinful people turn to God for reconciliation and forgiveness. Jesus confidently prays that having laid aside His glory by taking on human form, He will return to God's right hand, having achieved the work of redemption through the cross. Jesus prays for His Disciples: Now Jesus turns to pray for His disciples. Note how He describes them: they were chosen by God Himself, seen God in Jesus and have received God's words and obeyed them. Jesus prays that the disciples would be in the safe possession of both the Father and the Son. Despite misunderstanding frequently what Jesus was talking about, the disciples still managed to grasp that Jesus had come from God. Having taught that the disciples will endure persecution and suffering because they are His followers, Jesus prays for their safety.~ They will be safe, not because of their own cunning, character or conduct. They will be safe because of God's care and protection. As the disciples were God's possession, He will ensure that they are watched over and protected. This security is also borne from glorifying God and being witnesses for Him. By remaining loyal and obedient to Jesus, obedient to His teachings and telling others about Him, God's name & nature will therefore protect the disciples. Jesus also prays that they may be filled with joy and be dedicated wholly and solely to Him. The disciples now have a mission and purpose to fulfil – to tell others about this Jesus. Remember they will not be left alone but have the Holy Spirit to counsel and clarify with them. Right Mouse click or tap here to save this as an audio mp3 file

Both God and his people love their human enemies, but not in the same way, since God is all-wise and all-governing, and we are finite.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3279340/advertisement

Both God and his people love their human enemies, but not in the same way, since God is all-wise and all-governing, and we are finite.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3279343/advertisement

Both God and his people love their human enemies, but not in the same way, since God is all-wise and all-governing, and we are finite.

Both God and his people love their human enemies, but not in the same way, since God is all-wise and all-governing, and we are finite.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4231678/advertisement

Both God and his people love their human enemies, but not in the same way, since God is all-wise and all-governing, and we are finite.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3485657/advertisement

We all want to be on the best path in life. The Word of God, Jesus Himself, is The Way, The Truth and The Life. Without Him we can do nothing. Without Him we cannot be on the best path. The devil therefore lures us to more familiar activities and distractions. We get to choose what we should watch, listen to, and who to be around. Our soul is being affected in a positive or negative way, moment by moment every day.Our old carnal way is what we are used to. It is what we used to enjoy. Things are different now that we are born again but the old man that died can be resurrected if we do not guard our mind from becoming re-conformed to the world (Romans 12:2 warns us against this.) Therefore there is a constant battle for our attention. Both God and Satan want our focus. God, for our own good because He loves us and knows the dangers of you slipping back into Satan's darkness. Satan wants to keep you from becoming transformed by understanding the Truth of the Word of God. Hence, the choice each hour, each minute is yours. What will you feed your soul? The World or The Truth so that you can be transformed into the person God created you to be?This program covers the following Scriptures from the Amplified Classic version (AMPC): Colossians 3:1-7; Ephesians 4:10-13; Mark 11:23; Proverbs 18:21; John 15; Mark 16; Matthew 28; Hosea 4:6; Matthew 7:21-27; Psalm 119:105; Romans 8:6-7.Support the show

Part 2 of 3 | The TV series, The Chosen, is an international phenomenon. And wildly controversial for some. In this episode, I will respond to the claim: Dallas Jenkins is smuggling LDS theology into the series. Is this true? Additional videos about the Incarnation: • How Can Jesus be Both God and Human? https://youtu.be/jFpq53B46xY • Does Matt. 24:36 Teach that Jesus Didn't Know the Future? https://youtu.be/-OeY7UugjVc

Thank you for joining the Manna Podcast as we study the historical book of II Kings. Please share with your friends and family. Also, the Manna Podcast Team would appreciate you joining us in prayer that God would expand this ministry. https://www.mannapodcast.com/lessons Brad's Board Notes 2 Kings 9 & 10 Vs 1-10 Ultimately, every leader is promoted by God in order to fulfill God's plan for that specific point in history. Vs 14-26 God never overlooks sin, every sin will be paid for; either by the sinner themself, or by Jesus Christ who died in the believing sinners place. Vs 30-10: 11 Both God's justice and the timing of His justice are perfect; whatever He has promised will come to pass, precisely on His schedule. Vs 10:18-31 It is not enough to eliminate evil; you must also be careful to obey God completely. Other Verses: Acts 13:36 Romans 5:8; 12:19 Ecclesiastes 12:14 Ezekiel 33:11 Habakkuk 2:3

SERIES: The Family: of God TITLE: God's Doing TEXT: Matthew 19:6 I. Marriage is God's Doing? A. Is Jesus in Love with the Church? Chapter and verse. Matthew19:4-5 B. Fundamental: Marriage is God's doing. Matthew 19:6 C. God does marriage for His own glory. Philippians 2:9-11 II. Marriage: Sin, Shame, and Redemption. A. We have lost shame, not covered it. Genesis 2:25 B. What sin did and what it means for marriage Genesis 3:8 C. Hinting at the coming ultimate marriage Genesis 3:15 III. Marriage is Both God's Doing and Redoing. A. There is marriage and Christian marriage. B. Christian marriage is redemptive. Colossians 2:13,14

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:There are two main teachings that we have from God. He has given us his Law and his Gospel. God's Law spells out everything that we must do in order to be judged as good, righteous, and just. The Ten Commandments are God's Law. The great summation of God's Law is that we should love him with our whole heart, soul, strength and mind, and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. So the Law is always saying, “Do this, and don't do that.” God's Gospel is his message of good news. The word “Gospel” means “good news.” The good news is that God has acted on our behalf. He has not abandoned us to our slavery to sin and our slavery to the devil, but he has redeemed us in the death of Jesus Christ. The good news, the Gospel, is God's gift of forgiveness and salvation in Jesus. Our Gospel reading today is especially illustrative of God's good news. A sheep that has gotten lost is as good as dead. It's just a matter of time. But the shepherd goes and looks for the sheep. When the sheep is found it is placed on the shepherd's shoulders, and he goes back to the flock rejoicing. The sheep didn't do anything to bring about its own salvation. The sheep didn't follow commands like “Do this, and don't do that.” In fact, if anything, the sheep didn't do what it was supposed to do. It wandered off. The shepherd saves the sheep despite the sheep's behavior. The parable of the lost coin is similar. The coin's contribution to what happened is that it got lost. It fell. It couldn't jump back up into the woman's purse. The woman goes to work, takes the trouble. So it is with our salvation. Having fallen into sin we cannot work our way back into God's favor. God goes out searching for us to find us. He does this by the preaching of his Word. He does this through Christians speaking the Gospel. The only way that anyone can know about the Gospel, can know of God's will to save sinners in Jesus is by being told it. There are no experiments or math problems that will ever bring about this knowledge. So we have two teachings that we are stewards of as Christians. We have the Law, which tells us how to live well and be good, and the Gospel, which tells us what God has done for us. These are the two things that we have to share with the world. God's Law diagnoses our abominable condition. It tells us who we are. Who are we? We are sinners. The Gospel tells us about God. Who is he? His most outstanding feature is that he is the justifier of sinners. He makes sinners right and good by the holy life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Keeping this in mind, let's turn to a surprising detail that has been recorded at the beginning of our Gospel reading. It says: “All the tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus to hear him.” Tax collectors were mean and greedy. They would threaten and extort to obtain whatever they could get away with. The Roman officials didn't care so long as they got their cut. It mentions that sinners were coming to Jesus. There's a pretty admirable list of sinners in our Epistle reading: Sinners are “lawless and rebellious people, godless people, unholy and worldly people, those who kill their fathers and those who kill their mothers, murderers, sexually immoral people, homosexuals, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and so on.” More concretely you might think of people who are unacceptable according to our moral, social code. You can think of people who have done things that you consider shameful. But you also might remember things that you've done in secret. So far as other people know you are respectable, but you probably know something different. Tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus. They were not just coming to watch him perform miracles, but, as it says, “to hear him.” What would Jesus be telling them? We are not told exactly, but, generally speaking, he would be telling them God's Law and God's Gospel. God's Law would have identified them as sinners. God's Gospel would have announced that they are forgiven sinners. These are not teachings that came out of somebody's cracked brain. These are teachings that come from God. They are as true as true can be. These tax collectors and sinners were getting hooked on the truth. They wanted to hear it. This is a wonderful thing whenever it happens. Jesus says that the angels rejoice when just one sinner repents. It doesn't always happen. In fact, we are quite accustomed to and feel more comfortable with lies and deception to the truth. We prefer lies to the truth when it comes to the Law because we do not want to be humbled. We want to believe that every bad thing we do is understandable, comprehensible, not a bit reprehensible, but perfectly defensible. This, of course, is ridiculously untrue, but it's what we want to believe. When the truth of God's Law comes along, it exposes our justifications of ourselves as the fig leaves that they really are. Or we might lie to ourselves like this: We've done our fair share of wandering, of course, just like everybody else, but we can always come back to the flock if we want to. We're not lost. We're not damned. We can stop whenever we want to. We can get better—just like we can always theoretically get in shape. Let's not start today, of course. We've already blown it for today. Tomorrow we'll be motivated. Always tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll whip ourselves into shape. The truth, however, that we should gain from this is that we are liars. Oh, how we lie! We lie to others and we lie to ourselves. The Bible says that all men are liars. The truth is that you have no hope of ever wandering back into the fold. Your wandering will only take you further and further away, even if you look like you're getting into shape. The further and further you wander away the closer you are to death. The purpose and end of the Law is to reveal this approaching inevitable death. The Law has not been given for self-improvement. The Law is ferocious and untamable. It ruthlessly points out the inevitability of our death and damnation for those who do not keep it. The only way that God's Law can be made somewhat palatable for people is when it is not used correctly, when lies are told about it, when people pick and choose which laws they feel they would like to keep and which laws they can safely ignore as if they had this right. Of course, we can lie and pretend about God's Law until we die and until Judgement Day, but that will be the end of the lying and pretending. So the thing that we need the most is being saved from God's Law. God's Law speaks the truth. It tosses us altogether into the one bucket called “sinners.” This isn't God's fault and it isn't the Law's fault. It's our fault. Sinners and tax collectors can rage against that verdict all they want, but the truth is still the truth. There is another truth, however, that swallows up, you might say, this truth of the Law. God's truth according to the Law is that you are a sinner and unrighteous. But, as Paul says in Romans 3, “a righteousness apart from the Law has been revealed. It is God's own righteousness. So it's not a fake or pretend righteousness. It is the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” This is the righteousness of the Gospel. If it weren't for this righteousness of God in Jesus Christ that is freely given apart from the Law, if it weren't from this Gospel righteousness that swallows up the lack of righteousness that the Law reveals, then people would be better off if they never heard the Law at all. They'd be better off pretending that they are not lost, they're fine, they can stop whenever they want, they can get better if only the try better, they've lived a decent enough life when compared to other people—these truly give people comfort. The only problem is that they are lies. They aren't perfectly comfortable—people can sense that they are lies in their heart of hearts. They sense the horror of the truth that the Law reveals—how evil we are, our death and damnation—this is what overcame Judas Iscariot so that he went and hung himself. This horrible truth of the Law must be followed by the truth of the Gospel, which is superior in a sense. Both God's Law and God's Gospel are as true and true can be. But God sent his Son in order to save us from his Law. God sent his Son to find the lost sheep and the lost coin. Once the sheep has been found and the coin has been put back in the purse the wandering and the getting lost lose all the power it ever had. The sinner who is forgiven isn't reckoned as a sinner anymore. Christians do not hold on to and love the Law with their whole heart. Christians love Jesus who suffered and died to set them free from the Law. The ferocious and divine beast of the Law is precisely what brought about Jesus's deepest suffering on our behalf when he became sin for us. So the reason why the tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus in order to hear him was because they had tasted the truth. The truth is scary, but it is also wonderful. They got hooked on the truth. This ironically put them much further along than the Pharisees who otherwise lived very respectable lives. In fact, the Pharisees' lies about themselves were perhaps more persuasive than the sinners' and tax collectors' lies to themselves. The Pharisees could more easily convince themselves that they were not lost. They certainly weren't as lost as those losers whom Jesus was eating with. This also meant that they felt very little need for a shepherd to take them upon his shoulders and bring them back to the flock. Often the Christian Church gets depicted as being pharisaical. A lot of times that depiction is accurate, because not everybody understands the two great teachings of Christianity very well and how they relate. This depiction of the Christian Church is that Christians love to judge other people—homosexuals, for example, to take a hot button issue today. No, that is not our endpoint, just as it was not Jesus' endpoint either. God's Law, indeed, condemns homosexual lust and activities just as it condemns other evil things. It does no good to tell lies about God's Law. But the endpoint is to live in the righteousness of God that is apart from the Law—the righteousness of God that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. No matter what sins anybody might be afflicted with, the endpoint is confidence, comfort, joy, and thankfulness to Jesus for suffering and atoning for all those sins. The goal is not that everyone should be sad and sullen, being tortured by the ferocious Law and by their own guilt. That's a surefire way to end up like Judas either physically or spiritually. The goal is a good conscience coming from God's own powerful divine truth in the Gospel. Live in Jesus and his righteousness. He takes away all shame and guilt. He destroys death. He closes hell. He opens heaven. He does all of these things for sinners like you. He wants to be with you and to eat with you.

Hello Beloved! Today we are tackling an interesting contrast between Overflowing and Pouring Out. Both God honors, but I will be diving deep on what it means to me through my personal walk in it. In our Christian walk, this tends to get confused so if you'd like clarity on the two, tune in!

THE POWER OF GOD'S WHISPER TITLE: FRUSTRATED EPISODE: 22-236 VERSE: I posted watchmen over you who said, “Listen for the sound of the alarm.” But you replied, “No! We won't pay attention!” JEREMIAH 6:17 ✔️ - Both God and Jeremiah were frustrated. ✔️ - They missed God's voice because they tuned it out. ✔️ - The number one obstacle to hearing God is a calloused heart. ✔️ - They chose spiritual deafness. TAKEAWAY: But when we open ourselves to anything God wants to say, He can say anything. When He has our attention, He is much more generous with His. PRAYER: Lord, there are things I don't want You to say to me —things that don't fit with my dreams and desires —yet if they are Your will, I need to hear them. My ears are open even to Your correction. I am paying full attention to You. ▌ABOUT US ▌

The only name that saves is Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Light of God to reveal God to the nations and who went to the cross and paid the price for humanity's sins. Jesus Christ warned His followers that one cannot serve BOTH God and mammon/money. Yet, money is being promoted by the leaders of most groups which claim to be Bible-believing churches. The result: many of their followers who previously believed now serve money and God. Today's broadcast calls on those believers who still subscribe to worldly prosperity doctrines to repent and give their hearts to the only true Messiah and to believe only His gospel. They should also encourage others to leave those church organizations that preach the deadly worldly prosperity messages. ——— Are you aware that you can watch more than 100 videos (videos you can share, use in Sunday schools, teach others, and evangelize) in high definition on our YouTube channel? Please click on the link below to subscribe. The subscription is free. https://www.youtube.com/channel/WorldEvangel?sub_confirmation=1 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/worldevangel/message

One of the hallmarks of United Methodism is the nuanced way that John Wesley both embraced human free will and God's grace. Both God's power and human will are necessary for salvation. Yes, we get to choose. But only because God's power makes our choice possible. Before we even knew there was a choice to make, eve as soon as we were born, God was hard at work drawing, luring us, convincing us to choose faith in Jesus. 

We all want to be on the best path in life. The Word of God, Jesus Himself, is The Way, The Truth and The Life. Without Him we can do nothing. Without Him we cannot be on the best path. The devil therefore lures us to more familiar activities and distractions. We get to choose what we should watch, listen to, and who to be around. Our soul is being affected in a positive or negative way, moment by moment every day.Our old carnal way is what we are used to. It is what we used to enjoy. Things are different now that we are born again but the old man that died can be resurrected if we do not guard our mind from becoming re-conformed to the world (Romans 12:2 warns us against this.) Therefore there is a constant battle for our attention. Both God and Satan want our focus. God, for our own good because He loves us and knows the dangers of you slipping back into Satan's darkness. Satan wants to keep you from becoming transformed by understanding the Truth of the Word of God. Hence, the choice each hour, each minute is yours. What will you feed your soul? The World or The Truth so that you can be transformed into the person God created you to be?This program covers the following Scriptures from the Amplified Classic version (AMPC): Colossians 3:1-7; Ephesians 4:10-13; Mark 11:23; Proverbs 18:21; John 15; Mark 16; Matthew 28; Hosea 4:6; Matthew 7:21-27; Psalm 119:105; Romans 8:6-7.Support the show

It is common to hear both from the pulpit and in popular culture the merits of unconditional love. From the one, we hear that God loves us unconditionally, that heaven is a free gift, that a last-minute prayer can save us from the flames of hell. From the other, we hear that we are only truly loved when those who love us do so without any direction, without any judgment, without any purpose or aim other than our fulfilling our own desires. In both cases, the greatest love is considered to be that which maximizes our own egos, our own complete control over our destinies. Both God and mortal lovers must stand second to my ambition, my freedom, my desires, and my sense of self-fulfillment.

John 12:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. How is the Son of Man to be glorified? Jesus stated it plainly so we would all know. And John recorded it faithfully. Jesus is glorified as He gives Himself over to be crucified. In doing so, He will bear much fruit. John is going to quote Jesus again later on in his gospel as He speaks to His disciples. John 15:5, 8. “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” Let's connect some dots. Death, resurrection, life, the glory of God, and fruitfulness. Jesus laid down His life. God raised Him to life. Both God and Christ are glorified. The result is much fruit for His glory. As we live to love with Jesus, we die to ourselves. He raises us to life with Him. He loves through us and bears much fruit for the glory of the Father and the Son. Today, let us die to ourselves and live to Christ.

We all get angry. In today's social media world, we can easily find a platform to express that anger. Our anger develops when we hear or see something that we interpret as causing fear, frustration or offense. We react to our perception, and the seeds of anger are sown and grown in an instant. Once angry, we often find it justifiable to lash out with our own brand of challenge, retaliation or defiance. Our anger has now grown from a personal internal emotion into a larger and more threatening external action which is usually destructive and not constructive. As Christians, what are we supposed to do with this human instinct? Should we allow ourselves to get angry? Both God and Jesus got angry, so does that give us permission? Anger doesn't just happen on its own. On the contrary, it is generally seen as a secondary emotion. It engages because we have felt something else that provokes us to anger. According to the article in Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences, “Deconstructing Anger in the Human Brain,” by Gadi Gilam and Talma Hendler, there are three primary emotions that can drive us towards anger: Real or imagined threat such as physical or psychological pain Frustration due to goal obstruction Perceived personal offense due to unfair treatment, violation of social norms, insults, rejections, criticism, and the like. Why is it important to know this? As Christians, we are just as susceptible to feeling threatened, frustration, and perceived personal offenses as anyone else. However, we are specifically given a much higher standard than others to manage our anger. While the Scriptures tell us being angry is not necessarily wrong, that is only the beginning of the story. The Bible also reveals different levels of anger, and we are specifically instructed to never engage in some of them. We can learn from God's example of anger If we observe the many biblical accounts where God was angry, we see a pattern. God's anger was in a broad sense always focused on humanity's rejection of His righteousness - and therefore of Him. Because we know God does have a plan for all, we can understand His expressions of anger as for the ultimate good of humanity. God's anger was and is a tool of His righteousness. We can learn from Jesus' example of anger There were a few times in Jesus' ministry when he got angry. Very angry. When we look at what he said and what he did, it can help us understand what appropriate anger should look like. Here's a hint, it is not easy to achieve! Check out our May 16, 2022 podcast, “I'm a Christian and I'm Angry. What Now?” for more. We observe how anger works on a physiological level and how our physiology automatically engages our emotions. Anger is instinctive. We can choose whether its drive will be a force of constructive contribution or a force of destruction and disaster. The anger we see in our world now is primarily destructive. Join us and learn how to stand against that tide!

Josh, an atheist, sent out a 'prayer' to any supernatural being that might be listening. "If you really exist," said Josh, "Give me an experience." Both God and the devil were listening.   Share Your Story If you have a Touched by Heaven moment that you would like to share with Trapper, please leave us a note at https://touchedbyheaven.net/contact Our listeners look forward to hearing about life-changing encounters and miraculous stories every week. Stay Informed Trapper sends out a weekly email. If you're not receiving it, and would like to stay in touch to get the bonus stories and other interesting content that will further fortify your faith. Stay informed with our weekly newsletter by sharing your email with us at https://blindguymedia.com/stay-informed/ Become a Patron We pray that our listeners and followers benefit from our podcasts and programs and develop a deeper personal relationship with God. We thank you for supporting our efforts and helping to cover the costs by being a Patron and getting lots of fun extras. Please go to https://patreon.com/bfl to check out the details. More About Trapper Jack Trapper has CD's and Downloads of his talks available for you to listen to and share. Download or order your CD now at our online store https://trapperjackspeaksstore.com Check out and subscribe to his new Men's Morning Light live-stream every Wednesday morning, or view the recording at your convenience on either YouTube or Facebook. Men's Morning Light is now available in your favorite Podcast app as well. To book Trapper for speaking engagements and more information, visit us at https://TrapperJackSpeaks.com  We're praying for you and ask that you pray for us!

As we celebrated Palm Sunday, we looked at the nature of Jesus. Both God and man, coming from on high, becoming a servant and then descending to death on the cross. Paul challenged us with how we can follow Jesus' example and live lives of sacrificial service. Our reading was from Philippians 2:5-11. Find more information about our service and other activities on: https://www.allnationschurch.com/

All Murder, Directly or Indirectly, Is Immoral John 7:24; Proverbs 16:2; Matthew 5:21-26 2 Mistakes in Interpreting God's Law Against Murder 1. That this law was only external Matthew 5:21; Exodus 20:13; Genesis 9:6; Romans 7:7,14 2. That this law was only municipal Matthew 5:21 2 Warnings Christ Gives About Murder 1. Rash Anger is Heart Murder 5:22 a. When it is unfounded 5:22; Acts 17:26; Psalm 7:10-11 b. When it is uncharitable Romans 12:19 c. When it is unhinged Matthew 15:19 2. Rash Anger is Tongue-Murder 5:22 a. “Raca” is a scornful word, and comes from pride Proverbs 21:24 b. “Fool” is a spiteful word, and comes from hatred 5:22 Matthew 23:17, 25:8 2 Reasons For Keeping Your Heart Right with Both God and Man 1. For the quality of your spiritual life 5:23-24 a. Because part of worship is serious self-examination 23-24 Mark 11:25 b. Because nothing pleases God which comes from a heart of malice 5:24 1 Timothy 2:8 c. Because Obedience is better than sacrifice 5:24 1 Samuel 15:22 2. For the safety of your temporal life a. Because we expose our family and future to harm 25:26 Proverbs 6:11-12,3 b. Because after death, it'll be too late 5:26 Revelation 6:16-17

Both God's justice & mercy prove his love, madness of Love which is the blessed Eucharist, live by love to conquer, let your heart overflow, fear of God is holy, weep my son with love-sorrow, do not remain indifferent to God's death, crazy love for God, don't forget Sorrow touchstone of Love. --- from The Way (1934), by Josemaría Escrivá

There seems to be quite some confusion with some Christians about the role of God's grace over our lives, and doing the works of God. Both God's grace and the works of God are both very important in the Kingdom of God. They both shape the road of salvation that God has granted to us. They both go hand in hand, and in this episode we will see why.

Episode 127 – But What About … the Angel of the Lord Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script: [Moses] led the flock far into the wilderness and came to Sinai, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. … When the LORD saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” Exodus, chapter 3, verses 1 through 4, New Living Translation ******** VK: Hello. I’m Victoria K and today on Anchored by Truth we are continuing our latest study series brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’ve labeled this series “But what about” because a lot of time you hear questions like “but what about angels and demons” or “what about heaven and hell?” A lot of questions that people have about the Christian faith occur because Christianity has a supernatural dimension as well as a natural one. This can be confusing to people who have not studied Christianity carefully. Some people believe in what they can see and hear but they discount the supernatural entirely. Others embrace the supernatural so completely they lose sight of the proper relationship between the natural and supernatural. We wanted to do episodes on several of these subjects to see what the Bible actually has to say about them. I’m in the studio today with RD Fierro, author and Founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, last time we took a look at what the Bible has to say about demons and Satan. But today you want to take a look at a term that can often be confusing to people – the Angel of the Lord. Right? RD: Right. But before we get started I want to say a word of greetings to all the Anchored by Truth listeners. Thank you for joining us here today. For people who are serious students of the Bible the Angel of the Lord is one of the most interesting, and perhaps enigmatic, figures that we encounter in the Bible. There aren’t a lot of references in the Bible to the Angel of the Lord but I think we can learn a lot by looking at them. What we see when we do so really opens the door to an increased understanding of the overall picture of redemption. VK: How so? RD: Well, many, although not all, commentators see the various references in the Bible to the Angel of the Lord as referring to a pre-incarnate appearance of the 2nd person of the Trinity – in other words Jesus. For instance, the New Geneva Study Bible says this: “In certain instances at least, [the Angel of the Lord] is in some sense God acting as His own messenger, and is commonly seen as a preincarnate appearance of God the son.” If this view is true, and I believe that it is, then God the son, early in the Bible, at times takes on the role of an angel. Naturally, after the incarnation, Jesus’ birth, the son of God takes on a human nature. So, this is a fascinating picture. God the son at times appears an angel. After the incarnation He adopts a human nature so He is seen as a human being. But at all times God the son is fully divine. VK: Wow. That’s enough to start to give you a brain freeze. This means that studying the Angel of the Lord is sort of a mini-course in all kinds of major Biblical doctrines and themes. There’s a lot there to unpack so where do you want to started? RD: Well, let’s start with just a brief review of some basic Biblical doctrines. Christians believe that there is one God who exists eternally as three distinct Persons. In other words, God is one What but three Who. The 2nd Person of the Trinity is a single person but (mysteriously) had two natures. He is both fully human and fully divine. In the famous words of the Chalcedonian Creed (paraphrasing) Jesus is both fully human and fully divine with “mixture or confusion, separation oo division” and each nature retains its own attributes. This would be hard enough but now we have to throw angels into the mix. VK: Angels are the second type of intelligent, personal beings that God created. There are some similarities between men and angels. Angels each have their own personality and are able to exercise freedom of will. Angels experience intellectual emotion and curiosity and they are able to comprehend the difference between good and evil and interact with each other and with human beings. Angels differ from people though. Angels normally inhabit the spiritual realm, although apparently they can cross the boundary between the physical and spiritual when necessary. Angels were created fully formed. They do not age or die and there are no gender distinctions between angels, though there are distinctions of hierarchy and type. RD: Yes. So, the first thing to note about the Angel of the Lord is that the only appearances of the Angel of the Lord are in the Old Testament. There are no appearances of the Angel of the Lord in the New Testament. VK: Or – just to be thoroughly clear – the Angel of the Lord does not appear in scripture after the incarnation, after Jesus’ birth. Right? RD: Right. And most of the references to the Angel of the Lord appear fairly early in the Old Testament – somewhere in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) or the books of Joshua or Judges. There is only one reference to the Angel of Lord later in the Old Testament and that is Zechariah, chapter 1, verse 12. And in Zechariah’s case the Angel of the Lord makes an appearance in a vision. This is quite different from most of the earlier appearances of the Angel of the Lord where the Angel is actually reported as being in contact with a human being in an earthly setting. VK: So, let’s look at that distinction a little more. The first reported appearance of the Angel of the Lord in scripture is in Genesis, chapter 16, verses 7 through 9. “The angel of the LORD found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness, along the road to Shur. The angel said to her, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I’m running away from my mistress, Sarai,” she replied. The angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit to her authority.” Then he added, “I will give you more descendants than you can count.” That’s from the New Living Translation. RD: Yes. Hagar was the servant of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. Sarah hadn’t had any children at that point so she had encouraged Abraham to have a child with Hagar. According to the custom of the day that child would have been reckoned as Sarah’s child. But once Hagar got pregnant, Hagar began to show contempt for Sarah. Sarah retaliated with harsh treatment so Hagar ran away. None of this was consistent with God’s will so God interceded to begin to restore some justice. One well known Bible commentator Albert Barnes puts it this way: “The angel of the Lord either represents the Lord, or presents the Lord in angelic form. The Lord manifests himself to Hagar seemingly on account of her relationship to Abram, but in the more distant form of angelic visitation.” VK: So, in the first encounter we have with the Angel of the Lord in scripture the Angel of the Lord appears to a distraught servant to bring to remedy an entire series of bad choices. Sarah shouldn’t have encouraged Abraham to have relations with her servant girl. Hagar shouldn’t have begun to despise her mistress and Sarah shouldn’t have retaliated when she had created the problem to begin with. So, to begin restoration the Angel of the Lord appears to Hagar as she is fleeing. And note the Angel ended His intercession by promising something that only God can promise. The Angel says, “I will give you more descendants than you can count.” RD: Exactly. And the same kind of pattern is repeated in one of the next encounters we see in scripture – in this case in Genesis, chapter 22, verses 15 through 18. VK: Those verses say “Then the angel of the LORD called again to Abraham from heaven. “This is what the LORD says: Because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your son, your only son, I swear by my own name that I will certainly bless you. I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. … And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed me.” RD: This is the famous episode where Abraham had been told to sacrifice his only son by Sarah, Isaac, and he was about to do so. But the Lord stopped Abraham at the last second. Notice that the Angel of Lord is said to call to Abraham from heaven but Abraham and Isaac are very much on earth. And notice that again the Angel is conveying promises that only God can make. The Bible tells us that only God can provide children in families. VK: And we should also notice that God prevented Abraham from sacrificing his son Isaac, but later God would carry through with sacrificing His only son, Jesus. RD: Exactly right. So, again we see the Angel of the Lord acting on earth to further God’s plan – in this case to keep the promised line of descent for the Messiah alive. And we continue to see this same pattern repeated as there are other appearances of the Angel of the Lord. Certainly, one of the most famous appearances of the Angel of the Lord was Moses encounter with God at the burning bush. VK: We heard a portion of that encounter in our opening scripture but let’s just repeat that here as a refresher. [Moses] … came to Sinai, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. ... Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. … When the LORD saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” RD: Notice the scripture says it was the Angel of the Lord appearing to Moses in the blazing fire but then it says that it was God who called out to Moses. Later in this encounter Moses will ask God what God’s name is? VK: That’s Exodus, chapter 3, verses 13 through 15. Again, in the New Living Translation those verses say, “But Moses protested, “If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ … God replied to Moses, ‘I Am Who I Am. Say this to the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you … Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you. This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations.’ ” RD: So, just to reinforce the point we have been making. We are first told that the Angel of the Lord was the One appearing in the blazing fire, but then we immediately find out that it is God who is doing the talking. And this is one of the most important sections in all of scripture because in these verses God reveals His personal name to Moses. In ancient Hebrew the name would have been written Y-H-W-H because ancient Hebrews only used consonants and not vowels. Those characters are most frequently translated as Yahweh in Hebrew or Jehovah in Latin. VK: And this is a very important revelation because with it God identifies Himself by the attribute of His self-existence. The ATS Bible Dictionary puts it this way: “…it denotes the self-existence, independence, immutability, and infinite fullness of the divine Being ...” RD: Right. So, it is very significant that in this one portion of scripture we see the Angel of the Lord being identified immediately afterward as God Himself. So, the question becomes how we can understand this juxtaposition. One clear possibility is to recognize that in delivering this very important message to Moses, God chose to eliminate all intermediaries and do it directly from a Member of the Triune Godhead. The most likely Member who would have done that is the 2nd Person who would later come to earth physically as a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – Jesus. VK: Well, let’s be sure that everybody is aware of what we’re talking about. In the earliest parts of scripture – Genesis and Exodus – God found it necessary to occasionally intervene directly in the affairs of one of His servants to ensure that His plans either stayed on track or were put back on track. The Angel of the Lord appeared to Hagar because Hagar was significant in the life of Abraham. Obviously, keeping Isaac alive was significant to the plan of salvation. In Moses’ case God was going to use Moses to free His chosen people from bondage in Egypt. This was both necessary physically to return the Jews to their promised land but also as a forerunner of what would happen in Jesus’ life. So, the Angel of the Lord is essentially acting as an instrument of the Lord’s plans to ensure they stay on track. RD: Exactly. So, let’s skip forward a little. After Moses led the Hebrews through the desert he died. Then, Joshua actually led them into the land they would occupy. To strengthen Joshua for the tasks that lay ahead of him, a slightly mysterious figure appears to Joshua as the Hebrews are beginning to drive the pagan nations out. Scripture describes as “the commander of the LORD’s army.” Most commentators identify this figure as a “Christophany.” It was this figure who gave Joshua the specific instructions for how to defeat the city of Jericho. VK: A “theophany” [THE-OFF-O-KNEE] is a manifestation of God in the Bible that is tangible to the human senses. A Christophany is a manifestation of Christ to human senses other than when Jesus was physically on the earth. Many commentators will use the term “Christophany” to refer to a visible appearance of Christ in the Old Testament because obviously, at that time, Jesus was not yet born. RD: Yes. So, if this is a Christophany, then this is also a pre-incarnate appearance of the 2nd Person of the Trinity on the earth. This, by the way, is the only time in scripture that this specific title is used for Jesus. VK: But the term “Angel of the Lord” will be used a few more times in the book of Judges and a couple of times in the books of Kings and Chronicles. Just as a refresher the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, are called the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch is immediately followed by the book of Joshua and Joshua is immediately followed by Judges. So, as we mentioned earlier, most of these references occur very early in the scriptures. RD: Yes. So, all of these references to either the Angel of the Lord or the Commander of the Lord’s armies tell us something very important. VK: Which is? RD: Jesus was very active in the plan of salvation long before He adopted a human nature and was born as a baby in Bethlehem. This is important to understand for a couple of reasons. First, it reinforces the eternality of Jesus. Scripture makes reference to this but it can tend to slip our minds. VK: We see Christ’s eternality as part of the Triune Godhead in the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” That’s the New International Version. RD: Right. And there are other places in scripture such as Colossians 1:16 that make the same point. But while we may intellectually know that the 2nd Person of the Trinity is eternal, we may not always think that He has always been active in directing the progress of the plan of salvation. But, of course, He was. Certainly, Jesus’ most visible role in the Bible is in the Gospels which record His life on this earth and his life, ministry, death, and resurrection. But it would be an error to think that Jesus’ role in our salvation did not start until He was born. It began long before – even before, as the Bible puts it, “the foundation of the world.” VK: Well, this observation points out the need for us to read and become familiar with the entire Bible. There are no appearances of the Angel of the Lord or the Commander of the Lord’s armies in the New Testament. There are some Christians who think that you can gain all you need to know about the Christian faith from the New Testament. But this study on the Angel of the Lord points out the fallacy in that view. We cannot have a truly comprehensive view of the role Jesus played in our salvation if we don’t go all the way back to the beginning of the Bible. Again, these appearances of the Angel of the Lord are in the very first books of the Bible. RD: That’s a great observation. So, another point we need to keep in mind is that Christ acting as the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament, but not doing so in the New, helps us see the unity of scripture and the coherence of the Christian faith. Of course all the Members of the Trinity have always been active in creation and redemption. But each has their own role they play in the grand, cosmic drama. And, in their actions, they complement one another to achieve a single purpose, but they don’t step on each other. They act in perfect harmony. Each Person performs their own duties, if you will, but they are perfect in complementing each other and in keeping the plan moving toward the goal of saving the elect. VK: I see what you’re saying. Christ, the 2nd Person of the Trinity, was chosen to be the Person who would assume a human nature. Then, because He retained His divine nature, Christ was perfectly suited to be a mediator between God and man as the books of 1 (first) Timothy and Hebrews put it. But even before that time arrived in the history of salvation Christ was appearing at certain times and places to keep the plan on track. RD: Right. The Angel of the Lord appeared to some of the most important people in the Bible such as Abraham, Moses, and David. But He also appeared to ordinary people - a servant girl and to Samson’s parents to tell them of Samson’s upcoming birth. In the book of Numbers the Angel of the Lord appears to a wicked prophet named Balaam when Balaam is about to make a very bad mistake and He appeared to King David after David had committed one of his more egregious sins. In those appearances the Angel of the Lord has a drawn sword in his hand – a suitable accompaniment for preventing or correcting sin. All of this reminds us that God and Christ are concerned with the affairs of both the high and the low. And they are as able to influence the history of the biggest plan in all of history – the redemption of God’s elect – all the while acting in seemingly the most simple of ways such as helping a distressed servant girl. VK: So, part of what you’re saying is that scripture is very consistent as it reports the actions of God and even of the individual members of the Trinity. After God the Son assumed His human nature in Jesus He never again appeared as the Angel of the Lord. This doesn’t mean He couldn’t. Only that He didn’t. The most prominent appearance of a Christophany after Jesus ascended was to the Apostle Paul on the Road to Damascus. And when Paul asked, who was the one appearing to him in the blinding heavenly light, Jesus plainly stated “I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting!” That’s Acts, chapter 9, verse 5. The fact that the appearances of the Angel of the Lord are all in the Old Testament seems to be significant. God is a God of order. Before Jesus adopted His human nature the Angel of the Lord was an appropriate way for Jesus to reveal himself at selected times and places. After Jesus assumed His human nature He will now possess that nature for all time. And it is Jesus with His human nature who is said to be seated in the place of honor – at the right hand of God in heaven. RD: Right. The Angel of the Lord is slightly enigmatic, but a very significant figure in the Bible. The appearances of the Angel of the Lord as pre-incarnate appearances of God the Son make perfect sense in the overall plan of redemption and salvation. Christ used the role as the Angel of the Lord to help direct the plan of salvation before He took on His human nature. And as the Angel of the Lord Christ used whatever appearance made sense for the situation. When He wanted to get the attention of a sinner, even David, He appeared with a sword. But in the appearance to Hagar or to Samson’s parents there was no need for a sword. On those occasions He was there to provide counseling or encouragement. And when Joshua was embarking on a military quest to conquer Canaan Christ appears as the Commander of the Lord’s Armies. The appearance is always suitable for the person and the occasion – just what you expect from a God who both superintends the ends but never loses sight of the means and always expresses love for His children. VK: Well, next time we’ll turn our attention to another subject that can cause some confusion in the minds of believers as well as unbelievers – the Holy Spirit and the role this 3rd Person of the Trinity plays in the plan of salvation and the life of Christians. This sounds like a good time for a prayer. Since there is a desperate need in our nation for the wisdom of God to light a path to truth and freedom, today let’s pray a prayer for the restoration of the worship of the One True God. ---- PRAYER FOR RESTORATION OF THE WORSHIP OF THE ONE TRUE GOD (MARCUS). We hope you’ll be with us next time and we hope you’ll take some time to encourage some friends to tune in too, or listen to the podcast version of this show. If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!” (Bible Quote from the New Living Translation) Revelation, chapter 14, verses 17 and 18, New International Version Topical Bible: Angel (biblehub.com) Topical Bible: Satan (biblehub.com) Topical Bible: Lucifer (biblehub.com) Joshua 5:14 Commentaries: He said, "No; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the LORD." And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, "What has my lord to say to his servant?" (biblehub.com) How Jesus is Both God and Man: The Chalcedonian Creed & The Two Natures of Christ — SOLA What is a theophany? What is a Christophany? | GotQuestions.org Expositions Of Holy Scripture, Alexander MacLaren You will observe that there run throughout the whole of the Old Testament notices of the occasional manifestation of a mysterious person who is named ‘the Angel,’ ‘the Angel of the Lord.’ For instance, in the great scene in the wilderness, where the bush burned and was not consumed, he who appeared is named ‘the Angel of the Lord’; and his lips declare ‘I am that I am.’ In like manner, soon after, the divine voice speaks to Moses of ‘the Angel in whom is My name.’ When Balaam had his path blocked amongst the vineyards, it was a replica of the figure of my text that stayed his way, a man with a drawn sword in his hand, who spoke in autocratic and divine fashion. When the parents of Samson were apprised of the coming birth of the hero, it was ‘the Angel of the Lord’ that appeared to them, accepted their sacrifice, declared the divine will, and disappeared in a flame of fire from the altar. A psalm speaks of ‘the Angel of the Lord’ as encamping round about them that fear him, and delivering them. Isaiah tells us of the ‘Angel of his face,’ who was ‘afflicted in all Israel’s afflictions, and saved them.’ And the last prophetic utterance of the Old Testament is most distinct and remarkable in its strange identification and separation of Jehovah and the Angel, when it says, ‘the Lord shall suddenly come to His Temple, even the Angel of the Covenant.’ Now, if we put all these passages-and they are but select instances-if we put all these passages together, I think we cannot help seeing that there runs, as I said, throughout the whole of the Old Testament a singular strain of revelation in regard to a Person who, in a remarkable manner, is distinguished from the created hosts of angel beings, and also is distinguished from, and yet in name, attributes, and worship all but identified with, the Lord Himself.

This is Episode #229 and today we'll read Jeremiah 18-22 together.   Both God and Jeremiah share a roller coaster ride of emotion over the evil in Jerusalem.  Show Notes·        Awesome Video of Solomon's Temple·        These will help!  Overview videos of all books of the BibleVisit·        Visit my website·        Visit my church·        Visit The German Shepherd·        Find me on Facebook,  Instagram and Twitter. Bible Study Resources·        CSB Study Bible – Hardcover or Kindle!·        The Bible Project's Bible Basics – Free!·        Every Bible You Could Ever Want!·        The Bible Hub – Free!·        Bible Study Tools – Free!·        The Bible Project- Free!Other Resources·        Want to use your tablet for Bible reading? Consider Kindle .·        I love Audible! Try it for free!·        Want it? FaithGear has it!·        Wear your faith! Christian Strong·        Bet Hannon Business Websites designed and maintains my website.·        Title of song used in the podcast is 3 Joys & the Truth, by Daniel O'Connor Disclosure:  This post may contain affiliate links. That means if you purchase anything, I may get a small commission.  This does not cost you anything and it helps offset the costs of the podcast.  Thank you in advance.View my Broadcast License.

Title: Diligent, Approved, Unashamed, Accurate, Truth-Teachers Text: II Timothy 2:14-19 FCF: We often struggle getting distracted by less important or ungodly discussions. Prop: Because God keeps His dear children from succumbing to spiritual disaster, we must know, understand, and teach the message of truth accurately. Scripture Intro: [Slide 1] Turn in your bible to II Timothy chapter 2. Paul has already set the stage for the coming discussion of the false teachers plaguing Ephesus. He has already drawn attention to the gospel of Christ. He has brought up the resurrection and Kingship of Jesus. He has discussed apostasy and rejection of truth. And he has brought suffering for the gospel, the true gospel, to the forefront of all this discussion. All of this is in an effort to prepare Timothy to take Paul's mantle, as he is sure to be executed soon for proclaiming the gospel of Christ. And so Paul and his readers are ready for a comparison of the centrality of the message of truth with the fringe teachings of nonessential things and the ungodly teachings of these false teachers. Above all, our well-known, AWANA verse shines brightly in the text as the main point of application for every single believer. And there are truths from both sides supporting its command. I am in chapter 2 of II Timothy starting our reading in verse 14. I'll be reading from the NET which you can follow in the pew bible on page 1343. We will read through verse 26 since this is one large thought Paul has for us. Transition: This is a lengthier sermon, so we need to move briskly so you don't power down on me. So let's dive in! I.) Nonessential and ungodly discussions lead to spiritual disaster for all, so we must know, understand and teach the message of truth accurately. (14-17a) a. [Slide 2] 14 – Remind people of these things i. Here we see Paul swooping in and out of commands to Timothy and to the people. ii. He has just said for Timothy to remember the gospel of Christ, to keep it at the forefront of his mind and cling to it. iii. Now he exhorts Timothy to teach that same principle to others. iv. In a sense, Paul takes the concept of depositing what He has taught to other faithful believers who can teach it also, and he applies it directly to Timothy. v. Not only must he remember the gospel of Christ, he must remind the people of the gospel of Christ. vi. To remind here has the idea of quietly reminding or suggesting. As far as commands go, this is a fairly benign thing to command. The strength of the command comes to Timothy, in that he is to remind the people. But the actual reminding Paul is recommending is a positive, instructive rather than corrective kind of reminding. vii. Paul sets this against a follow up command… b. [Slide 3] And solemnly charge them before the Lord not to wrangle over words i. The second command is for Timothy to solemnly charge or to seriously exhort. To command. To spur. ii. This is the opposite of the softness of remind but is actually quite aggressive. Perhaps it inherits corrective force here. iii. Especially when we consider that this charge to them is in the very presence of the Lord. God Himself is in the audience of this command being given. As if they are in a court room and they are being commanded to do something before a judge. iv. But what is the command? v. To not engage in word-war as the Greek compound word would suggest. vi. This is one of only two places in the New Testament that this word or its word family is used. The other is in I Timothy chapter 6. vii. While it is not a large pool to draw from, we can be fairly confident that Paul is not forbidding fighting with words but rather about them or concerning them. viii. In other words, Paul is euphemistically saying – Command them not to get in arguments over semantics and petty little things. ix. So, call to their mind instructively the words of the gospel of Christ. That He was the God-Man, having been raised from among the dead ones, and a descendant of David, the eternal King and sin and death conqueror. Instruct them and remind them about these things. But other things that matter much less – x. Do not get embroiled in endless debates about such matters. Why? c. [Slide 4] This is of no benefit; it just brings ruin on those who listen i. Paul has analyzed the risk to reward ratio and there is never a time when fiery debate over things that are not the gospel ends in a greater reward than was risked. ii. Instead, it brings people to ruin who listen. iii. Wait. Did you catch that? iv. We might expect that it would bring people to ruin who are doing the battling. But no… it is bringing to ruin the people who listen. v. What does that mean? How does this change what Paul is saying? vi. There is a time and a place to discuss and even winsomely debate the finer points of theology. But to do so publicly seems out of bounds. vii. Assuming the debate is done in humility and love toward one another and not in the presence of many people so as to lead the hearers astray… we certainly can and should do this. Why? viii. It is the glory of the King to search out a matter. It is the glory of God to conceal it. ix. It seems that it is an inborn trait of ours to wrestle with every single word in scripture to draw out as much meaning as we can. The fire burns in us to know God to the fullest. We are not finished with scripture when we only have the foundational principles of Christ crucified for sinners. We wish to build upon that foundation and understand the mind of God. x. I am convinced that there is no sin in this. xi. Where does sin enter? xii. When we discuss/debate these things arrogantly and without love for our disagreeing brother. When we elevate non-essential things to essential things. And when we do this before others and not privately. This is where we can do great damage. And all for what? xiii. No profit. The only predictable outcome is the ruin for those who hear you. xiv. So, Paul turns his attention back to Timothy. How is Timothy supposed to remind them? How can he be sure to remind them what is important and what is sound? d. [Slide 5] 15 – Make every effort to present yourself before God as a proven worker i. And here comes our AWANA verse right? In fact that is what Awana means. Approved workmen are not ashamed. So here is the challenge. Let's see if we can understand this verse in its context. Why? ii. Because in Awana we've used this verse to talk about memorizing our verses and understanding God's message. iii. I am happy to say that the message in context is somewhat the same. iv. First, make every effort means to be diligent, to be devoted, to work hard. It is the image of the farmer from verse 6. v. Be diligent to the extent that when you present yourself before the Lord, the judge, for evaluation, what will he find? What will be your assessment? vi. First that you are approved. You are an acceptable worker. You have done your due diligence. You have not been lazy. vii. Second… e. [Slide 6] Who does not need to be ashamed, i. The word here means irreprehensible or blameless. ii. Be so diligent that when you present yourself to God, he finds you both positively as a worker who has been diligent and accomplished his tasks, and negatively is without any fault or blame. iii. This is not saying perfection, but it is speaking to no patterns of fault. iv. But what is the work that Timothy is to be diligent in? What is the labor that he diligently devotes himself to so as to bring no cause for blame upon himself? f. [Slide 7] Teaching the message of truth accurately. i. There are three levels of any subject of learning. Whether that be reading, writing, and arithmetic, or simply learning a job or trade… each subject of learning must be approached at three basic levels. ii. First is knowledge. Remind yourself of the gospel of Christ Timothy. Recall the sound words of the gospel. Know them backward and forward. This is essentially, memorization and familiarity. iii. Second is understanding. Compare those words to other teachings that you hear. Isolate those teachings which are not as essential and debate those humbly and lovingly but not to the extent of the sound teachings. Those cling to and defend, the others hold loosely. This is essentially comprehension, comparison, drawing connections between truths known, and even prioritizing them in importance. iv. Third and finally is wisdom or mastery. And it is what Paul says here. To know the truth so fully and completely, and to know the counterfeit so fully and completely, that you are able to express the sound truth eloquently and without error. The student never stops learning, but a student that never learns something to the point of teaching it, has never truly learned it. v. Such is Paul's intent for Timothy. Exercise diligence and mastery over the truths of the gospel to the extent that you can teach it without error. vi. In this, we see the mantra of AWANA come forth but to an even greater degree. This is how all of us must seek to approach the gospel. In knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. So that we can not only know it but teach it. g. [Slide 8] 16 – But avoid profane chatter, i. What exactly is Paul cautioning here? ii. Is it more idle chat? Is it more public debate over the unnecessary things? iii. Based on Paul's word choices here, I don't think he is repeating himself. iv. Rather, I think he is building on the concept of wrangling over words. v. The word profane means wicked, heathenish, or unholy. vi. But what does profane chatter mean? Is he talking about anti-God speech? If so, why would Timothy even be tempted to participate? Why wouldn't he avoid it like the plague? vii. It seems, based on other uses in scripture, that what this word came to mean was more along the lines of ungodly or wicked behavior. Behavior associated with the heathens. And so, the chatter or empty discussion of these wicked things comes down to people discussing the lawfulness of sin. viii. To the extent that they begin to undo God's clear commands and subvert them to give them less force. ix. This is not overt speaking about disobeying God… x. Rather this is the more subtle questioning. Like the serpent in the garden… “Has God said?” xi. Let's debate over whether or not homosexuality is really a sin? Surely the bible doesn't mean women cannot preach? I think drunkenness is fine for a Christian; change my mind! Being physically intimate before marriage is not what God has forbidden in fornication? xii. This is the kind of profane chatter that Timothy is to avoid. Why is it profane discussion? Because it takes the command of God and moves it into something that we can debate. xiii. Why should Timothy avoid this? h. [Slide 9] Because those occupied with it will stray further and further into ungodliness, i. Is that not the truth? ii. Now… let me clarify. It is not inherently wrong to question the teachings of God about these matters. However, there is a difference between asking, “What has God said?” and asking “Has God said?” iii. One seeks answers and the other questions God's law because they do not wish to accept its truth. iv. The person doing the questioning will stray further and further into ungodliness. It begins with questioning the validity of God's word and will end with outright lawbreaking. v. When a supposed brother says, let's discuss whether or not homosexuality is a sin… where do you go with that person? Pretty much you say … Well God calls it an abomination in Leviticus. So… the end. If they pursue you to try to disprove all that… at that point I think you have to warn them that their desire to vindicate a sin that has always been called a sin since the beginning of the church, is a dangerous path to tread. Why? i. [Slide 10] 17a – and their message will spread its infection like gangrene. i. Not only will they succumb to the practice of lawlessness but ii. They will also convince others to do the same. iii. Why? iv. Mankind loves their sin. And they desire above all else, to keep it. v. And even people who have been raised in the church and made a profession of faith in Christ… even they can succumb to such infecting and ruinous teachings. And before you know it… they prove themselves to be gangrenous black… needing to be cut off. j. [Slide 11] Passage Truth: Paul to Timothy informs him that wrangling over non-essential things and having endless discussions questioning God's revealed law and will, is of no profit and will ultimately undo the hearers and lead those who endlessly discuss them into greater and greater ungodliness. k. Passage Application: Opposed to this, Timothy must be diligent to know, understand and teach the gospel in purity and power, while putting down or dismissing various discussions that distract from or contradict the gospel message. l. [Slide 12] Broader Biblical Truth: Zooming out from this passage we find how many thousands of pages were written at the time of Christ about the Old Testament? The Talmud, the rabbinical writings, the discussions over the proper ways to wash your hands. Some of them even attempting to excuse certain sins that they could not seem to keep, like adultery and divorce. And through the history of the church how much time has been spent debating how many angels can fit on the head of a needle, or which eschatological position is best. Not to mention the discussions of modern Christianity questioning core tenants of established gospel truths and established words of God. Have we not seen Paul's words fulfilled in all this? Have we not seen these people profit the church very little? Leading many astray? And even going deeper and deeper into ungodliness? How many Fundamental Baptist preachers have committed adultery with their secretaries? How many scholars have thought their way out of Christianity? m. Broader Biblical Application: My friends, we must heed the words of Paul to Timothy. Put down non-essential public debates. Stop quibbling and fighting over things that are not gospel related teachings. We must stop quibbling over spiritual gifts, eschatological signs and timelines, dress standards, wine and beer standards, movie standards and so much else that simply doesn't matter. But we must also avoid empty discussions retreading and questioning established truth and revealed will and laws of God. Endlessly going back and pulling apart what the church has always believed is a profane and endless discussion that will ultimately only lead to ungodliness. Rather, we should study the gospel. We should know it, understand it, and we should teach it accurately. Transition: [Slide 13 (blank)] Rightly understanding the danger of becoming enthralled with nonessential debates and truth questioning discussions is only half the motivation we need to commit to knowing, understanding, and teaching the message of truth accurately. The other half of this, is that God knows and keeps His own in His truth. II.) God knows and keeps His own in His truth, so we must know, understand, and teach the message of truth accurately. (17b-19) a. [Slide 14] 17b - Hymenaeus and Philetus are in this group. i. The group are those who have questioned the clear holy commands of God and have come away as ungodly practitioners of sin. Still worse, they do so in defense of their behavior as lawful and without sin. ii. But who are these men? iii. Hymenaeus, assuming he is the same one mentioned in I Timothy – which is almost certain – is the same man who was said to have shipwrecked his faith. iv. It is the same man whom Paul had handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme. v. It is obvious that in the intervening years since Paul handed out that sentence… Hymenaeus has yet to learn. vi. Philetus is a name we are completely unfamiliar with. His name means beloved or friend. Some bitter irony there. vii. So, what is the theological backdrop behind these men concluding that they could live sinful lives without issue? b. [Slide 15] 18 – They have strayed from the truth by saying that the resurrection has already occurred, i. We've referenced this several times and all the pieces have consistently come together to fit the conclusion we have come to. ii. These men believed that the resurrection either 1. Had occurred already with Jesus at his crucifixion and the dead rising. 2. Was a spiritual resurrection only occurring in the resurrection of Christ. 3. Or is some sort of Israelite resurrection of the nation. iii. So, what does that mean? Well, if the resurrection has happened already, it means that the eternal Kingdom of Christ has already begun. Meaning that Christ reigns over all things. iv. The logic train from that goes completely bonkers when they conclude that the old dispensation of God's law imposed upon His people has been done away with. v. They are now free to pursue any passion they wish. vi. From ladies becoming something like pagan priestesses, teaching and sleeping around, to people rejecting marriage and abstaining from certain foods. vii. But the worst part, is not that they have done this to themselves… but also c. [Slide 16] And they are undermining some people's faith. i. Some people are actually succumbing altogether and questioning or even rejecting Christ. ii. Why? iii. Because if our gospel leads us to absolute freedom to do whatever we want… can't I do that without Christ? Furthermore, if we are already in the New Kingdom… aren't our sides already kinda chosen? Why continue to choose Christ? iv. And it is clear that Paul understands that his words here could impose fear on both Timothy and any who would read this. v. Indeed, to finish here (as I almost did when carving out which text to teach on) would be to leave us in a state of worry and fret. vi. How can anyone be saved? How can anyone keep believing if such a tangential teaching can be abused to the point that people walk away from more essential matters? vii. Paul needs to explain a somewhat paradoxical doctrine to us. And he will do it in one verse. d. [Slide 17] 19 – However, God's solid foundation remains standing, i. God's solid foundation is a building term. Probably referring to a house. This is the first metaphor of two that Paul will have in the next three verses. Both have to do with large or wealthy houses. ii. Paul quotes or references a number of Old Testament passages in this single verse. iii. [Slide 18] While it is difficult to isolate exactly what Paul is talking about in reference to the foundation, it seems as though he could be referencing Isaiah 28:16. iv. This text indicates that the foundation is actually Jesus Christ, or even the gospel of Christ. v. But what does this foundation have on it? e. [Slide 19] Bearing this seal, “The Lord knows those who are his,” i. The foundation bears a seal. A seal is a mark of ownership. It is like a signature. This foundation, this great house is owned by God. ii. But what does the seal say? iii. This is a quote from a passage in Numbers 16. iv. [Slide 20]The context of Numbers 16 is when Korah gathers a group of followers that think that they would make better leaders than Moses and Aaron. They specifically mention how they are all a part of this holy community and how there is no reason that some should be given exalted positions in God's community. They should all be given authority to lead. v. [Slide 21] After praying to God Moses states that in the morning the Lord will make known who are his. So, by implication that is knowledge that God has. vi. [Slide 23]Jesus says something similar in John 10:27-28 vii. God knows who are truly His. viii. So, what does this mean? ix. Although from our perspective it is possible for all of us to deny Christ. From our perspective each of us are fragile and could walk away from the faith at any time. x. Even from the Israelites perspective that day as many died in Korah's rebellion, when they cried “What if the earth swallows us too?” God knows who are his. xi. What does this imply? xii. [Slide 24] That God will never lose any that are truly His. There is never uncertainty with God. He didn't accidentally kill anyone who was innocent of the rebellion. He didn't swallow 1 too many in that day. And He isn't waiting with bated breath to see who will endure. He won't accidentally allow one of His people to wander astray never to be found again. xiii. He has already chosen the bride for His son. They are His and those who are His no one can snatch them from His hand… yes… even those in His hand cannot undo it. xiv. But what is the other side of this paradox? f. [Slide 25] And “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from evil.” i. This is probably an amalgam of several Old Testament texts. Both in reference to confessing or naming the name of God and in departing from evil. ii. [Slide 26] But held in the context of Numbers 16 – God commanded all the Israelites to separate themselves from the tents of Korah and his nearest accomplices. iii. What does this mean? iv. Even though God knows all who are His and as Moses said, would make plain who are His by who is judged and who isn't – the requirement was still that the people of Israel step away from the tents of Korah. They did this, and then Korah was swallowed into the earth. v. This is the human responsibility side. vi. [Slide 27] How do we look in the mirror and know… we are His? How do we look at our neighbor and know… he or she is one of His sheep? vii. Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord MUST turn away from evil. viii. Paul puts this in the imperative. It is a command. ix. So, what is Paul saying? x. Well to turn away is not the same word for repent. We may be tempted to think this means repentance. It doesn't. Instead, Paul uses a word with a variety of different nuances. 1. To go away 2. To depart 3. To desert 4. To withdraw 5. To revolt 6. To shun 7. To flee 8. To cease 9. To vex 10. To fall away 11. To keep oneself from xi. So, what is the common theme in all these? Opposition. To turn away from evil, is to hate it and fight it. To be appalled by it. xii. So, let's put the whole thought together… xiii. We know we are the Lord's when we are successful in obeying His command to fight off and hate, be appalled by or depart from our own wickedness. xiv. If we are unable to succeed in doing that… then the validity of our confession of the name of the Lord is immediately called into question. g. [Slide 28] Passage Truth: Paul shows another truth in this passage that is profoundly impacting. Christ is God's foundation. God has sealed His foundation with His holy seal which states that He knows who are His. His judgement will not fall on those who are actually His and who stand on the foundation of Christ. h. Passage Application: But as the human side of that, Timothy must continue to teach and cling to the sound words of Christ while putting down, avoiding, and departing from ungodly teachings and those who teach them. i. [Slide 29] Broader Biblical Truth: Zooming out from this, we know from scripture that God is the sovereign one. Meaning that it is absolutely outside the realm of possibility for God to lose one of His elect ones. We may wrestle here with election or the human side of apostasy – but we cannot argue the plain truth here in scripture. God will not lose any whom He has chosen. And that is a great comfort to us. Especially when we see so many reject their faith and walk away. When they die in that rejection we can say – well I guess they weren't actually His. Because we dare not say, well I guess God lost one. j. Broader Biblical Application: But we also cannot forsake the human side of this as well. God provided the Israelites with truth. He is about to reign down judgment on Korah… so step aside! And certainly, logically, one could conclude that if they had not stepped aside God would have swept them away too. But, although this makes logical sense, it is checked against the teaching that God will not lose any of His own. What does that mean? Although we are comforted by the truth of God knowing His own and keeping His own, it does not absolve us of our responsibility to cling to Christ and reject false teachers and their teachings. A promise of God's work does not give license for passivity. Both God's will and human responsibility work in concert with one another. How? Well, that is maybe a finer point that we can debate another time, in private with humility and love toward one another.

Kofi's definition of discipleship: Discipleship is the intentional and life pursuit of likeness to Jesus through diligent use of the means of grace and spiritual disciplines with the result of knowledge of, love for and service to Christ Resources Mentioned: The Fountain of Life by John Flavel: https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/the-fountain-of-life-2-volumes-flavel.html?_ga=2.177755426.603297000.1625087410-315205360.1623657637 Jesus is Both God and Man by Stuart Olyott: https://amzn.to/3hn2rub Knowing Christ by Mark Jones: https://amzn.to/3h6prPe The Silent Shepherd by John MacArthur: https://amzn.to/3jw25UI Bonus Resource - my recent sermon series "Spirit and Truth" on the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit: https://redeemermedford.org/sermon-library/spirit-and-truth-a-biblical-no-nonsense-look-at-the-person-and-work-of-the-holy-spirit/

I think Tessa saw an old Taco Bell commercial as her latest shit for hair brained schemes involves tacos, a Chihuahua and apparently diarrhea....probably from the Del Taco she ate. That dumb bitch will never learn. Sure it tastes terrible on the way down but it will burn like the gonorrhea she definitely acquired from Krusti or The Jizz Stain or Jimbo on the way out...Seeing as how Jimbo likes to fuck dudes so you never know who the STD Epicenter is with this shit bag rag tag group of degenerates. So I am going to commission a series of artistic works featuring such degenerates and my first idea is a picture of Tessa or Satan's Shit Stain and she is on her way to work one Monday morning. Its been a terrible weekend as she committed suicide twice therefore essentially having to work all weekend at the DMV. For those that dont know. Both God and Satan want nothing to do with this fat pig of a bitch and she has permanently banned from both afterlife destinations so she has to spend eternity working at the. DMV... whichever location has the most as well as difficult customers. So whenever she does die, I hope it's pretty soon then she will begin her eternity condemned to work at the DMV for ever. Each time she commits suicide because she hates her life she gets fatter and grosser and more disgusting so one day she turns into Jaba da Cunt. So anyway, the painting features Tessa looking like Bouser in Mario Cart. She is just fat and has a spiky turtle shell quasi moto hunchback hump sitting in her Tan 1992 Saturn that has zero real windows but instead four hefty bags duct taped in place. Those also serves as articles of clothing for tessa since she is so fat and just resembles trash so its only fitting she wear trash bags. So she is late for work at the DMV and traffic is terrible. Her boss will be super pissed off. She is almost out of gas and has no money because she doesn't get paid for her work T the DMV. Anyway in the painting she has a box of Twinkies in one hand and a gun in the other which she holds to her head. The caption will read " Well, if I just shoot myself in the head i will get to work way sooner and I don't have to sit in this POS car where people folllow me around and just laugh at me...but what about my Twinkies and how will I get my car later after work? Oh well Fuck it....Boom" I fucking hate you Tessa. You a disgrace. I love burning you to the ground you stupid cunt....i really will enjoy seeing the life drain from your eyes when I fucking kill you.

     Moses opens this pericope by calling for Israel's attention, saying, “Hear, O Israel! You are crossing over the Jordan today to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, great cities fortified to heaven” (Deut 9:1). The phrase, “Hear, O Israel”, was a call to attention with the idea of obeying what followed. This is normal, because faith comes by hearing God's Word (Rom 10:17). The second generation of Israelites were about to cross over the Jordan and into Canaan. The word “today” does not refer to that exact day, for the nation would not cross the Jordan for another forty days. Rather, it refers to the day when God was going to work among His people. And the work God was going to perform referred to the dispossession of the wicked Canaanites from the land. Moses described the Canaanites as “greater and mightier” than Israel. And as people who lived in cities “fortified to heaven”, which was hyperbolic language (Num 13:28). And the people who lived there were “a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?'” (Deut 9:2). This was intentional language that reflected the Israelites' human perspective of the situation.      But rather than focus on what they perceived as an impossible situation, Moses called them to focus on God, saying, “Know therefore today that it is the LORD your God who is crossing over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and He will subdue them before you, so that you may drive them out and destroy them quickly, just as the LORD has spoken to you” (Deut 9:3; cf. Pro 21:31). What Moses communicated was to flow in their stream of consciousness as they advanced into Canaan. And what Moses emphasized was God's role in leading them to subdue their enemies. But Israel had a part to play, as they were to “drive them out and destroy them quickly.” Both God and Israel worked together. God would lead them as a General into battle, ensuring their victory, but they had to follow Him and obey His commands. However, after they'd defeated their enemies, there was a danger that Israel might become prideful. Moses warned them about future pride, saying, “Do not say in your heart when the LORD your God has driven them out before you, ‘Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,' but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is dispossessing them before you” (Deut 9:4). For a second time, Moses states, “It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD your God is driving them out before you” (Deut 9:5a). God would lead His people to victory, but it would not be because of their righteousness, but because He was using them to judge the wicked Canaanites. But God was also doing it “in order to confirm the oath which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (Deut 9:5b). God had made a promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to give the land of Canaan to their descendants (Gen 17:7-8; 26:24; 28:13-14), and now was the time to fulfill His word. For a third time, Moses reminded them that coming victory was not because any goodness found in them, saying, “Know, then, it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stubborn people” (Deut 9:6). The Hebrew word stubborn (קָשֶׁה qasheh – obstinate, stubborn, stiff-necked) refers to an unsubmissive animal that refuses to bend its neck downward in order to pull the cart or plow. Several times Israel is described this way (Ex 32:9; 33:3, 5; 34:9; Deut 9:13). Eugene Merrill states: "With his verdict of “stiff-necked” Moses pricks Israel's balloon of inflated self-esteem and sets the stage for his portrayal of the Israelite's fundamentally flawed character. They have nothing to commend themselves to God: no physical greatness (7:7), or power (8:17), or moral character. Their election, occupation of the land, and prosperity within it are all gifts of divine grace, granted to them in spite of their lack of merit."[1] Warren Wiersbe adds: "Once again, Moses reminded the nation that the land was a gift from the Lord, not a reward for their righteousness. God had graciously covenanted with Abraham to give him and his descendants the land of Canaan (Gen. 12:1–3; 13:14–17; 15:7–21), and He would keep His promise. The people in the land were wicked and ripe for judgment; and even though Israel wasn't a perfect people, God would use them to bring that judgment. The emphasis is on the grace of God and not the goodness of God's people, and this emphasis is needed today (Titus 2:11–3:7). When we forget the grace of God, we become proud and start thinking that we deserve all that God has done for us, and then God has to remind us of His goodness and our sinfulness; and that reminder might be very painful."[2]      Then, to drive the point further, Moses cited specific events when the Israelites failed. First, Moses called for them think about the past forty years, saying, “Remember, do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day that you left the land of Egypt until you arrived at this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD” (Deut 9:7). The Israelite's defiance was not marked by a single event, but by a long history of failures that spanned forty years. This defiance started from the very beginning, as Moses recalls, “Even at Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, and the LORD was so angry with you that He would have destroyed you” (Deut 9:8). Horeb was the occasion where God met the Israelites and ratified the Mosaic Covenant (Ex 19:1-25). Moses recalled his part at that time, saying, “When I went up to the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the LORD had made with you, then I remained on the mountain forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water” (Deut 9:9). Moses was humbling himself before the Lord by fasting for a period of forty days and nights. After which, he says, “The LORD gave me the two tablets of stone written by the finger of God; and on them were all the words which the LORD had spoken with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly” (Deut 9:10). The two tablets represented the codification of the Law from God to His people. These two copies were to be kept with the Ark of the Covenant as a record of the contract. Moses states, “It came about at the end of forty days and nights that the LORD gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant” (Deut 9:11). But during the forty days Moses was on the mountain conversing with God and receiving the tablets of the covenant, the people of Israel had turned away from God and were engaging in idolatry. Moses recalls, “Then the LORD said to me, ‘Arise, go down from here quickly, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made a molten image for themselves'” (Deut 9:12). Warren Wiersbe states: "Israel committed a very great sin when they worshiped the golden calf (Ex. 32–34). Behind them was the history of their deliverance from Egypt, a demonstration of the grace and power of the Lord; and yet they rebelled against their Redeemer! Israel was the people of God, redeemed by His hand, and yet they manufactured a new god! Before them was Mount Sinai where they had seen God's glory and holiness demonstrated and from which they had received the law of the Lord. In that law, God commanded them to worship Him alone and not to make idols and worship them. They had accepted that law and twice promised to obey it (Ex. 24:3, 7), and yet they broke the first and second commandments by making and worshiping an idol, and the seventh commandment by engaging in lustful revelry as a part of their “worship.”[3]      God called for Moses to leave the mountain and return to camp. God said the reason was that Moses' people were acting corruptly and had turned aside from doing God's will and were engaging in idolatry. Here we see the beginning on an exchange between God and Moses, as God starts off by referring to the Israelites as Moses' people. The question naturally rises as to whether Moses would identify with his people, even though he was not personally guilty of the sin of idolatry. Moses said, “The LORD spoke further to me, saying, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed, it is a stubborn people'” (Deut 9:13). Here was another rebuke against the Israelites, as they were described as a stubborn people. Then, as if Moses were in God's way, the Lord said, “Let Me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they” (Deut 9:14). Concerning this pericope, Jack Deere writes: "The emphatic exhortation, Remember this and never forget, underscores the absurdity of Israel ever supposing that the land was given them as a reward for their righteousness. Moses used one incident from their past, the worship of the golden calf, to illustrate that Israelite history has nearly always been one of rebellion (v. 7) against God's grace. This incident (Ex 32), perhaps more than any other until that time, illustrates Israel's sinfulness on the one hand and God's grace on the other. While Moses was fasting for 40 days and 40 nights on Mount Horeb (Sinai; cf. Deut 1:2) and therefore was completely dependent on God, the people were feasting. While Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments (the tablets of the covenant, 9:9, 11) by the finger of God, the people were breaking several of them by worshiping the golden calf. As the Lord had given the covenant to Moses, the people had become corrupt and turned away quickly (Deut 9:12). Even God Himself proclaimed that the people were stiff-necked (v. 13). Their rebellion was so great that He wanted to destroy the nation and start all over with Moses (cf. Ex 32:9–10)."[4] (emphasis his)      When God said to Moses, “Let Me alone,” it reveals the close relationship between the two of them. In effect, God was telling Moses He wanted to destroy the nation because of their sin, but would not touch the Israelites without his permission. God even promised Moses that He would start over with him and fulfill His promises through Moses' descendants. The question here was whether Moses would agree to God's proposal and not intervene for the nation?      Moses wanted this second generation of Israelites to understand the gravity of the situation they were facing and to live by faith. He did not want them to be stiff-necked and faithless like their parents, but to humble themselves before the Lord that He might lead them into battle and give them the victory and blessing. As Christians, we are not called to face physical enemies such as the Canaanites, nor to fight for promised land possessed by pagan peoples. As Christians, “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12). In this struggle we are to stand firm against Satan, his world-system, and our flesh. And we are to be strengthened by God's Word, live by faith, pursue righteousness, share the gospel and biblical truth with those who will hear, and pray always.   [1] Daniel I. Block, The NIV Application Commentary: Deuteronomy, ed. Terry Muck (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 246. [2] Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Equipped, “Be” Commentary Series (Colorado Springs, CO: Chariot Victor Pub., 1999), 65. [3] Ibid., 66. [4] Jack S. Deere, “Deuteronomy,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 279.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a sermon on Job 8-10. Job moves from anger to despair about God as his legal adversary who will be his prosecutor in court. He yearns for a mediator. Job did not know something that we now know, our mediator is Christ. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - One of the sweetest and most encouraging texts in the Bible for me is Romans 8:31, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” But what about the opposite? What if God were against you? What then? How could we survive? And especially if the context were very much what Ben was sharing in his prayer, the context were judgment day. The final court of God's justice. If God were against us, then what? This morning, we're going to find Job as he's on his own pilgrimage of sorrow and suffering, moving from anger to a sense of despair specifically about God as his legal enemy, his legal adversary. The image is of Almighty God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, being his prosecutor in court. What if that is the case? What then? How could any of us survive that? This morning, we're going to hear Job crying out, yearning for a mediator, as he says. “Someone who could lay a hand on us both.” Both God and man, someone who, Job thinks, would be able to advocate on his behalf and testify on the basis of Job's essential righteousness. That he is blameless. A mediator who would speak on his behalf to God saying, "This man is innocent." However, in the goodness of God, Job and all of the redeemed gets something infinitely better than that, infinitely better. A mediator who will actually tell Job the truth: your righteousness is not enough. And will give him a perfect righteousness of his own, imputed to him as a gift, and then will advocate on the basis of that imputed righteousness that Job would spend eternity in heaven. We're going to discover how a mortal man like Job with all of his normal sinfulness can actually stand perfect in the sight of a holy God. And for all of us, that's going to be our hope for judgment day. Let's walk through this. I. Bildad’s Cold Doctrine We begin in Job chapter eight with the second of Job's friends, Bildad the Shuhite, and he begins in verse two, Job 8:2, by saying, "How long will you say such things? Your words are a blustering wind." Bildad is becoming angry at Job, and he's going to get angrier as the book unfolds. Now, Bildad the second friend, his basic doctrine is God never perverts justice. Look at Job 8:3. “Does God pervert justice? Does the Almighty pervert what is right?” Bildad sees it right in the two senses. First, Job really is questioning God's justice, as we shall see. Secondly, God could never pervert justice ever. In this, Bildad is right. And Bildad's support comes from the wisdom of the ancients. Look at verses eight and nine. “Ask the former generations and find out what their fathers learned, for we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow.” What can we find out from the ancestors? And that is that God is perfectly righteous. He never perverts justice. The wicked get what they deserve. The wicked get what they deserve. And he makes a very cold hearted application to Job's children. You remember that Job lost all 10 of his children in one day. Bildad says in verse four, "When your children sinned against God, he gave them over to the penalty of their sin." That's what happened. Now, that is staggering really. Here's where Bildad errs as he does with Job himself. Just because someone dies doesn't mean they're guilty of some noteworthy sin, or perhaps we would say the opposite is more accurate. If Job's children died because of their sin, it's likely that I deserve the exact same fate as them. There's no difference, because we are all of us sinners worthy of death. Wages of sin is death. Do you remember the story in Luke 13 of some individuals coming to Jesus with some current event? There were some Galileans who were slaughtered by Pilate soldiers even while they're offering sacrifices to God. You remember that? They were coming with the same theology that Job's friends have. They're getting what they deserve for their sin. Do you remember what Jesus said? Luke 13:2-3, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered that way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” So that's the fact. All of us deserve to die for our sins. And unless we repent, we will all likewise perish, Jesus is saying. Now, there's a bitter insensitivity to Bildad here, and there's also an arrogance, a spiritual arrogance. First, the bitter insensitivity. He's coldly insensitive to a grieving father saying those kinds of things. Your children sinned. God killed them. But there's also spiritual arrogance because he assumes that Job's children, like Job himself, are far worse sinners than he, Bildad, is. The reason he's still in good health, the reason he's still enjoying prosperity is he's not a sinner like them. Now, Bildad's counsel to Job is this, trust God and plead with him. Look at verse five, “Look to God and plead with the Almighty.” And he makes him a conditional promise, Bildad does, “God will restore you if you are truly pure.” Verses six and seven. “If you are pure and upright, even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore you to your rightful place. Your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be.” But Bildad also makes a conditional warning: “if you actually are wicked, you will perish quickly.” He speaks of the wicked like a papyrus reed that grows quickly eight to 10 feet up out of the marsh. But look how easily it is toppled. He mentions the hope of the wicked being so flimsy like a spider's web. That if one leans against it, it easily gives away. Then in verse 13, “Such as the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless.” This is the justice of God. He crushes the wicked and blesses the righteous. Sound familiar? That's what these friends have been saying. That's their consistent pattern. Now Job has to answer this in chapter nine and on into 10. He begins by conceding that Bildad's basic theology of God's justice, the law of retribution, blessings for the righteous, curses for the wicked, is true. Look at verse two of chapter nine. "Indeed," he says, "I know that this is true." But there is a basic problem, Bildad, with your theology. Who is righteous before God? What's the point? If it's a null set, if it's an empty set, there are no righteous people, then what good is that theology? Look at verse two again, “How can a person be justified before God?” Job could ask effectively, if God finds fault with heart sins and small sins, which I don't deny, Job doesn't deny that he commits these, but if God finds fault with the smallest sin, then how can anyone survive? Including you, Bildad. What's the point of your theology? II. Tracing Out the Dimensions of Job’s Complaint Now, for the rest of chapters nine and 10, we're going to trace out the dimensions of Job's complaint against God. His real problem is not with Bildad. He fades at this point. The real issue has to do with his view of God, Job's view of God. Job's desire here in this chapter is to take God to court. He wants to take God to court and he wants to win his case. Look at verse two and three. He says, "How can a man be declared innocent by God?" One translation puts it this way, "If one plan to enter into litigation with him, he could not answer him, not even one time out of a thousand!" If you wanted to have a legal dispute with God, you want to take God to court, and the two of you faced each other in a court of law, that's Job's desire, he wants to take God to court and win, he would not be able to answer God even one time out of a thousand. Now, Job's goal here is to stand vindicated before God and man. When in verse three he asked, "How can a man be just with God?" The Hebrew means to be declared righteous. It's justification. It's to be seen legally exonerated or legally vindicated from whatever you're accused of. The court trial has come. The verdict's come down and you walk out a free man or free woman. He wants to win. He wants to win his court trial with God and walk out of the courtroom with his arms raised triumphant, completely exonerated. But he has a problem with that. Who is his legal adversary? It's Almighty God. He says, if I were to stand before him in a courtroom, he is my judge, as well as my prosecuting attorney. "He wants to win his court trial with God and walk out of the courtroom with his arms raised triumphant, completely exonerated. But he has a problem with that. Who is his legal adversary? It's Almighty God." If there were a thousand accusations God meant, I couldn't speak up even one time out of a thousand. What could I say? I would be rendered silent. There'd be nothing I could say. Well, ironically, that's exactly what does happen at the end of the book. In Job 40:4-5 he says, "I am unworthy—how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer—twice, but I will say no more." That's where we're heading. That's where all of us are heading. If you're healthy, that's where you're heading. You're just going to put your hand over your mouth before God and not charge him with anything. But he's not there yet. It is vital for us as sinners to realize this. If God began recounting all the deeds and all the intentions of our hearts, recorded from the beginning of our days on earth, as he is fully capable of doing, the court seated, the books are open, Revelation 20, and we're judged according to what we have done as recorded in the book. What answer could we give? But Job goes far beyond that. He speaks of God's astonishing majesty as being his greatest terror. Look at who is my adversary, my prosecutor in court. It is Almighty God. It is the creator and ruler of the entire universe. What chance do I have? Look at verse four, “His wisdom is profound, his power is vast.” You're facing omniscience and omnipotence in a court of law. But Job here portrays God and his destructive power. Not as God the creator, but as God the destroyer. Look at verses four through seven, “Who has resisted him and come out unscathed? He moves mountains without there knowing it he overturns them in his anger. He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble. He speaks to the sun and it does not shine; he seals off the light of the stars.” I can't help but read these words and not think about the end of the world as depicted in the Book of Revelation. If you go to Revelation six, don't turn there, but just listen. Revelation 6:12-17. You remember how Jesus has the scroll with the seven seals, and he opens these seals one after the other and terrifying things happen on the earth. And he gets to the sixth seal, this is Revelation 6:12-17, “I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake, and the sun turned black like sack cloth made of goat hair, and the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to the earth, as late figs dropped from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come. And who shall be able to stand?"” How could a mortal man stand before that kind of power and survive? Job says, this is the same God who created the constellations. He created them and sustains them, the distant stars. Job 9:8-10, he says, "He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south. He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted." We're looking at God's omnipotence on display and creation. A single one of God's wonders could occupy our minds for the rest of the year, but he does more than a single one. He does more of these than we can imagine every day. And he's invisible. A hidden enemy is 10 times more terrifying than one you can see. We never know when he's going to strike, Job says. Look at verse 11, “When he passes me, I cannot see him; when he goes by, I cannot perceive him.” This invisible, omnipotent, powerful, as he sees it, enemy is accountable to no one. He doesn't have to give an answer for anything he does. Look at verse 12, “If he snatches away, who can stop him? Who can say to him, "What are you doing?"” God is infinitely above accountability to us. Doesn't have to answer any of us about what he's doing. Verse 13, he talks about conquering Rahab, the primordial enemy. It's an image that Hebrew poets use a lot, kind of like a dragon that God slew to bring order to the chaotic universe. If God can handle that kind of a mighty enemy with ease, what chance do I have, Job says. Verse 14. How then can I dispute with him? How can I find words to argue with him? Back to the original problem. I want to take God to court and argue with him, but I will lose. Now, in all of this, behind all of this, you must know Job's basic conviction is, I am innocent. I'm blameless. He says it again and again. 9:15, “Though I were innocent, I could not answer him; I could only plead with my Judge for mercy.” Verse 20, “Even if I were innocent, my mouth would condemn me; if I were blameless, it would pronounce me guilty.” And then just straight out in verse 21, “I am blameless.” “I am blameless.” And that's exactly why he wants to dispute with God. He feels all of this wave upon wave of destruction that's come into his life is unfair. It's unjust. He feels these judgements from God have overwhelmed him, portray him as overwhelmingly wicked and evil and he knows it's just not so. So, Job feels checkmated by God. And his unspoken accusation, although he's getting closer and closer to saying it and he will say it later in the book, God is unjust. Behind all these words is a growing sense that Job really feels that God is unjust and irrational in the way he runs the universe. To some degree then, to some degree, Bildad is right. Job is subtly claiming that God is unjust in what he's done to Job. Job will openly assert it later in the book. He's only hinting at it here. Basically he's saying, it's an old expression, might makes right when it comes to God. It's just because he's omnipotent and he can just run everything. No one can challenge him. Might makes right. Look at verses 14-19, “How then could I dispute with him? How can I find words to argue with him? Though I were innocent, I could not answer him; I could only plead with my Judge for mercy. Even if I summoned him and he responded, I do not believe he would give me a hearing. He would crush me with a storm and multiply my wounds for no reason. He would not let me regain my breath but would overwhelm me with misery. If it's a matter of strength, he is mighty! And if it's a matter of justice, who will summon him?” In other words, if I served God a subpoena and he didn't want to come, what could I do? And if I did that, it seems like all that would happen is more of the same that's already happened to me. I'd just get crushed more. He would multiply my wounds even more for no reason, for no reason. That's the charge of God's injustice. And then he says that God actually is unjust in how he treats innocent people on earth. 9:22-24, “It's all the same. That's why I say he destroys both the blameless and the wicked. When a scourge brings sudden death, he mocks the despair of the innocent.” Do you hear that? He just makes fun of the innocent people who are grieving and crushed. He mocks them. “When a land falls into the hands of the wicked, he blindfolds its judges. If it's not he, then who is it?” Wow! You'll see as we keep moving through the book how right it is that Job repents at the end of the book. I think this is part of the reason why the Holy Spirit gave us 42 chapters of Job. Do you not sense that some of these same attitudes are in your own heart and in mine too? It actually would take far less in our lives than it ever took in Job's life to have them bubble up out of our mouths, charging God with this kind of injustice. In Job 10, he expands his accusation as if God is actually cruel. He actually enjoys the torment he's brought on him. Look at 10:3, “Does it please you to oppress me?” Do you enjoy this? “Are you pleased to spurn the work of your hands while you smile on the schemes of the wicked?” God knows I'm not guilty. He also knows that no one can deliver me from his hand. Look at 10:6-7, “You must search out my faults, probe after my sin—though you know I'm not guilty, and that no one can rescue me from your hand.” God continues to send wave upon wave of sorrow upon me. He's relentless against me. Look at verses 15-17, “If I'm guilty—woe to me! Even if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head, for I'm full of shame, drowned in my affliction. If I hold my head high, you stalk me like a lion and again display your awesome power against me. You bring new witnesses against me and increase your anger toward me; your forces come against me wave upon wave.” That's the problem. Now, Job has in his mind a possible solution at the end of chapter nine. Look at verses 33-35, “If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay a hand upon us both, someone to remove God's rod from me so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him.” Now, most of the translations just have him saying there is not such a one. But in the context, I think it's reasonable that you sense that he's yearning for such a one. That's what he wants. If only there were someone like this, someone to arbitrate, someone to lay a hand on us both. God doesn't have to listen to me. God doesn't have to answer me. I have no standing. I have no place to compel his attention. But if there were someone who could stand between us like a mediator, an arbitrator who could compel God to listen on my behalf. The effect in Job's mind would be to remove God's rod of terror from him. He would solve his problems. He would vindicate Job. He would set him free forever, and then he would have peace with God at last. But this deep desire is unfulfilled. Verse 35, “Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot.” Well, but wait, the answer's coming. It hadn't come yet in redemptive history, but we know the answer, dear friend. Christian brothers and sisters, amen! We know the answer, don't we? We know that there is a mediator. Job couldn't see him at that point. Job has deep despair. I hate my life. Job spends many words in these two chapters lamenting his very existence. Chapter 9:21 he says, "Although I am blameless, I have no concern for myself; I despise my own life." He notes that though the individual days seem long because of his misery, he has said this before, his life is as fleeting as a runner, like one of those little skiffs that goes so fast driven by the wind. And then he says, I can't put a happy face on all this. Look at 9:27-28. He said, "If I say ‘I'll forget my complaint, I will change my expression and smile.’" That's what you need to do. Just smile. Put on a happy face, “I still dread all my sufferings, for I know you will not hold me innocent.” So what's the use of even trying? What's the use of trying to clean myself up? What's the use of me trying to wash my hands and rehabilitate my image with onlooking people? Chapter 9:29-31, “Even if I am found guilty, why should I struggle in vain? Even if I wash myself with soap in my hands with washing soda, you would plunge me into a slime pit so that even my clothes would detest me.” Now, amazingly, Job celebrates that it was this same God who gave him life to begin with. Look at 10:8-12, beautiful verses. This is Job speaking to God about his creation, his original formation, “Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese, clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence, you watched over my spirit.” These are some of the most beautiful verses in the entire Bible on God's direct, skillful, knitting together of every human being in his or her mother's womb. This is exactly why I am pro-life in this age of abortion. Verses like this tell me God is directly involved in the creation of every single human being that has ever lived or ever will live. There are no accidental human beings when it comes to the activity of God in the womb. But Job's point here is you did all that and now you're destroying me. The same God who formed me in the womb, that knit me together in my mother's womb, and then protected me, lavished blessings on me, in your kind providence watched over my spirit, now you're watching over me to detect my sin and crush me. So why did you ever make me to begin with? Basically at this point, Job just wants God to leave him alone. Let him die. Look at 10:18-22, “Why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eye saw me. If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave! Are not my few days almost over? Turn away from me so I can have a moment's joy before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and deep shadow, to the land of deepest night of deep shadow and disorder where even the light is like darkness.” By the way, that is Job's view of the grave. In a later sermon, God willing, I'm going to talk about his defective view of the grave and how much better we can do now that Christ has been raised from the dead. That's a later sermon. III. Four Great Lessons All right, from this, I want to take four great lessons. Lesson number one, it is sinful to dispute with God. Job wants to dispute with God, to take him to court, to challenge him, to argue against him, to fight him on behalf of his own blamelessness. This is such an extremely common thing in our world, especially during times of great suffering that people don't seem to really know how wrong it is. In fact, I would argue, as I have done, that this is one of the central purposes of this whole book of Job, is to get us to never do that again. To teach us to put a hand over our mouths and to trust God. I think it's beneficial for us to get ready for our own battles ahead of time. Maybe even right now, some of you may be going through great sorrow and suffering right now, this could be your time of testing. But for the rest of you, it's coming. It is coming. We live in a world of sorrow and sickness and loss and death. This book is here, and, in the providence of God, these sermons are here to get you ready for what you do not want. But God wills to bring his people through sorrow and suffering and it is wrong to dispute with God. God's ways will not always make sense to us during the time. Sometimes it will seem that God is unjust or that his providential ruling of daily life is irrational and random, but it's not. We need to fix in our minds for all time how God has proven his commitment to justice. He did it at the cross. He did it at the cross of his own beloved son, Jesus Christ. It says in Romans 3:25-16, “God presented him as a propitiation,” or a sacrifice of atonement, “through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” So friends, a far bigger problem of God's justice in God's mind, far bigger than how he would appear unjust if he brings adverse circumstances to his people on earth, far bigger problem than that, is how can he take sinners, like you and me, and bring us into a heaven of light where he is perfectly pure? How can he do that and still be just? That's a bigger problem. How can he be both just and the justifier? And he solved that at the cross. At the cross, he poured out, and we sang it earlier. He crushed his own son, showing he would rather do that, he'd rather crush his Son, his only Son whom he loved, than let a sinner like you or me into heaven without our sins atoned for, addressed. That's his commitment to justice. So, when we suffer some earthly loss, some loss of material wealth, or precious loved one, or physical health, we should banish forever from our minds any anger or determination to dispute with God over his justice. He's proven his justice at the cross. "When we suffer some earthly loss, some loss of material wealth, or precious loved one, or physical health, we should banish forever from our minds any anger or determination to dispute with God over his justice. He's proven his justice at the cross." And actually we really are not blameless and pure. Jesus stopped the rich young ruler who said, good teacher, da, da, da. Wait, wait, wait, wait, why do you call me good? No one is good, but God alone. I don't really think we believe that. But all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We tend to compare ourselves to others. I'm better than this guy. I'm better than that guy. We tend to do that. Well, that's not how it's going to work. God is going to compare us to his perfect standard and we're all going to come short. When we consider our sinfulness here on earth, we should not compare ourselves to other sinners, but God's perfect standard in the law. So, if this is true, on what basis would we dispute with God, or murmur against God, or complain, or accuse him? Yet it seems we are already at one time or another to accuse God of injustice. The best people do this. Jeremiah did it. You can look it up, Jeremiah 20:7. He said, "God, you deceived me and I was deceived." God says to Jeremiah, Jeremiah, if you speak worthy and not worthless words, you can be my servant. It's worthless to say that God deceived him, but that was Jeremiah saying that to him. We know why. He was going through suffering. We should set it in our minds ahead of time, it's actually monstrous to dispute with God and question his justice. When people get angry at God, they treat him like he's their valet, their foot servant. They yell at him. They demand an answer from him, forgetting our own sinfulness. Fact of the matter is, even if we closely examine ourselves honestly, we miss 99% of our sins. David said it in Psalm 19:12, "Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults." Forgive my hidden faults. I can't even discern my own errors. In the end, Job quieted himself and humbled himself and repented of his disputing with God and questioning God. Let's do that now ahead of time. Second lesson, Christ is our perfect mediator. Christ is our perfect mediator. Job yearned for a mediator, “If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God's rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more.” Job ended that yearning with despair, “as it is, I cannot.” But now there is a mediator. 1 Timothy 2:5-6 it says, "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for us all." In the incarnation, Jesus, the perfect God man, fully God, fully man, is able to stand between God and man. He's able to represent God on behalf of us like saying, no one is good, but God alone, saying those kinds of things and speaking God's perfect law and perfect words to us. He represented God to us perfectly, but then he represents us to God. He is the perfect bridge builder. He is, in the incarnation, able to stand God and man and build the bridge between us. He understands our weakness and our temptation. He experienced all of it perfectly. Hebrews 4:15, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are—yet was without sin.” But as I said Jesus is an infinitely superior mediator than the one Job wanted. Remember what I said? What did Job want? Someone to look at my case, get to know me, get to know what's going on, and then be my advocate and say, God, he's blameless. What's going on? Oh yes, I see it now. Okay. And then the rod comes off. Job doesn't get that. What does he get instead? He gets Jesus looking at him with eyes of blazing fire and feet of burnished bronze saying, “Unless your righteousness surpasses what you have on your own, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." And then when a righteousness through his, Jesus', own perfect obedience to God's law every day of his life until his death and take that perfect righteousness and give it as a gift to Job and to all who repent and believe in him as a gift, and then turn and advocate the redeemed on behalf of that imputed righteousness that we have as a gift by faith. That's better, friends. You know why that's better? Because when we get to heaven, we will boast in the Lord and in the Lord alone, not in ourselves. That's what we get, someone to remove God's rod from me so his terror would frighten me no more. Here's the thing, Jesus is the best defense attorney there has ever been or ever will be. Now, I looked it up. I went online. How high do hourly rates get for the top level defense attorneys? You would not believe. Billable hours, a thousand dollars an hour. Wow! You couldn't afford that. Jesus doesn't charge anything except one thing. He looks you in the eye and says, you have to give up your plea of not guilty. You give that up, I'll be your defense attorney. But if you claim you don't need me, if you claim you're basically blameless, if you claim you're basically righteous, I will not defend you and you'll stand on your own on judgment day. He'll be your defense attorney and he has never lost a case and he never will. It helps that he's the judge as well. I mean, it helps. But he has never lost a case. And through perfect justice, he will remove God's rod of wrath from you. Romans 5:1 it says, "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Amen? The rod of wrath is removed. That's what propitiation is. It's gone. The bloodshed removes the wrath of God. And then Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Thirdly, therefore, God is not against us. God is for us. He is for us. Job's lament in chapters nine and 10, spins out from a consistent perspective: God is against me. God is my enemy. God is hunting me down to destroy me. But in Christ, in Christ, God is for us. Romans 8:31-32, “What shall we say in response to all this? If God is for us, who could be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will you not also along with him graciously give us all things?” What does that mean to have God for you? What will it mean on judgment day? It'll mean everything. It'll mean everything. You'll hear from him, welcome you who are blessed into the eternal kingdom prepared by my Father. Welcome you who are righteous through faith. Fourthly, God's majesty is our delight, not our terror. There's a lot of natural theology in Job. we're not done with it, God himself will do it a lot. Just look at the wonders of creation. Look at the majesty and the power of displayed in the creation and sustaining of the universe. Job discussed in awe and wonder the power of God over creation, the God who can shake the pillars of the earth and stop the sun from rising and cause the stars to fall from the sky. Job stood in awe at the majesty of God and being so far beyond all accountability, the God who cannot be stopped from anything he wants to do, the God who is not accountable to us. He isn't, friends. It's true. He doesn't need to give us an explanation. Job discussed the meticulous care of God and knitting his body together in his mother's womb, the wisdom and intelligence of God in making his body in that secret place. He noted all the providential ways that God lavished blessing on him by his kind providence. But he felt that God's majesty was a terror to him because God was against him. But if God is for us, then his majesty is a delight. I believe, as many of you know, in a dynamic heaven where we're going to go and study the infinite dimensions and details of God's majesty for all eternity, for all eternity. "But he felt that God's majesty was a terror to him because God was against him. But if God is for us, then his majesty is a delight." I asked a friend this week. I said, "Suppose I told you I got you a gift this week. It was a storehouse with a million square feet for you, just for all your stuff." I'm sorry, what? A million square foot storage facility? We don't have that much stuff. I mean, we have stuff, but we don't have that much stuff. What would you do with a storage facility a million square feet? Or how about a billion? All right, so let's move that on into eternal. What are you going to do with eternal time? What are you going to do with a storehouse so big that it's infinite in its dimensions? You got to fill it with an infinite thing. And that is the glory of God. God will fill it every day in glory. He will fill it with a study of God's own attributes. What he did in the past, what he is doing in that heavenly present, and what he will unfold in that heavenly future, that's what we're going to spend eternity celebrating. God's majesty will be our delight, not our terror. The question I have to ask as I finish is what about you? You've heard all this. Are you claiming your own basic innocence and thinking you're going to stand before such a holy God on judgment day? You cannot survive. You cannot survive. Or are you willing by faith have Jesus be your mediator, the one who could lay a hand both on God and on you and bring you together for all eternity? Who are you trusting in? Let’s close in prayer. Lord, thank you for Job. We thank you for these chapters, Job 8-10. Thank you for the things we're learning. Father. I pray that you would just be working saving faith in the hearts of those that are hearing me today. Just work in us. Lord, those of us who have been saved for many, many years, who have been justified for many years, just continue to expand our sense of what Jesus did for us, what he drank for us on the cross. With infinite courage, he drank the cup of God's wrath that we might be freed from terror. Thank you, Lord Jesus. I pray that you would help us to walk on in gratitude. To realize that no matter what the disappointments we may be going through, or things that have happened in our lives that didn't go the way we wanted, nothing compares to the fact that Jesus drank our cup, the cup of God's wrath for us, that we might spend eternity free from blame and glorious. We thank you in Jesus' name, amen.

Both God's wisdom and worldly “wisdom” are spoken of as feminine. Listen as Solomon contrasts wisdom and folly; life and destruction.

Both God and Man (Lord's Day 6, John 1:1,14) - Evening Sermon

In today's Bible-based meditation, we meditation on Biblical love. Both God' love for us (1 John 4:19), our love for God in our emotions, spirits, and thoughts, & our love for others through our actions (Matthew 22:36-40 ESV)

The relationships that you forge in this life are critical to your success or your failure. Both God and Satan influence people. Some are vessels used to bless others and some are used as emissaries of destruction. There is a difference between being suspicions and being discerning. Scripture teaches us that bad company can corrupt good morals. You can have the best of intentions, but if you are surrounded by people who do not want the best for you or do not want to allow you to see yourself growing and prospering, it can cause you to be defeated. The sooner you recognize what the objectives or agendas are, you will be able to still love, while determining the degree of safe access. You must be aware so that the toxic behavior of others does not pollute your good intentions. It is good to give people the benefit of the doubt, but don’t be naive. When you love people, you will be vulnerable. You will at some point be hurt. There is no getting around it. You can however, spare yourself unnecessary hurt, by taking charge of your atmosphere. Negative people can corrupt your good ideas and intentions. Let’s be a part of building others up and not tearing them down.

Both God and Miles Davis make cameo appearances in this discussion with author Eric Gudas about one of Don Van Vliet and the Magic Band's finest compositions. screenshotzchezpandy on Instagram Find out more at https://prince-track-by-track.pinecast.co

There is an intense spiritual battle happening, and the target is your soul. Both God and the enemy want you, but for drastically different reasons. The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10), while God’s intention is to give you an abundant life. To get your copy of THE DIVINE CHASE eBook, go to wealthcodescoach.com/product/the-divine-chase-e-book

Both God's Creation and His Word reveal how Great and Big our God really is!

There is an intense spiritual battle happening, and the target is your soul. Both God and the enemy want you, but for drastically different reasons. The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10), while God's intention is to give you an abundant life. To get your copy of THE DIVINE CHASE eBook, go to wealthcodescoach.com/product/the-divine-chase-e- book Access Rob's video courses, personal coaching program, books and other resources at www.wealthcodescoach.com.

The apostle Paul urged his gentile readers, “Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.” (Romans 11:22) Both God’s goodness, and His severity must be understood and appreciated.

Title: Defend the Faith Text: II John 4-11 FCF: We often struggle with how to respond to those who teach a false gospel. Prop: Because true children of God walk in truth, love and obedience, we must defend the faith. Scripture Intro: [Slide 1] Turn in your bible to II John. In a book that only spans 13 verses, it may be a little surprising to see that we will be covering the vast majority of them in this sermon. There are all kinds of different preachers out there. Some preachers tend to be a little more topical and cover large portions of scripture in their sermons. Others tend to be more exacting of the text and cover sometimes only a word per sermon. My philosophy has always been to try to capture the thought of the author. Paragraphs typically serve as good indicators for where the author’s thought begins and ends – the only problem of course – is that the manuscripts we have of the text of scripture from the original languages did not include any punctuation at all – much less paragraph markings. I really did try this week to separate this sermon into two. However, what became apparent was verse 4 through 11 has no obvious thought break. Starting in verse 4, he makes a point and continues to run with that point until he starts to say his goodbyes. I suppose we should expect in a letter this brief that he would probably only have 1 point to communicate clearly and then say his goodbyes. There are two dangers. If I divided his thought we may miss his meaning, if I don’t you may lose some details. I decided the latter was the better option, but I need your help. There is a lot in this sermon – so you must keep paying attention. I am in II John, I’ll begin reading in verse 4. I am reading from the NET but you can follow along in whatever version you prefer. Transition: The last couple weeks I have let you off easy with a couple shorter sermons. Well this week is where we make up for it. We are covering a lot of ground, so do your best to pay attention. The folks at home have the luxury of a pause feature, but for those who are here, do your best to stick with me ok. I.) Genuine Christians walk in truth, love and obedience, so we must live in truth, love and obedience. (4-6) a. [Slide 2] 4 – I rejoiced greatly because I have found some of your children living according to the truth, i. There are two ways we could read this. One is fairly passive aggressive and the other is not. ii. John could be saying that he is rejoiced to find out that not all of the people in the church there had stopped living in the truth. iii. Or, John could be saying that he met some of the church there and was overjoyed to find that of that small sampling, all of them were living according to the truth. iv. I don’t think John would have pulled any punches and worded it this way if it was the former. So, the latter interpretation is preferred. Not being the elder or leader of the church in question, he may not have had opportunity to meet with many of the church there. But, what a joy it would be, after seeing the fallout of the church from I John, to meet others from another church who remained faithful. b. [Slide 3] Just as the Father commanded us. i. If you have not picked up on the line of reasoning by now that God expects obedience from those who are truly His people – I’d say that you may be a visitor here and this is your first time in this church. ii. God’s command to His true children is to live according to the truth. To walk in obedience. To live as if you are the ongoing recipients of His grace, mercy, peace, and love. Because you are. iii. But John is not just going to complement this church… now he will exhort her. c. [Slide 4] 5 – But now I ask you, lady () that we love one another i. In the next couple verses there are parenthetical statements that disrupt the flow of thought. I have approached this by excluding those phrases from consideration until we finish the thought. ii. I feel as though this will help us not get distracted. iii. John’s charge is that we love one another. It is interesting. iv. He is not charging her exclusively – but all of Christianity including himself. With what command? v. To love one another. vi. So why is he commanding her to do this? Is this church failing to do this? vii. Well that is where the parenthetical statement comes in… d. [Slide 5] (not as if I were writing a new commandment to you, but the one we have had from the beginning) i. It is not that this church had been failing to love one another. ii. In fact John said before that he loved them in truth. And since, at least some of them were walking in truth, it is logical to conclude that they also were continuing to love one another. iii. Rather this is a standing order from the Father that all His children love His children with the love of Christ. iv. From the beginning is not the beginning of time but rather the beginning of their conversion. v. Jesus said that he gave a new command that they love one another as He had loved them. vi. And so this command is the marching order from conversion to glory. e. [Slide 6] 6 – () This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning; Thus you should walk in it. i. The first part of this is another parenthetical statement so continuing John’s thought, he says ii. That this command to love one another, since it IS something you were given from the beginning that adds weight to the fact that you should walk in it. That you should live it. iii. But parenthetically John wants to define his terms. iv. What does it mean to LOVE one another? f. [Slide 7] (Now this is love: that we walk according to His commandments.) i. Obedience to God is love. ii. So obeying God equals loving other believers. We need to adjust our understanding of what it means to love one another. iii. As we pointed out in our I John series – we love others by loving God. And we cannot love God if we do not obey Him. Our love toward our brothers and sisters is not, in fact, aimed at them at all. Our love is aimed at Christ in them. iv. To obey the second greatest command, you must obey the first. v. And so here again as we saw in I John these three evidences of being fathered of God continue to exist. vi. In I John we noted that a person who has growing faith, enduring selfless love, and progressive obedience is a person who has been fathered of God. vii. In II John Truth contains all the giftings of God the triune to His beloved children. And John has commended some of this congregation for walking in truth. Now he asks them to walk in love which He says is walking in obedience. Truth, love and obedience. viii. This sounds an awful lot like Faith, love and obedience from I John. ix. And as we discovered in our Wednesday bible study this past week – separating truth, love, obedience, grace, mercy, peace, is a fool’s errand. They are one – all-encompassing gift of God to His dear children in Christ. x. So, what then is the command that they should walk in? They must love… and if love is defined as obedience to God, and if love flows from truth, then all three are commanded. We love in truth and to love we must obey God. xi. So the command is to walk in truth, love and obedience. g. [Slide 8] Passage Truth: John tells his readers that the commands that God has given them from the beginning of their new life in Him, endures even now. h. Passage Application: That they must walk in truth, love and obedience and continue to do so. He will build and expand on this and what this means in the text to follow. i. [Slide 9] Broader Biblical Truth: Zooming out from the text to I John, to Romans, to Ephesians, to Leviticus, to Deuteronomy, to Isaiah, to Micah – we see that God has always and will always command His people to walk in truth, love, and obedience. And no matter which covenant context you are in, the life of those in covenant with God continues to bear the same fruit. j. Broader Biblical Application: And now – in the New Covenant, we who are IN Christ bear all the more the responsibility and the capability of walking in truth, love and obedience. Transition: [Slide 10(blank)] But John is only getting started. He needs to expand on this to bring out a specific expression of this application. II.) Genuine Christians walk in truth, love and obedience , so we must watch out for deceivers. (7-8) a. [Slide 11] 7 – For many deceivers have gone out into the world, i. So the segue to this next point is difficult to realize. ii. John says “for” for is a word of subordination. It means that whatever follows is somehow related to what has been said before. iii. So John desires greatly that this church continue to walk in truth, love and obedience. iv. So related to that thought is this one… v. Many liars have gone out into the world. This implies that they were once not in the world. This is not John’s way of expressing someone who has rejected or lost their salvation, but rather a person who has left or rejected the confession of the church proving they were never part of them. vi. Now we may balk at that and wonder what does one of these have to do with the other, but it seems fairly obvious. vii. If all believers have been commanded to and will continue to walk in truth, love, and obedience – then when you find some “believers” who do not… you should take note. They are liars. viii. But how do we know they are no longer walking in truth, love, and obedience? b. [Slide 12] people who do not confess Jesus as Christ coming in the flesh. i. Doctrinal confession and adherence is included in walking in truth. It is not the sum total – but it is included. And therefore, one sign that they are not walking in truth, love, and obedience is that they deny doctrinal truths. ii. What particularly is their brand of lie –the specific context in which John writes here is the teaching that Jesus Christ was a human. iii. This is a teaching we should be extremely familiar with although it is somewhat disconnected from our culture. Most people today assume Jesus was a human just not God. iv. John’s words here affirm both though. Jesus as Christ coming in flesh. He was the Messiah of God that came in flesh. Both God and Man. c. [Slide 13] This person is the deceiver and the antichrist! i. John had similar language to refer to these folks in I John. ii. Definite articles in Greek do not function with the strength that they do in English. iii. This is rightly translated the deceiver and the antichrist – but we dare not think or assume that he is saying that such liars are THE deceiver and THE antichrist. iv. The man of lawlessness and Satan Himself are not somehow absorbed or in possession of a person who is an apostate who denies Jesus’ humanity. Such a statement stretches the Greek article farther than it can go. v. But we should walk away from this text with the strong language that John has used. vi. Such people – who were once part of the assembly, who now deny Christ come in flesh, who deny his atonement, who deny the Sonship to Yahweh, who deny the Old Testament program set in motion and fulfilled in Christ – such people who deny core Christological truth… vii. Are they confused? Deceived? Are they victims? Ought they be coddled? Ought they be plead with to repent? viii. John calls them the deceiver and the Antichrist. What does this mean? ix. They are working for their master Satan and in the spirit of the man of lawlessness that is to come. x. Those… are VERY strong words. Words we ought to be mindful of when we speak about people who have “deconverted” – specifically those who have deconverted and now adamantly oppose or teach against their former confession. xi. It is not that they are simply unsaved. It is not that they have been deceived. THEY ARE NOT VICTIMS! xii. Rather – they are agents of darkness. They are anti- Christ. They are God’s enemies. xiii. So what is John’s call upon his readers? How will they walk in truth, love, and obedience in reference to those who have gone out? d. [Slide 14] 8 – Watch out, so that you do not lose the things we have worked for, i. Beware! Beware! John says. ii. Jude says they are dangerous reefs leading only to shipwreck iii. Beware oh Christian! They only destroy! iv. If you do not beware, what will happen? We will lose what we have worked for. What does that mean? v. Well this is somewhat of a subject of debate. 1. Some have looked ahead to verse 9 and seen it as a plainer expression of what John says here. In other words, to lose what we have worked for, is to prove that they were never truly converted. This church will lose what the apostles had labored over in their community – specifically the conversion of their souls. This however, seems to present more questions than it does answers. 2. The other way to approach this is to define this as the ministry of the gospel. Although Jesus has given a guarantee that His church will be victorious over the gates of hell – that does not mean every local visible church. Some churches will be (and indeed have been) ravaged by apostates and false teachers. If they are allowed to persist. If they are coddled. If they are not seen for what they are… They will destroy all that we have worked for. vi. This second interpretation is what I prefer when I look at this text. It makes more sense to me that John is not necessarily talking about the church’s status in relationship to salvation, but rather the church’s status in relationship to the work of God in the world. vii. So the negative reason they should beware is that these apostates are sure to destroy what God is doing in their community if they allow them. viii. The positive reason though is… e. [Slide 15] But receive a full reward. i. So that the full reward in that day when we approach that throne will be given to us. ii. That we who have been found faithful in the little things will be given more. iii. How we conduct ourselves in ministry here on earth does have an effect on our reward in the kingdom to come. And while are not told precisely what that means or how that works – John’s point is this… iv. Do not underestimate the destructive power of the apostate. If you do, you will watch as the entire ministry crumbles around you. v. Instead – beware and mark them. Prepare each other for their lies. And stand firm and defend the faith so that you will be found faithful and rewarded accordingly. vi. We have the hope for eschatological reward. That great kingdom of which we are ambassadors now. The kingdom is coming and now is. Be sure to receive your full reward. Beware of these people. f. [Slide 16] Passage Truth: Since, as we noted the word “for” includes subordination, the truth that all believers walk in truth, love, and obedience remains. As an extension to that ongoing truth, John warns that there are those who will not endure in truth, love and obedience. So what is to be done with them? g. Passage Application: John teaches his readers that they ought to beware – to keep on guard for who have left and are now teaching doctrine opposed to what they had heard about Christ. For two reasons. 1.) so that the work they began may not come to nothing and 2.) so that they may receive their full reward. h. [Slide 17] Broader Biblical Truth: Again – since “for” indicates subordination- A believer walking in truth, love, and obedience would never be one of these people who fail to confess a proper Christology. And so, the only conclusion is that these people are liars. This was in I John, it is in Galatians, it is laced throughout the Scriptures. What they believe and teach is how we determine if they are false or not. If they are a liar or not. So the only question is - what do we do with these liars? i. Broader Biblical Application: From Old to New Testament the teaching is the same. Beware. Mark them. They only destroy and rob you of God’s reward. Transition: [Slide 18] For us this teaching is very difficult. How is it that walking in truth, love, and obedience can also include excommunicating someone from the truth, excluding them from love, and dismissing them from the community of obedience? We will see this in the next words of John. III.) Genuine Christians walk in truth, love, and obedience, so we must not welcome false teachers. (9-11) a. [Slide 19] 9 – Everyone who goes on ahead and does not remain in the teaching of Christ does not have God. i. This serves as a doctrinal reminder of what John was saying in verses 4-6. ii. To run ahead, to excel, to separate yourself from the pack, is usually viewed as a good thing. iii. But to run ahead past the teaching of Christ is actually to run away from the bonds of saving faith. iv. Perhaps John is quoting his enemies, who may have said, “we have gone beyond the simple teachings of Christ to more excellent things.” v. The teaching of Christ here is not the teaching Christ taught but rather the teachings about Christ. vi. It is not ok for someone to leave the Christological truths that we have received to form some novel iteration of Christological truth. vii. There are a great many areas of life that coming up with new ideas is something to be desired. Theology is not actually one of them. viii. John says plainly if you ever depart what you have learned of Christ and cling to other teachings not already revealed – then you cannot be God’s child. b. [Slide 20] The one who remains in this teaching has both the Father and the Son. i. If the first point was true so is this. ii. The one who remains, safe and secure in Christological truth has both the Father and the Son. Why? iii. Because to have the Father you must go through the Son iv. And to have the Son you must have the right one. One who is not God, not a man, not the messiah, not the atonement, not the high priest, not the king, not the prophet, not the intercessor, not the mediator – that one is not the Son. v. So what relationship does this statement have to what John said previously about losing what we’ve worked for and attaining a full reward? Potentially, John extends his warning beyond just the ministry in their community and even into their very hearts. Not only could you lose the gospel’s impact – but at some point, if you succumb to the teachings too – you may yet prove that you were never God’s in the first place. c. [Slide 21] 10 – If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house i. Anyone – actually broadens John’s thought. Before, apostates were in view (those who had gone out) but now it is anyone who does not bring what they had taught. Or to put it positively, anyone who brings a message other than normal Christological confession. What do you do with these folks? ii. Not even receive them into our houses? Wow. That seems kinda harsh right? iii. This could mean either deny hospitality or even deny them entrance into a house church. In either case the point is made that they ought not to bring these false teachers in among them and effectively approve of their message. iv. This is a far cry from how we treat false teachers today. Many reach out and carefully attempt to lovingly woo them into the fold. Some even invite them to their churches to debate and lovingly correct. John says don’t even let them in the door. v. But wait – there’s more. d. [Slide 22] and do not give him any greeting. i. Do not even say to them – Good day! Hello! Good Morning! ii. Wow, really? iii. The greeting here no doubt implies an expression of welcoming and even (as we see in letters) a recognition of what is true of them in Christ. How can you express welcome or truth about them when all that is simply not true. John is basically saying – don’t lie. iv. Why? e. [Slide 23] 11 – because the person who gives him a greeting shares in his evil deeds. i. Welcoming them into your home and expressing to them what is true of a Christian but what is definitely not true of them – only serves to confuse. ii. That is the evil deeds of the apostate and false teacher – he sows confusion and destruction. iii. Expressing your welcome and even indicating that certain things are true of them when they aren’t – makes you the cause of confusion and destruction as well. f. [Slide 24] Passage Truth: John reiterates his point – that true children of God continue to walk in truth, love, and obedience. They do not stop. g. Passage Application: So what do they do with those who have stopped? Those who have left the faith and are now teaching a different gospel? Are we only to look out for them – or can we do more? John says to be unwelcoming to them and their teachings. h. [Slide 25] Broader Biblical Truth: All true believers continue to walk in truth, love and obedience. We know this. We have seen this truth taught in various contexts. So what else do we do with those who are false teachers? i. Broader Biblical Application: In order to walk in truth, love and obedience, you and I must have a passion to keep God’s church pure. To keep His gospel pure. Why? Because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. And anytime we add to or take away from the gospel that has been revealed, we make it something else entirely. When confronted with an apostate or false teacher who preaches an anti-Christ message… what does it mean to walk in truth, love, and obedience? It means to politely, without violence, have nothing to do with them. We see those false prophets of the old testament punished with death by stoning. In the New Testament Paul says if anyone, me, and angel, another apostle – if ANYONE presents another gospel to you – LET THEM BE ACCURSED! Let them be punished forever and ever. Transition: [Slide 26 (blank)] So how then can we live? Conclusion: Friends in the last year, so many people have deconverted from Christianity. So many have said, they once believed in God and Jesus, but now they see that the teachings of scripture are antiquated and out of touch and simply untenable. Added to this, there are so many voices out there – influential voices – voices that masquerade themselves as evangelical – yet do not teach the gospel of Jesus Christ. I’m not talking about those who might water down scripture – although they aren’t much better. Specifically, I am speaking of those who preach a Christ, a cross, a God, a Spirit that is not of the bible. Recently – one of these teachers was publicly exposed as a false teacher in a documentary that is now on Netflix – that if you haven’t seen, you should go see, called American Gospel. In addressing this confrontation this false teacher called the film demonic and dangerous. Probably because it had the audacity to suggest that his peddling of the prosperity gospel was in fact not the gospel at all. What ought to be our response to those who peddle a gospel that is less or more than the scripture tells us? Seriously! What are we to do with them? Pray for them? Seek to help them? Reach out to them? What? We are, in a word, unwelcoming of them. Let them be accursed. We ought to oppose them. “But I thought Christ tells us to pray for our enemies.” Yes pray for OUR enemies. But John has revealed them to be not OUR enemies but God’s. Just as we do not pray for Satan to repent – so also we do not pray for apostate false teacher to repent either. Let them be accursed. Why? That seems so unloving! That is because your love is focused on the wrong person. You are trying to love the enemy of God when you should be focused on loving first the children of God. For the sake of the purity of the church and those who are young in the faith – Let them be accursed. There is too much at stake, the work is too great, the time too short to waste our time praying for and lovingly welcoming false teaching apostates. Now I do want to clarify. John is not talking about your Christian friend who has a few things loose in his theology. John is not talking about the atheist, Satanist, wiccan or Muslim down the street that denies the God of the bible. He is specifically talking about those who were among us, who confessed the same things that we have or at least appeared to, and have left that behind to confess something different. Specifically, he is talking about Any person who claims to have or have had the gospel of the bible, but preaches something different… that is what he is talking about. John gives us clarity on how we are to respond to those who teach a different gospel than we have heard. They are enemies of God, so we reject them and their message. Not in a violent way, but in an aggressive way, not to harm them, but to defend the faith. This is walking in truth, love, and obedience. This is an expression of all who are genuine children of God. We defend the faith.

“I will fear no evil… for you are with me”. This is where David stops telling us about God… and starts talking to God! When a kid has a nightmare… he wants to BE WITH his mom and dad… Jesus often withdrew to a quiet place! Why…? We have lost the art of silence and solitude… Both God in the OT and Jesus in the NT assure us that one thing we can always count on… God will be and IS with us! And He’s with us because He’s FOR us! Deuteronomy 4:7 NLT - “For what great nation has a god as near to them as the Lord our God is near to us whenever we call on him?” Jesus’ most common invitation was “Follow Me”. Come… Learn from me… be with Me… The Christian faith is 1st and foremost, is an invitation to be with Jesus! The first-century Jews had a blessing that beautifully expresses the commitment of a disciple to stay in the presence of the one he followed: “May you always be covered by the dust of your rabbi.” That is, “May you follow him so closely that the dust his feet kicks up is what cakes your clothing and lines your face.” ** The ancient Talmud actually has a story about a disciple who snuck under his rabbi’s bed so that he would be present when the rabbi and his wife went to bed with each other. He was discovered, and the rabbi wanted to know what his prize pupil was doing... His response was a classic: “This too is Torah, and I need to learn!” John Ortberg – What mattered was not so much the particular activity they were doing. What mattered was being with their rabbi whatever was going on. Every activity was an opportunity to learn from the rabbi how to be like the rabbi. I can be “sitting at Jesus feet” when I’m kneeling in prayer or negotiating a contract or fixing my kids lunch or watching a movie. All it requires is my asking him to be my teacher and companion in this moment. You may be facing death, but you aren’t facing death alone; the Lord is with you. You may be facing unemployment, but you aren’t facing unemployment alone; the Lord is with you. You may be facing marital struggles, but you aren’t facing them alone; the Lord is with you. You may be facing debt,but you aren’t facing debt alone; the Lord is with you. Say it out loud... I am not alone! Your family my turn against you, but God won’t. Your friends may betray you, but God won’t. You may feel alone in the wilderness, but you are not. He is with you.

HEALED SERIES: ANXIETYSUNDAY, MARCH 7, 2020Anxiety: A feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease; typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.Excessive uneasiness and apprehension can become a disorder, and can be accompanied by compulsive behavior or panic attacks.The Scripture boldly instructs us, “Take every thought captive!” A few scientific facts:1. 60-80 percent of visits to primary care physicians have a stress-related component.2. 75-98 percent of mental, physical, and behavioral illnesses stem from one’s thought life.3. We have learned more about the brain in the last 20 years than in all of history combined.4. All toxic lifestyle habits and crimes stem from a toxic thought. Both God and the Devil operate on the level of thought.The interrupting thought to an out of control mental spiral is CHOICE.Romans 8:5 - To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace!FAITH displaces the lie that we are not able to be free from anxiety.The FAITH language disrupts the language of the LIE. Many times we try to fight a “feeling” with a “feeling”. To fight anxiety we must realize FAITH is not a feeling, it is a thought life. We can fight a thought on the level of thought.The reason we are fruitless in overcoming anxiety is because the cares of life Jesus talked about in Matthew, rise up and choke out the Word of God that carries the promise of freedom.Anxiety is not bigger than GOD!Community Group Questions:1. Have you ever been anxious about something that had a funny ending?2. What are ways to take every thought captive?3. What are examples of the language of Faith?ANNOUNCEMENTSBasics – If you are new to Life Chapel or wanting to get involved, our next Basics class is March 15th. You can text “chapelevents” to 97000 to sign up and receive more information.

The relationships that you forge in this life are critical to your success or your failure. Both God and Satan influence people. Some are vessels used to bless others and some are used as emissaries of destruction. There is a difference between being suspicions and being discerning. Scripture teaches us that bad company can corrupt good morals. You can have the best of intentions, but if you are surrounded by people who do not want the best for you or do not want to allow you to see yourself growing and prospering, it can cause you to be defeated. The sooner you recognize what the objectives or agendas are, you will be able to still love, while determining the degree of safe access. You must be aware so that the toxic behavior of others does not pollute your good intentions. It is good to give people the benefit of the doubt, but don’t be naive. When you love people, you will be vulnerable. You will at some point be hurt. There is no getting around it. You can however, spare yourself unnecessary hurt, by taking charge of your atmosphere. Negative people can corrupt your good ideas and intentions. Let’s be a part of building others up and not tearing them down.

Psalm 33 is a beautiful example of pure praise to God as it celebrates His character, power, and sovereignty. It is believed to be linked to the previous Psalm 32 as the befitting response of those who have had their sins forgiven and have been counted righteous. The Psalm generally calls all people to praise God for who He is -righteous and just- and what He has done in creation and in fulfilling His purposes in all the earth. Both God's character and power are necessary to carry out His sovereign purposes. A just God who is impotent is incapable of carrying out His own good will- an omnipotent God who is not inherently just would be treacherous. But because God is both good and all-powerful, He can always be trusted to act in ways consistent with his essential nature.--Psalm 33 celebrates the enduring quality of God's creation as a foundation for people to trust and hope in Him- but in the end it is not the creation, but the Creator, God Himself, who inspires the Psalmist's hope, as well as the hope of all those upon whom His favor rests.

It’s hard to fight the false narrative that working harder, making more money, and acquiring more stuff will bring happiness and fulfillment. My guest today is here to debunk that myth and help us discovery what’s truly most important to us. Get ready, because Meredith McDaniel is going to share her incredible wisdom about what we are truly searching for as humans. Meredith is a licensed professional counselor and owner of her own private practice, Milk and Honey Counselling. She is a graduate of the Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and has served on staff with Young Life and worked as the lead counselor for Inheritance of Hope. She has a new book coming out next week on January 21st, 2020 called In Want + Plenty: Waking Up to God’s Provision In a Land of Longing. I highly recommend you preorder it right away. I’ve already had the chance to read it, and it is simply incredible. Meredith says that she feels called to sit with and listen to the stories of women and men, helping them discover who they are and experience life more fully. She enjoys entering into the quiet places of people’s lives in a safe setting to offer hope and help others taste of the Land of Milk and Honey. It was so refreshing, encouraging, and challenging to speak with Meredith today. Join me for this serene moment with Meredith McDaniel. 3:07 – The Meredith 101 Meredith is a licensed counselor who also went to seminary. She completed her Master of Christian Counseling program at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. She studied core bible classes, but her main focus was integrating Christianity and Psychology. It’s so important for the Church to care not only for people’s spiritual lives, but for people’s mental health as well. About half of Meredith’s clients in her private practice are walking with the Christian faith and half of them are not. Her goal is to provide a safe space for people to process their lives. She doesn’t approach sessions from an evangelical mindset, but questions like “Who Am I?”, “Why Am I Here?”, and “What Is My Purpose?” often come up naturally in sessions with people who don’t identify as Christians.    Meredith has been encouraged that the stigma with mental health has started to wane. There are far more organizations speaking about anxiety and depression, and more conversations are happening on podcasts and social media. In the near future, Meredith will work with a local school to provide counseling onsite so that students don’t have to worry about missing as much school to get to appointments. 10:08 – A Universal Feeling: Purpose & Meaning  There’s a common story that brings us all together: We all want meaning and purpose in our lives no matter what our beliefs and backgrounds. Meredith calls it a yearning. Some feel it deeper than others, but we all feel it to some degree. Meredith began to notice a pattern that no matter what season of life people are in, many different people feel as if their lives are unraveling and they’ve lost sight of their purpose. Many people feel stuck in that space and don’t feel like they can pull themselves out of it. The key seems to be finding movement and seeing our lives in a new way while being at peace with knowing there are a lot of factors out of our control. This is what gave Meredith the ideas for much what she wrote for In Want & Plenty: In Want + Plenty: Waking Up to God's Provision in a Land of Longing. 13:40 - The Exodus Provision Meredith compares our modern lives to biblical characters who wandered in the wilderness for years. Our mouths are dry, and our stomachs are rumbling, and we are wandering. Think about it this way: We wake up, we scroll through our phones, our minds are running with to do lists, we don’t stop to breathe, stretch or sweat, and we have trouble connecting to each other in a real way. If you take a closer look, we can relate to the people in the story of Exodus and other parts of the bible. Meredith talks about the idea of “manna” both in her book and often on social media. If you’re not familiar with that term, the Hebrew translation is literally, “What Is It?” The dictionary definition from biblical context is “the substance miraculously supplied as food to the Israelites in the wilderness (Exodus 16).” Meredith summarizes the feeling of a “manna moment” to be a moment where God has provided for her in a way that she was surprised by that she didn’t quite fully understand. Sometimes “manna moments” come in the form of things we may not like or prefer. We may not know why certain things happen, but we can surrender and trust that God has the big picture that we can’t see. We want what we want, and we want it right now, but if we can unearth the manna that is in every single corner of our lives, it completely changes our view and we start recognizing it. 21:13 – How to Hunt for Manna In her book, Meredith equips readers to look for manna in their lives. The number one way to do this is slowing down. Our world is too fast and we don’t have the time or space to absorb what’s happening beneath the surface in our lives. Slowing down could look different from person to person. What does it look like to you to make space and prioritize certain things in your life? For Meredith, one thing that helps her slow down is music. To sit and listen to a song and absorb it can help you recognize things in your own heart and soul before going back into the world to do what you’re called to do. Anything that helps calm our systems will help us fight anxiety and/or depression. Movement, exercise, and time in nature can also help our systems calm. Eating well and being aware of what we put in our minds and bodies helps greatly. All these things inspire us for the work we are meant to do. We have to take care of our whole being – our mental well-being as well as our physical well-being. Prayer, actively slowing down to nourish our spiritual lives, and patience prepares us to recognize manna moments when they’re fulfilled. If life is a marathon, how are we fueling our bodies, minds, and souls? If we try to look at all the things we need and want to do, we become overwhelmed. It’s important for people to realize it’s ok if they can’t do it all. We can rely on God, on others, on counseling. It’s important to remember the long game. It’s a lifelong journey and it’s ok to slow down and relinquish some control. 33:48 – It’s Not All on Our Shoulders  It can feel daunting to look back at your life. Most of us don’t want to sit with feelings from the past or even the present. We only want to look forward. It can be painful to do the work of looking back. That’s when we can lean on our communities, friends, and family members we trust. Sometimes that community includes a therapist or spiritual director who is willing to make a space for you to process your life. In the story of Exodus in the Bible, the Israelites found their voice in desperation. There are so many examples of them crying to God in desperation. God still wants us to cry out to him. It’s easy in our modern lives to think we have to pretend that we have it all together and hide our feelings from others and even from God. That’s what keeps a lot of us separated from God and from the people we’re blessed to have in our lives. When we can’t manage things on our own, it’s ok to ask for help and focus on healing. Both God and our communities want us to ask for help. We can surrender and trust God, even when it feels like our prayers and not being answered. 21:43 - We’ve got to slow down. Our world is so fast-paced and the content we have at our fingertips and in our ears at any point is crowding out the space we have to hear, see, and listen, and absorb what is happening beneath the surface.” 22:30 “I think it’s really important that we have time where we are just processing our story from the beginning of our life to wherever we are now…” 32:30 - “It’s more of a mystery, this whole life thing. It’s a case by case basis based on our own personality and who and how we were made to be. If we’re disconnected than the one who made us, it makes sense that we would be walking around feeling a little bit disoriented…” 33:00 - “I am part of a greater story. I get to play a role and it’s a gift and an honor to get to play a small role in the grander, rescue narrative, but I am not the main character and that is relieving and very freeing to me to get to lean in to it from that perspective.” 42:30 – “My prayer is that people would start to hunt for the manna: When they’re holding that ache of both (what they) want and experiencing the abundance of the plenty, that they would be able to see the manna in both.” Meredith’s book In Want + Plenty: Waking Up to God’s Provision In a Land of Longing comes out January 21st, 2020. You can find it at basically all the book places (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.) as well as Meredith’s website. You can preorder it now! There are even extra goodies that come with preorder including a song with lyrics, a beautiful print, and access to early chapters. All you have to do is go HERE and enter your order number to claim your extras. They will arrive to your inbox on January 21st.  44:41 - Getting to Know Our Guest Find out what rejuvenates Meredith (she hasn’t shared this with many people!), her favorite TV to watch growing up, what she’s reading, and something that’s really important to her but she never gets a chance to talk about. Be sure to stay tuned for Meredith’s answer to the question I ask all my guests: “What Does it Mean to You to Run a Business with Purpose?”   Thank you our sponsor for this episode of the Business with Purpose Podcast: noissue! noissue. is the online platform for designing and ordering custom, sustainable packaging for your business or brand. With low minimum order quantities, worldwide delivery in three weeks or less (for free!!!), and a team of designers ready to help, noissue is making customized packaging accessible for businesses of all shapes and sizes. You can use the promo code purpose15 for 15% off your first order! Subscribe To The "Business With Purpose" Podcast:

E1. ABIDING IN THE VINE 1. We’ve found the secret of living, We’ve seen the vision divine: We are of God in Christ Jesus, We’re abiding, abiding in the vine. C. Abiding in the vine, Abiding in the vine, All the riches of God’s life are mine! Praise God, He put us here, Never to leave; oh, we’re— Abiding, abiding in the vine. 2. No more in vain need we struggle, Trying the way in to find. Praise God—we’re in Him already, Hallelujah, abiding in the vine. 3. In us, the ointment is moving, ’Tis the anointing divine; God’s precious essence bestowing, While abiding, abiding in the vine. 4. Now in the life-flow we’re living, O how the light in us shines! Both God and man are at home now By the mutual abiding in the vine.

E1. ABIDING IN THE VINE 1. We’ve found the secret of living, We’ve seen the vision divine: We are of God in Christ Jesus, We’re abiding, abiding in the vine. C. Abiding in the vine, Abiding in the vine, All the riches of God’s life are mine! Praise God, He put us here, Never to leave; oh, we’re— Abiding, abiding in the vine. 2. No more in vain need we struggle, Trying the way in to find. Praise God—we’re in Him already, Hallelujah, abiding in the vine. 3. In us, the ointment is moving, ’Tis the anointing divine; God’s precious essence bestowing, While abiding, abiding in the vine. 4. Now in the life-flow we’re living, O how the light in us shines! Both God and man are at home now By the mutual abiding in the vine.

Hey guys. Are you going through adversity or anxiety or fear or depression right now? If so, stay tuned because this session is for you. How do I bring my faith to work? How do I tap into the power of God in my work life call? Why am I going through this adversity? Is God mad at me? I'm Os Hillman and I've been helping leaders like you answer these questions and more for over 30 years. That's what this podcast is all about. Let's learn and grow together. Welcome to TGIF Today God is First. And welcome to our podcast this week. You know today we're going to be talking about adversity and overcoming hindrances to our life. And it's a topic that I teach a lot about because I went through some major adversities back in 1994 that really changed my life. And so if you find yourself in that place, this session is for you. You know, I've been teaching this session overcoming hindrances to fulfill your destiny for many years. Because I feel like I'm an authority on this topic. And so today's session is a teaching that I did a few weeks ago for a nightly meeting that I did on overcoming hindrances. And you know, it's really tied to what I went through in 1994, where I had major losses in my life. I lost over a half a million dollars. I had my wife leave me after going through extensive counseling. I had 80% of my business disappear within a few weeks when a client stuck me for $140,000. And then my vice president left me and took my second largest account in my ad agency. And this ushered me into a seven year season of adversity. And man I thought life was over. But you know, two years into that adversity I met Gunnar Olson, the founder of the International Christian Chamber of Commerce. And in our first meeting, he listened to my story and he said, "Os, you have a Joseph calling on your life." And I said, "What is a Joseph calling?" And so he explained it to me. And that would ultimately lead to a relationship that's been over 25 years now. I just talked with him last week and he's been a spiritual mentor to me and father in the marketplace for me. And so this session will help you understand some of the dynamics that we can go through that can hinder us from fulfilling our destiny. And over that time, here now over almost 30 years, I've discovered many of the things that cause my adversity and now I'm able to help many others. So I hope that you'll find this session helpful to you. So let's go ahead and begin the teaching. I was teaching in Scotland a number of years ago, and someone came up to me after going through this session that I'm about to share with you and said, "I just realized something. You must become a free agent before you can become a change agent." And I said, "Well, that's very true. Both God and Satan want you dead but each for different reasons." In second Corinthians four, Paul says, "For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus's sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh so then death is working in us but life in you." And then we see in first Peter five, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." And so Satan wants to kill your destiny. I once heard a mentor of mine say, "Dead men can't have stress." And I said, "Well, that's kind of obvious isn't it. If he can't get out of the coffin he's certainly not going to have stress." In Romans six, it says, "Likewise you also recon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." I once had a mentor say to me, "The only thing wrong with you Os is that you're not dead yet. As soon as you let your flesh die, you will be free. So I suggest you die quietly." What happens at spiritual birth? Well, we all know that our human existence is made up of spirit, soul, and body. And when we become born again, our spirits instantly become 100% holy by the power of the holy spirit and God's work in our life. But our mind and will and emotions, which reside in our soul, they don't get redeemed completely in the sense that we don't change immediately. It's a process of sanctification. And that sanctification will go on until we die. And then of course we have the physical body. But we relate to God through our spirit. First Thessalonians 5:23 says, "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of the lord Jesus Christ." So that's where we get spirit, soul, and body. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms. We live in a war zone, and the prize that Satan wants is our heart." You know, years ago I read the fictional story of Screwtape by C.S. Lewis. One of his great works. It's about a demon coaching an underling demon. And he says to that demon, "I wonder if you should ask me whether it is a essential to keep the patient in ignorance of your own existence. That question at least for the present phase of the struggle has been answered for us by the high command. Our policy for the moment is to conceal ourselves." C.S. Lewis once said, "There are two mistakes the church makes when dealing with the devil. To blame everything on him or to blame nothing on him." Here's an amazing statistic. 24% of the general population believe that Satan is real and 52% of Christians believe Satan is real, which means 48% of them don't believe he's real. When you're deceived you don't know you are deceived. Satan's strategy is to kill. Jesus and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. So Satan tried to kill Jesus at birth. Now what are Satan's three greatest lies to human beings? These are common to every person. Every one of us have been tempted by these statements. You are powerless over your circumstances. You are a victim of an unjust God who left you here to suffer. Just think about it. Have you ever thought those thoughts, that you're powerless over your circumstances or that you're a victim of an unjust God who doesn't love you, who left you hear to suffer and deal with this stuff all by yourself? If you're honest, you've probably felt that way at one time or another. We blame God for evil. In Mark 14:27 it says, "Jesus told him, 'You're all going to feel that your world is falling apart and it's my fault.'" He was saying that to the disciples. The story of your life is a story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could become and he fears it. That is the one thing Satan fears is that you're going to really know the truth because the truth shall make you free. "For I am poor and needy and my heart is wounded within me," said the psalmist in psalm 109. You see, Satan, that word Satan means opposer. And some of the characteristics of Satan are found throughout the scripture. He's an angel of light, he seeks to kill and destroy, he's an accuser. He deceives and lies. He wars against those who obey. He's a lion, a devourer to kill. He blinds unbelievers. So we need to know our enemy and how he works against us. Finally, be strong in the lord and his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you've done everything to stand. For this purpose the sun of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. You see, that was another reason Jesus came to earth, was to destroy the works of the devil. You know I'm often asked by people about why do we go through adversity? And I believe there are four core reasons we will go through adversity. The first one is a consequence of the call. Joseph went through his adversity because of a consequence of the call. It wasn't because of any sin that he did. He was a typical teenage boy that might have been a little bit narcissistic. But it wasn't because of a major sin. And God used that to save an entire people. The second reason we can go through adversity is sin. Gehazi sinned against his employer Elisha, and as a result he was struck with leprosy because he wanted to get money from the general that was healed by Elisha. And so God judged his sin and if we have any open doors in our life then God will judge those sins. A third reason we can go through is sonship. And sonship means that God's going to treat us as sons and daughters, which means there are times that he needs to reprove us and to really correct us in order that we fulfill the purpose and destiny has over our life. A fourth reason we can go through adversity is spiritual warfare. As I've said earlier, John 10:10 says, "Satan wants to steal, kill and destroy from your life. But Jesus wants to give you life." And so there's a war on earth vying for our heart. And so our job is to understand what reason we might be going through adversity and it could be a combination of these. But ask the lord and show him, what is the root. Now Jesus had no sin in his life and when he said this verse out of John 14, it references the fact that he had no sin so he would never go through adversity because of sin. He says to the disciples, "Hereafter, I'll not talk much with you for the prince of this world cometh and that nothing in me." Basically that says, there's nothing in him that he has a right to. There was no sin. There was no open door in his life. He had no entry to Jesus's life due to his sinless life. Now, therefore my primary hindrance is to becoming a Christian who transforms your workplace. And I've talked about this in the past and that is an un-biblical view of work in ministry. We need to understand the holy calling that is upon us. Colossians 3:23 says, "Whatever you do, do unto the lord. It's the lord Christ you are serving." And then there's a Greek versus Hebraic view of God. If we fall to the Greek influence in our relationship with God, that can hinder us and then the religious sprit and generational strongholds. And we're going to talk about the ladder three of these hindrances tonight. I've talked over the years about this sacred secular and this dichotomy of calling. If there's one statement I hate hearing it's, I'm in full-time ministry. Well, we're all in full-time ministry. We just get our checks different places. And that's not a higher calling. We need to define our ministry as anything that we're doing that's not against the will of God as a holy calling. So whatever you do, do unto the lord. It tells us in Colossians 3:23. Hindrance number two deals more with the influence of the Greek philosophers versus the Hebraic roots. There's a prophetic verse in Zechariah 9:13, "For I have bent Judah my bow, fitted the bow with Ephraim and raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons. O Greece made you like the sword of a mighty man." And so this is a prophetic verse about the conflict between the Hebraic heart set versus the Greek mindset. Hebraic deals with the heart and it's active and appeals to the heart. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and appeals to the intellect. The Greek philosophers understood the difference between Greek and Hebraic roots. So you see Greeks acquired wisdom by reason and analysis and Hebrews acquired wisdom by obedience. Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom in the early church." Understood that knowledge was not what changed the world. It was the power of God working through people. Paul said, "My message in my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." Paul wrote that explaining that the reason he was so effective was it had nothing to do with his knowledge and his persuasive oratory skills, but it was because of the power of God working though him. Now there's two systems that you and I could be relating to God through and one of them would be the Hebraic system. And the Hebraic system is a process focus. Obedience is a priority and relationships are a priority and this yields transparency and love. And it produces mature believers. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and has more of a program focus. Information is a priority with controlled groups and this ends up being more service and activity based in our relationship toward God. And this ultimately produces shallow believers. Another hindrance is the religious spirit. See, Peter Wagner wrote, Freedom From the Religious Spirit. And in that book he defines the religious spirit as an agent of Satan assigned to prevent change and maintain the status quo by using religious devices. And of course that's what Jesus ran into in his ministry was the Pharisees. And that's what made him the angriest. "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill, and cumin, but you have neglected the more important matters of the law. Justice, mercy, and faithfulness." So the spirit of religion says I must do something to be acceptable by God. It puts people under the yoke of bondage and legalism. Religion divides us into sacred secular mentality. And religion says only overt spiritual activity is acceptable to God. If you remember the chariots of fire, the runner from Scotland, Eric Little. He told his sister, "When I run, I feel his pleasure." Well his sister thought running was a secular idea and he needed to be on the mission field. But in reality Eric was a more spiritual person. Another spirit of religion comment would be bible study at work is not necessary. I go to church on Sunday. That would be a statement that comes from a religious spirit. Why do I need to participate in a kingdom initiative like that? Religion versus relationship looks like this. I had this vision of this diagram years ago that I had an illustrator make up. And so many of us have grown up thinking that well if I do all these things on the right, prayer and devotions and church attendance and bible study and giving money and witnessing and perform and be a church volunteer, then I'll earn God's love and acceptance and favor. But the truth is it's the exact opposite. When we love God, and when we know and understand the acceptance of God, and know his favor, the byproduct of that is that we want to engage in prayer, we want to do devotions, we want to study our bible, we want to be witnesses as salt and light to our community. These become byproducts of a healthy relationship with God. The religious spirit motivates believers to live out their faith in legalistic and rigid ways. And this is especially evident in the south. Now let's spend the balance of our time talking about spiritual warfare strongholds and childhood wounds. I want you to meet John tonight. He had a need for recognition from performance. Things like civic projects and sports and business success. He had an emphasis on building financial security and so he became a workaholic. He lacked emotional intimacy in his marriage and with other people, and he had an activity based relationship towards God very Greek based. And he exhibited symptoms of over controlling people and circumstances. Well, that person was me. I came out of a family of three generations of business owners and our generation stronghold was insecurity and fear that resulted in motivations to control people and circumstances around us. And the bible says in second Corinthians 10:5, "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." So a stronghold can come into our lives because we have a need and we don't understand how to meet that need without allowing ourselves to be opened up to a stronghold. The opposite of stronghold is exhibited in Ephesians 3:17. "And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." So you and I were created with seven basic needs. We have a need for dignity and authority, for blessing, and for vision and security, for purpose and meaning and freedom and boundaries, and intimate love and companionship. These are seen in Genesis one and two. They're not listed like this, but they're evidenced in how God related to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were born with all of these needs and God met those needs for them. But whenever we seek to meet one or more of these basic needs outside God, we have set the stage for the development of a generational stronghold. Satan convinced Eve to believe God was holding out on her and he would not meet her needs so she chose to meet her own need. Let's look at some examples of generational strongholds. We see deceit and lying in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We see control with Laban, Rebecca, Jacob, and King Saul. We see a sexual stronghold in David, Rahab, Bathsheba, Absalom, Abner, and Solomon. In fact, it would be a pretty good bet that David was probably an illegitimate son. You see, he says in Psalm 51 that I was conceived in iniquity. And then when you look at the fact that his father didn't even consider him when the prophet Samuel came to look at his sons as potential candidates to be the next king. We can surmise from that that perhaps David, not only was he the littlest and smallest, maybe that he was conceived in iniquity. Well, I learned more about this stronghold concept when a mentor of mine who created this workbook that we later published for him. He said, "There's no problem with you Os. You just have a stronghold of insecurity and fear." And I said, "You can't prove that." And he says, "Oh, I think I can." And so, he had me take this little self-assessment tool and rank each one of these symptoms from one to 10 and then added the total and took the average. So that, as you can see in the example on the top right, deceit ... The attributes were six, two, one, nine, and seven for different characteristics. You add those numbers up and divide by six, or five I guess it is, you get the average number of five. So you would do that with each one of these strongholds. So when I did it, I did control, and I would rank those and that became the highest one. And then fear and insecurity, that also was a high one at the time. So he took me through a process of prayer and confession in order to deal with those strongholds. We eventually published a book about this, a workbook called Demolishing Strongholds. We only had the PDF version of that online. But you can find it on our website at tgifbookstore.com. It's a wonderful resource and I've used it to counsel many people over the years. So spiritual strongholds work at the subconscious level. Their influence is often unseen until there is a problem. Strongholds are designed to keep us from experiencing God's love and they're often generational as I have said. All strongholds that are built in our lives are a result of seeking to meet one or more of these needs apart from God's will for us. So here's how a stronghold develops. Satan inspires a thought into my mind subconsciously. We're not even conscious of it. Which appeals to my natural tendencies to meet needs. We entertain these thoughts and it brings on emotions. And then we give in to emotions and this eventually leads to some sort of action. And continual participation in this behavior causes me to develop a habit. And once a habit's developed a stronghold is built by that spirit. Now, strongholds oppress versus possess. They control, dictate, and influence our attitudes and behavior. Remember when Jesus was speaking to Peter. He said, "Peter, Satan has wanted to sift you." And he was telling him that Satan was impacting his thought life. So strongholds oppress and discourage us and affect how we view or react to situations, circumstances, or people. I was once in Singapore and a woman came up to me after I'd spoken on this topic and she said, "Oh, would you go to lunch with me and my friend?" And I had lunch available so I went with them and she was very, very aggressive and I could see some things that were coming through her that I picked up on. So when we were at lunch I said, "Tell me about your father. What kind of relationship do you have with your father?" And she said, "Well, why in the world would you want to ask me that? I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about something else." And I said, "Well just humor me. Just tell me how your relationship is with your dad." And she said, "Oh, it's not good. He says I'll never amount to anything and he says I'm fat and he just doesn't have good things to say about me." And I said, "Well, you have a spirit of rejection over your life and part of the reason that you're very, very aggressive is because you're seeking to get approval and you have to be successful at all costs because one of the vows that you've made is that you're going to prove your value to your father by being successful. And so you're a slave to what your father has said about you. So you need to pray. We need to break that over you." And we did. She began to cry as I began to share that with her. And we broke that over her that day at lunch and her whole countenance changed. I also believe that strongholds are a lot like wearing sunglasses. Let's say that you're born with sunglasses on and you go through life wearing those sunglasses and one day it's cloudy and a man says, "Did you know that if you took those sunglasses off you'd be able to see much clearer?" And so you take those sunglasses off and you say, "Oh my gosh, look how bright it is out here." Well that's the way strongholds are. You don't really know that you're operating in that until symptoms begin to show up. So what we need to do is understand where the entry points of those strongholds came in. And one of the resources that we found helpful in addition to our book on demolishing strongholds is a book called Operating In the Courts of Heaven, by Robert Henderson. This book is a great book to help you understand how the devil operates from a legal basis and how we need to do business in heaven at the legal court in heaven as he is our defender. Now, we need to look at the role shame plays in our life. Shame says I am a failure or a mistake, whereas guilt says I made a mistake, but I am not a mistake. We need to understand the difference and walk in Godly guilt versus shame. But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every good man's conscience in the sight of God. So I want to pause for a moment and say that if you have any questions or comments, please enter them in the chat area or the Q&A area. Just tell me what you think. Tell me what God's speaking to you about this area in your life. And if you have any questions I'd love to take those. I want to spend the last few minutes talking about arrested development. And this is out of a book called Broken Children, Grown Up Pain, by Dr. Paul Hegstrom. Dr. Hegstrom passed away last year. He was a good friend of mine. And I actually went through counseling with him years ago. He says, "When a wounded childhood frees his emotional maturity to within two years of a wound, the adult lives as a child emotionally." That's what it means to be arrested in your development. In other words, somebody might say, "Well he's acting like a child." Well, that might be really true. Because your emotional state in life, even as an adult, you might be living as a 12 year old emotionally because you had a trauma happen in your life that froze you emotionally. So we need to understand that arrested development is caused by the wounds of childhood and amplifies or magnifies our sin nature. The deeper the wounds, the more we act selfishly and childishly. And when we have too much childhood trauma, we're hindered in our ability to develop genuine healthy relationships with our creator and others close to us. We can't readily reach out or accept others because our wounds have made us unteachable. Unable to trust and afraid of truth. Now I believe that Michael Jackson was arrested in his development. Many people felt that there was a sexual issue with him because he liked to hang out with kids. I think that he was arrested in his development and was probably emotionally around a 12 or 13 year old because his father beat him growing up when he didn't sing songs the way he thought he should sing them. And so he had some deep wounds. We also need to realize that when we are impacted from arrested development we can become a false self and we can be a poser in our way we handle ourselves and try to be somebody that we're not. So we seek to hide from our true self because our shame says we will not be acceptable to others as we are. We are driven to hide behind our fig leaf, our false self or false covering that protects us from our true self. This all happens on a subconscious basis as a built in protection mechanism from wounds we received as a child. You know, the movie Groundhog Day is a good example of this where he learns something about him every time he goes through a 24 hour period. And as he goes through each one of those 24 hour periods he changed one aspect of his behavior to get a different outcome. And that's kind of like what we're talking about with our false self and poser. Hegstrom says 90% of our marital difficulties are rooted in a trauma experienced by one or more spouses between the age of five and nine. Arrested development sabotages the heart's good intentions and turns us into a spiritual hypocrite. We all require others to live by the rules we were required to live by in childhood. What does that mean? Well, let's say that you're in a situation that, let's say you're a business owner. And you see people that are just totally inept around you and you really lose your patience because you've been trained to do things with excellence and you've been trained to have high performance. So when you don't see that in others, you get angry. Your expectations are not being met. So you're living by a rule that you were required to live by in your life. And this can show up in a lot of different ways. In perfectionism, impatience, and shame. Competence becomes our method of dealing with a wounded heart. So we can hide behind our competence and compensate for our own pain through our competence. John Eldridge said his plan from the beginning was to assault the heart, just as the wicked witch did to the tin woodman. Make them so busy they ignore the heart and wound them so deeply they don't want a heart. Twist their theology so they despise the heart. Take away their courage, destroy their creativity. Make intimacy with God impossible for them. Of course your heart would be the object of a great and fierce battle. It's your most precious possession. Without your heart you cannot have God. Without your heart you cannot have love. Without your heart you cannot have faith. Without your heart you cannot find the work you were meant to do. In other words, without your heart you cannot have life. "He delivers the afflicted in their affliction and opens their ears to his voice in adversity," says Job. God forces us back into or wound to learn the truth about our wound in order to become healed and free. It says that Satan is an accuser. "Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down." So what voice are you listening to when you hear something in your head that accuses you? Are you listening to that accuser? Whenever we grant anyone other than Jesus Christ authority to tell us who we are, we've made that person a god in our life and entered into idolatry. Let's say that you grew up with a parent that said you're never going to amount to anything, or you're not good at this or that, and you were criticized. You were even shamed. Well, you've got to correct that identity and not believe that identity because that's not what God says about you. You need to believe what God says about you. Let's talk for a moment about addictions. Addictions are anything you cannot willingly stop. Addictions are rooted in the need to be loved. And anything you cannot lay down by an act of your will is an addiction. It's a counterfeit desire for love and intimacy. It becomes an isolation chamber designed to mask our pain. In the brain we have something called a neurotransmitter. It emits two feel good hormones. Serotonin and dopamine. Negative or painful emotion causes the under secretion of serotonin. And that's where Satan comes into our hypothalamus and the brain stem connection. And this is where we drop in serotonin. But if we start looking at pornography or we do something that makes us feel good, it helps to bring our serotonin back. It gives us a high. And that is what leads to addictive behavior. The neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin act as chemical messengers that relay nerve signals through the brain. Dopamine regulates muscle movement, motivation, and the sensation of pleasure. Whereas serotonin primarily affects mood, impulsiveness, and social behaviors. My good friend Craig Hill wrote a small book that talks about the lies of an addiction. Anyone caught in addiction believes that God is not faithful and that the addictive habit will satisfy their addiction. They believe the habit is stronger than the power of God and that addiction is just the way you are. So they're all lies. They're false beliefs, if you will, that Satan plants into our life. Now, men who struggle with sex. Sometimes if a man was not nurtured growing up, he can be a sexualized adult. In other words, he may not necessarily be a sex addict, but he's an affection addict. So sex becomes that affection for him and he'll often look to the wife to get what they did not get in childhood. Maybe they didn't get touched much in childhood. Or hugs. They lack touch. And they came to know sex as love. And the unfortunate thing is the wife can never satisfy that hunger for live if that root issue is not dealt with. And you might even hear the wife say, "You're a sex addict," when he might not necessarily be a sex addict. It might be a basic need that was never met as a child. When we live in compromise we lose confidence in the faith dimension of our lives. We struggle to hear the voice of God, which forces us to live our Christian life through performance and the flesh. In Psalm 106 he says, "And he gave them their requests but sent leanness in their soul." Hey guys. I want to pause for a minute to tell you about something that just give you a heads up on. For the last many years we've been helping men and women like yourself understand what it means to live the larger story of your life. So my gift is really in teaching and I love encouraging believers to fulfill their purpose and destiny. So we've been thinking about a new initiative that could really help people and so we're getting close to announcing it, but we're not there yet. But if you want to know about that and be one of the first ones to know about it when we do release it, you can get on our waiting list. And we've set up a webpage just for that called becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. In addition, we provide a free download for you if you go on there and put your name on the waiting list. It's called Os Hillman's Top 10 Biblical Truths For Success In Life and Work. These are 10 areas that I believe contributed to my own journey with God and business. And I hope that this resource will be helpful to you. There's no cost. Just go to that. But you don't need to go there now. We'll make an announcement at the end of this as well so that you have that website address at your fingertips. Let's go back to the teaching and we'll talk about this later. God bless. So we overcome the influence of these strongholds by renouncing and repenting of their influence through the prayer of faith and Jesus's blood to cleanse us from these influences. Now whenever the reaction to a situation seems to be extreme compared to the offense, you can know there is unresolved pain or the enemy is at work in the situation. So if somebody gives you a response that is a 10, that should be a two on the Richter scale, you know that something is going on under the hood. That their behavior is not logical. So it merely indicates there is a root problem. It's like a dashboard and the lights on the dash coming on. What's the root of this behavior? So you need to revisit the wound. Identify the events, and then renounce it and ask God to bring healing to that area. Discover the lie. What agreement have you been making with the enemy? And apply the truth. The truth shall make you free. So the steps of freedom from a stronghold is one, identify the strongholds and their symptoms. Rank them from one to 10 by the level of influence they have. And work with someone close to you to confirm the strongholds and confess to renounce the influence of strongholds in Jesus's name. Each believer has the power of the holy spirit to renounce the influence of strongholds over their life as shown in second Corinthians 10:4. We have the divine power to demolish strongholds. And then you want to meditate and walk according to the word and renew your mind. One of the things I had to deal with, I was a workaholic. But it was rooted in fear. So I had to change the number of hours I was working because I was working out of fear. Any self-image contrary to the truth of who God says you are in the spirit is a false self-image. You must agree with God, not with your flesh or the devil. Who said that? That's what you need to ask every time something comes into your head that might be contrary to your identity. "Let this mind be in you. It is also in Jesus Christ." Philippians 2:5. So whatever God sets you free from this and automatically gives you an anointing to set other people free from the same thing you were a victim of. That is your payback on the enemy. For I the lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. Take a look at this. This is a fascinating comparison of two families over a 200 year generation. Max Jutes was married to an atheist woman. They had 560 descendants, 310 died as paupers, 150 criminals, seven murderers, 100 drunkards, one half of the women were prostitutes. It cost the US government 1.2 million in 19th century dollars. But Jonathan Edwards, a preacher, married a godly woman. They had 1,394 descendants, 295 graduated from college, three state governors, 13 college presidents, 65 professors, three US senators, 30 judges, 100 lawyers, 56 doctors, 75 military officers, 100 missionaries, preachers, and authors, and 80 held public office, three mayors, and one comptroller of the US. Don't tell me the gospel doesn't make a huge difference in family systems. So you need to transform your past into a new beginning. You need to realize your identity and learn to contend for it. All right, well that concludes our session for today. I hope that it was helpful and encouraging to you. If you want to go deeper in this topic, I have developed a book called Overcoming Hindrances to Fulfill Your Destiny. It has a lot more information in it and more teaching in this resource. It's only about 100 pages and you can get it off of our website at tgifbookstore.com. Earlier I mentioned about this new program that we're going to be launching soon, but we're not ready to announce it yet. But if you do want to know about it, just get on our waiting list and you'll be the first to be notified. You can go to our website, becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. And that will have your name on our waiting list and you'll be the first one to be notified. And you'll also receive a free resource called My Top 10 Biblical Truths for Succeeding in Life and Work. And this was a resource that I put together recently that were the top 10 things that I felt were the most important in my journey to be able to be successful in business and in ministry. So I hope that that will be of help to you. Just click on the website listed on the screen there. So we look forward to seeing you in the next session. We're doing weekly podcasts now. We've set up this on our YouTube page and also iTunes. If you just want to listen to the sessions you can listen to them on iTunes as well as YouTube at the TGIF At Work podcast. God bless. See you next time.

Hey guys. Are you going through adversity or anxiety or fear or depression right now? If so, stay tuned because this session is for you. How do I bring my faith to work? How do I tap into the power of God in my work life call? Why am I going through this adversity? Is God mad at me? I'm Os Hillman and I've been helping leaders like you answer these questions and more for over 30 years. That's what this podcast is all about. Let's learn and grow together. Welcome to TGIF Today God is First. And welcome to our podcast this week. You know today we're going to be talking about adversity and overcoming hindrances to our life. And it's a topic that I teach a lot about because I went through some major adversities back in 1994 that really changed my life. And so if you find yourself in that place, this session is for you. You know, I've been teaching this session overcoming hindrances to fulfill your destiny for many years. Because I feel like I'm an authority on this topic. And so today's session is a teaching that I did a few weeks ago for a nightly meeting that I did on overcoming hindrances. And you know, it's really tied to what I went through in 1994, where I had major losses in my life. I lost over a half a million dollars. I had my wife leave me after going through extensive counseling. I had 80% of my business disappear within a few weeks when a client stuck me for $140,000. And then my vice president left me and took my second largest account in my ad agency. And this ushered me into a seven year season of adversity. And man I thought life was over. But you know, two years into that adversity I met Gunnar Olson, the founder of the International Christian Chamber of Commerce. And in our first meeting, he listened to my story and he said, "Os, you have a Joseph calling on your life." And I said, "What is a Joseph calling?" And so he explained it to me. And that would ultimately lead to a relationship that's been over 25 years now. I just talked with him last week and he's been a spiritual mentor to me and father in the marketplace for me. And so this session will help you understand some of the dynamics that we can go through that can hinder us from fulfilling our destiny. And over that time, here now over almost 30 years, I've discovered many of the things that cause my adversity and now I'm able to help many others. So I hope that you'll find this session helpful to you. So let's go ahead and begin the teaching. I was teaching in Scotland a number of years ago, and someone came up to me after going through this session that I'm about to share with you and said, "I just realized something. You must become a free agent before you can become a change agent." And I said, "Well, that's very true. Both God and Satan want you dead but each for different reasons." In second Corinthians four, Paul says, "For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus's sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh so then death is working in us but life in you." And then we see in first Peter five, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." And so Satan wants to kill your destiny. I once heard a mentor of mine say, "Dead men can't have stress." And I said, "Well, that's kind of obvious isn't it. If he can't get out of the coffin he's certainly not going to have stress." In Romans six, it says, "Likewise you also recon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." I once had a mentor say to me, "The only thing wrong with you Os is that you're not dead yet. As soon as you let your flesh die, you will be free. So I suggest you die quietly." What happens at spiritual birth? Well, we all know that our human existence is made up of spirit, soul, and body. And when we become born again, our spirits instantly become 100% holy by the power of the holy spirit and God's work in our life. But our mind and will and emotions, which reside in our soul, they don't get redeemed completely in the sense that we don't change immediately. It's a process of sanctification. And that sanctification will go on until we die. And then of course we have the physical body. But we relate to God through our spirit. First Thessalonians 5:23 says, "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of the lord Jesus Christ." So that's where we get spirit, soul, and body. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms. We live in a war zone, and the prize that Satan wants is our heart." You know, years ago I read the fictional story of Screwtape by C.S. Lewis. One of his great works. It's about a demon coaching an underling demon. And he says to that demon, "I wonder if you should ask me whether it is a essential to keep the patient in ignorance of your own existence. That question at least for the present phase of the struggle has been answered for us by the high command. Our policy for the moment is to conceal ourselves." C.S. Lewis once said, "There are two mistakes the church makes when dealing with the devil. To blame everything on him or to blame nothing on him." Here's an amazing statistic. 24% of the general population believe that Satan is real and 52% of Christians believe Satan is real, which means 48% of them don't believe he's real. When you're deceived you don't know you are deceived. Satan's strategy is to kill. Jesus and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. So Satan tried to kill Jesus at birth. Now what are Satan's three greatest lies to human beings? These are common to every person. Every one of us have been tempted by these statements. You are powerless over your circumstances. You are a victim of an unjust God who left you here to suffer. Just think about it. Have you ever thought those thoughts, that you're powerless over your circumstances or that you're a victim of an unjust God who doesn't love you, who left you hear to suffer and deal with this stuff all by yourself? If you're honest, you've probably felt that way at one time or another. We blame God for evil. In Mark 14:27 it says, "Jesus told him, 'You're all going to feel that your world is falling apart and it's my fault.'" He was saying that to the disciples. The story of your life is a story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could become and he fears it. That is the one thing Satan fears is that you're going to really know the truth because the truth shall make you free. "For I am poor and needy and my heart is wounded within me," said the psalmist in psalm 109. You see, Satan, that word Satan means opposer. And some of the characteristics of Satan are found throughout the scripture. He's an angel of light, he seeks to kill and destroy, he's an accuser. He deceives and lies. He wars against those who obey. He's a lion, a devourer to kill. He blinds unbelievers. So we need to know our enemy and how he works against us. Finally, be strong in the lord and his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you've done everything to stand. For this purpose the sun of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. You see, that was another reason Jesus came to earth, was to destroy the works of the devil. You know I'm often asked by people about why do we go through adversity? And I believe there are four core reasons we will go through adversity. The first one is a consequence of the call. Joseph went through his adversity because of a consequence of the call. It wasn't because of any sin that he did. He was a typical teenage boy that might have been a little bit narcissistic. But it wasn't because of a major sin. And God used that to save an entire people. The second reason we can go through adversity is sin. Gehazi sinned against his employer Elisha, and as a result he was struck with leprosy because he wanted to get money from the general that was healed by Elisha. And so God judged his sin and if we have any open doors in our life then God will judge those sins. A third reason we can go through is sonship. And sonship means that God's going to treat us as sons and daughters, which means there are times that he needs to reprove us and to really correct us in order that we fulfill the purpose and destiny has over our life. A fourth reason we can go through adversity is spiritual warfare. As I've said earlier, John 10:10 says, "Satan wants to steal, kill and destroy from your life. But Jesus wants to give you life." And so there's a war on earth vying for our heart. And so our job is to understand what reason we might be going through adversity and it could be a combination of these. But ask the lord and show him, what is the root. Now Jesus had no sin in his life and when he said this verse out of John 14, it references the fact that he had no sin so he would never go through adversity because of sin. He says to the disciples, "Hereafter, I'll not talk much with you for the prince of this world cometh and that nothing in me." Basically that says, there's nothing in him that he has a right to. There was no sin. There was no open door in his life. He had no entry to Jesus's life due to his sinless life. Now, therefore my primary hindrance is to becoming a Christian who transforms your workplace. And I've talked about this in the past and that is an un-biblical view of work in ministry. We need to understand the holy calling that is upon us. Colossians 3:23 says, "Whatever you do, do unto the lord. It's the lord Christ you are serving." And then there's a Greek versus Hebraic view of God. If we fall to the Greek influence in our relationship with God, that can hinder us and then the religious sprit and generational strongholds. And we're going to talk about the ladder three of these hindrances tonight. I've talked over the years about this sacred secular and this dichotomy of calling. If there's one statement I hate hearing it's, I'm in full-time ministry. Well, we're all in full-time ministry. We just get our checks different places. And that's not a higher calling. We need to define our ministry as anything that we're doing that's not against the will of God as a holy calling. So whatever you do, do unto the lord. It tells us in Colossians 3:23. Hindrance number two deals more with the influence of the Greek philosophers versus the Hebraic roots. There's a prophetic verse in Zechariah 9:13, "For I have bent Judah my bow, fitted the bow with Ephraim and raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons. O Greece made you like the sword of a mighty man." And so this is a prophetic verse about the conflict between the Hebraic heart set versus the Greek mindset. Hebraic deals with the heart and it's active and appeals to the heart. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and appeals to the intellect. The Greek philosophers understood the difference between Greek and Hebraic roots. So you see Greeks acquired wisdom by reason and analysis and Hebrews acquired wisdom by obedience. Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom in the early church." Understood that knowledge was not what changed the world. It was the power of God working through people. Paul said, "My message in my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." Paul wrote that explaining that the reason he was so effective was it had nothing to do with his knowledge and his persuasive oratory skills, but it was because of the power of God working though him. Now there's two systems that you and I could be relating to God through and one of them would be the Hebraic system. And the Hebraic system is a process focus. Obedience is a priority and relationships are a priority and this yields transparency and love. And it produces mature believers. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and has more of a program focus. Information is a priority with controlled groups and this ends up being more service and activity based in our relationship toward God. And this ultimately produces shallow believers. Another hindrance is the religious spirit. See, Peter Wagner wrote, Freedom From the Religious Spirit. And in that book he defines the religious spirit as an agent of Satan assigned to prevent change and maintain the status quo by using religious devices. And of course that's what Jesus ran into in his ministry was the Pharisees. And that's what made him the angriest. "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill, and cumin, but you have neglected the more important matters of the law. Justice, mercy, and faithfulness." So the spirit of religion says I must do something to be acceptable by God. It puts people under the yoke of bondage and legalism. Religion divides us into sacred secular mentality. And religion says only overt spiritual activity is acceptable to God. If you remember the chariots of fire, the runner from Scotland, Eric Little. He told his sister, "When I run, I feel his pleasure." Well his sister thought running was a secular idea and he needed to be on the mission field. But in reality Eric was a more spiritual person. Another spirit of religion comment would be bible study at work is not necessary. I go to church on Sunday. That would be a statement that comes from a religious spirit. Why do I need to participate in a kingdom initiative like that? Religion versus relationship looks like this. I had this vision of this diagram years ago that I had an illustrator make up. And so many of us have grown up thinking that well if I do all these things on the right, prayer and devotions and church attendance and bible study and giving money and witnessing and perform and be a church volunteer, then I'll earn God's love and acceptance and favor. But the truth is it's the exact opposite. When we love God, and when we know and understand the acceptance of God, and know his favor, the byproduct of that is that we want to engage in prayer, we want to do devotions, we want to study our bible, we want to be witnesses as salt and light to our community. These become byproducts of a healthy relationship with God. The religious spirit motivates believers to live out their faith in legalistic and rigid ways. And this is especially evident in the south. Now let's spend the balance of our time talking about spiritual warfare strongholds and childhood wounds. I want you to meet John tonight. He had a need for recognition from performance. Things like civic projects and sports and business success. He had an emphasis on building financial security and so he became a workaholic. He lacked emotional intimacy in his marriage and with other people, and he had an activity based relationship towards God very Greek based. And he exhibited symptoms of over controlling people and circumstances. Well, that person was me. I came out of a family of three generations of business owners and our generation stronghold was insecurity and fear that resulted in motivations to control people and circumstances around us. And the bible says in second Corinthians 10:5, "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." So a stronghold can come into our lives because we have a need and we don't understand how to meet that need without allowing ourselves to be opened up to a stronghold. The opposite of stronghold is exhibited in Ephesians 3:17. "And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." So you and I were created with seven basic needs. We have a need for dignity and authority, for blessing, and for vision and security, for purpose and meaning and freedom and boundaries, and intimate love and companionship. These are seen in Genesis one and two. They're not listed like this, but they're evidenced in how God related to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were born with all of these needs and God met those needs for them. But whenever we seek to meet one or more of these basic needs outside God, we have set the stage for the development of a generational stronghold. Satan convinced Eve to believe God was holding out on her and he would not meet her needs so she chose to meet her own need. Let's look at some examples of generational strongholds. We see deceit and lying in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We see control with Laban, Rebecca, Jacob, and King Saul. We see a sexual stronghold in David, Rahab, Bathsheba, Absalom, Abner, and Solomon. In fact, it would be a pretty good bet that David was probably an illegitimate son. You see, he says in Psalm 51 that I was conceived in iniquity. And then when you look at the fact that his father didn't even consider him when the prophet Samuel came to look at his sons as potential candidates to be the next king. We can surmise from that that perhaps David, not only was he the littlest and smallest, maybe that he was conceived in iniquity. Well, I learned more about this stronghold concept when a mentor of mine who created this workbook that we later published for him. He said, "There's no problem with you Os. You just have a stronghold of insecurity and fear." And I said, "You can't prove that." And he says, "Oh, I think I can." And so, he had me take this little self-assessment tool and rank each one of these symptoms from one to 10 and then added the total and took the average. So that, as you can see in the example on the top right, deceit ... The attributes were six, two, one, nine, and seven for different characteristics. You add those numbers up and divide by six, or five I guess it is, you get the average number of five. So you would do that with each one of these strongholds. So when I did it, I did control, and I would rank those and that became the highest one. And then fear and insecurity, that also was a high one at the time. So he took me through a process of prayer and confession in order to deal with those strongholds. We eventually published a book about this, a workbook called Demolishing Strongholds. We only had the PDF version of that online. But you can find it on our website at tgifbookstore.com. It's a wonderful resource and I've used it to counsel many people over the years. So spiritual strongholds work at the subconscious level. Their influence is often unseen until there is a problem. Strongholds are designed to keep us from experiencing God's love and they're often generational as I have said. All strongholds that are built in our lives are a result of seeking to meet one or more of these needs apart from God's will for us. So here's how a stronghold develops. Satan inspires a thought into my mind subconsciously. We're not even conscious of it. Which appeals to my natural tendencies to meet needs. We entertain these thoughts and it brings on emotions. And then we give in to emotions and this eventually leads to some sort of action. And continual participation in this behavior causes me to develop a habit. And once a habit's developed a stronghold is built by that spirit. Now, strongholds oppress versus possess. They control, dictate, and influence our attitudes and behavior. Remember when Jesus was speaking to Peter. He said, "Peter, Satan has wanted to sift you." And he was telling him that Satan was impacting his thought life. So strongholds oppress and discourage us and affect how we view or react to situations, circumstances, or people. I was once in Singapore and a woman came up to me after I'd spoken on this topic and she said, "Oh, would you go to lunch with me and my friend?" And I had lunch available so I went with them and she was very, very aggressive and I could see some things that were coming through her that I picked up on. So when we were at lunch I said, "Tell me about your father. What kind of relationship do you have with your father?" And she said, "Well, why in the world would you want to ask me that? I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about something else." And I said, "Well just humor me. Just tell me how your relationship is with your dad." And she said, "Oh, it's not good. He says I'll never amount to anything and he says I'm fat and he just doesn't have good things to say about me." And I said, "Well, you have a spirit of rejection over your life and part of the reason that you're very, very aggressive is because you're seeking to get approval and you have to be successful at all costs because one of the vows that you've made is that you're going to prove your value to your father by being successful. And so you're a slave to what your father has said about you. So you need to pray. We need to break that over you." And we did. She began to cry as I began to share that with her. And we broke that over her that day at lunch and her whole countenance changed. I also believe that strongholds are a lot like wearing sunglasses. Let's say that you're born with sunglasses on and you go through life wearing those sunglasses and one day it's cloudy and a man says, "Did you know that if you took those sunglasses off you'd be able to see much clearer?" And so you take those sunglasses off and you say, "Oh my gosh, look how bright it is out here." Well that's the way strongholds are. You don't really know that you're operating in that until symptoms begin to show up. So what we need to do is understand where the entry points of those strongholds came in. And one of the resources that we found helpful in addition to our book on demolishing strongholds is a book called Operating In the Courts of Heaven, by Robert Henderson. This book is a great book to help you understand how the devil operates from a legal basis and how we need to do business in heaven at the legal court in heaven as he is our defender. Now, we need to look at the role shame plays in our life. Shame says I am a failure or a mistake, whereas guilt says I made a mistake, but I am not a mistake. We need to understand the difference and walk in Godly guilt versus shame. But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every good man's conscience in the sight of God. So I want to pause for a moment and say that if you have any questions or comments, please enter them in the chat area or the Q&A area. Just tell me what you think. Tell me what God's speaking to you about this area in your life. And if you have any questions I'd love to take those. I want to spend the last few minutes talking about arrested development. And this is out of a book called Broken Children, Grown Up Pain, by Dr. Paul Hegstrom. Dr. Hegstrom passed away last year. He was a good friend of mine. And I actually went through counseling with him years ago. He says, "When a wounded childhood frees his emotional maturity to within two years of a wound, the adult lives as a child emotionally." That's what it means to be arrested in your development. In other words, somebody might say, "Well he's acting like a child." Well, that might be really true. Because your emotional state in life, even as an adult, you might be living as a 12 year old emotionally because you had a trauma happen in your life that froze you emotionally. So we need to understand that arrested development is caused by the wounds of childhood and amplifies or magnifies our sin nature. The deeper the wounds, the more we act selfishly and childishly. And when we have too much childhood trauma, we're hindered in our ability to develop genuine healthy relationships with our creator and others close to us. We can't readily reach out or accept others because our wounds have made us unteachable. Unable to trust and afraid of truth. Now I believe that Michael Jackson was arrested in his development. Many people felt that there was a sexual issue with him because he liked to hang out with kids. I think that he was arrested in his development and was probably emotionally around a 12 or 13 year old because his father beat him growing up when he didn't sing songs the way he thought he should sing them. And so he had some deep wounds. We also need to realize that when we are impacted from arrested development we can become a false self and we can be a poser in our way we handle ourselves and try to be somebody that we're not. So we seek to hide from our true self because our shame says we will not be acceptable to others as we are. We are driven to hide behind our fig leaf, our false self or false covering that protects us from our true self. This all happens on a subconscious basis as a built in protection mechanism from wounds we received as a child. You know, the movie Groundhog Day is a good example of this where he learns something about him every time he goes through a 24 hour period. And as he goes through each one of those 24 hour periods he changed one aspect of his behavior to get a different outcome. And that's kind of like what we're talking about with our false self and poser. Hegstrom says 90% of our marital difficulties are rooted in a trauma experienced by one or more spouses between the age of five and nine. Arrested development sabotages the heart's good intentions and turns us into a spiritual hypocrite. We all require others to live by the rules we were required to live by in childhood. What does that mean? Well, let's say that you're in a situation that, let's say you're a business owner. And you see people that are just totally inept around you and you really lose your patience because you've been trained to do things with excellence and you've been trained to have high performance. So when you don't see that in others, you get angry. Your expectations are not being met. So you're living by a rule that you were required to live by in your life. And this can show up in a lot of different ways. In perfectionism, impatience, and shame. Competence becomes our method of dealing with a wounded heart. So we can hide behind our competence and compensate for our own pain through our competence. John Eldridge said his plan from the beginning was to assault the heart, just as the wicked witch did to the tin woodman. Make them so busy they ignore the heart and wound them so deeply they don't want a heart. Twist their theology so they despise the heart. Take away their courage, destroy their creativity. Make intimacy with God impossible for them. Of course your heart would be the object of a great and fierce battle. It's your most precious possession. Without your heart you cannot have God. Without your heart you cannot have love. Without your heart you cannot have faith. Without your heart you cannot find the work you were meant to do. In other words, without your heart you cannot have life. "He delivers the afflicted in their affliction and opens their ears to his voice in adversity," says Job. God forces us back into or wound to learn the truth about our wound in order to become healed and free. It says that Satan is an accuser. "Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down." So what voice are you listening to when you hear something in your head that accuses you? Are you listening to that accuser? Whenever we grant anyone other than Jesus Christ authority to tell us who we are, we've made that person a god in our life and entered into idolatry. Let's say that you grew up with a parent that said you're never going to amount to anything, or you're not good at this or that, and you were criticized. You were even shamed. Well, you've got to correct that identity and not believe that identity because that's not what God says about you. You need to believe what God says about you. Let's talk for a moment about addictions. Addictions are anything you cannot willingly stop. Addictions are rooted in the need to be loved. And anything you cannot lay down by an act of your will is an addiction. It's a counterfeit desire for love and intimacy. It becomes an isolation chamber designed to mask our pain. In the brain we have something called a neurotransmitter. It emits two feel good hormones. Serotonin and dopamine. Negative or painful emotion causes the under secretion of serotonin. And that's where Satan comes into our hypothalamus and the brain stem connection. And this is where we drop in serotonin. But if we start looking at pornography or we do something that makes us feel good, it helps to bring our serotonin back. It gives us a high. And that is what leads to addictive behavior. The neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin act as chemical messengers that relay nerve signals through the brain. Dopamine regulates muscle movement, motivation, and the sensation of pleasure. Whereas serotonin primarily affects mood, impulsiveness, and social behaviors. My good friend Craig Hill wrote a small book that talks about the lies of an addiction. Anyone caught in addiction believes that God is not faithful and that the addictive habit will satisfy their addiction. They believe the habit is stronger than the power of God and that addiction is just the way you are. So they're all lies. They're false beliefs, if you will, that Satan plants into our life. Now, men who struggle with sex. Sometimes if a man was not nurtured growing up, he can be a sexualized adult. In other words, he may not necessarily be a sex addict, but he's an affection addict. So sex becomes that affection for him and he'll often look to the wife to get what they did not get in childhood. Maybe they didn't get touched much in childhood. Or hugs. They lack touch. And they came to know sex as love. And the unfortunate thing is the wife can never satisfy that hunger for live if that root issue is not dealt with. And you might even hear the wife say, "You're a sex addict," when he might not necessarily be a sex addict. It might be a basic need that was never met as a child. When we live in compromise we lose confidence in the faith dimension of our lives. We struggle to hear the voice of God, which forces us to live our Christian life through performance and the flesh. In Psalm 106 he says, "And he gave them their requests but sent leanness in their soul." Hey guys. I want to pause for a minute to tell you about something that just give you a heads up on. For the last many years we've been helping men and women like yourself understand what it means to live the larger story of your life. So my gift is really in teaching and I love encouraging believers to fulfill their purpose and destiny. So we've been thinking about a new initiative that could really help people and so we're getting close to announcing it, but we're not there yet. But if you want to know about that and be one of the first ones to know about it when we do release it, you can get on our waiting list. And we've set up a webpage just for that called becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. In addition, we provide a free download for you if you go on there and put your name on the waiting list. It's called Os Hillman's Top 10 Biblical Truths For Success In Life and Work. These are 10 areas that I believe contributed to my own journey with God and business. And I hope that this resource will be helpful to you. There's no cost. Just go to that. But you don't need to go there now. We'll make an announcement at the end of this as well so that you have that website address at your fingertips. Let's go back to the teaching and we'll talk about this later. God bless. So we overcome the influence of these strongholds by renouncing and repenting of their influence through the prayer of faith and Jesus's blood to cleanse us from these influences. Now whenever the reaction to a situation seems to be extreme compared to the offense, you can know there is unresolved pain or the enemy is at work in the situation. So if somebody gives you a response that is a 10, that should be a two on the Richter scale, you know that something is going on under the hood. That their behavior is not logical. So it merely indicates there is a root problem. It's like a dashboard and the lights on the dash coming on. What's the root of this behavior? So you need to revisit the wound. Identify the events, and then renounce it and ask God to bring healing to that area. Discover the lie. What agreement have you been making with the enemy? And apply the truth. The truth shall make you free. So the steps of freedom from a stronghold is one, identify the strongholds and their symptoms. Rank them from one to 10 by the level of influence they have. And work with someone close to you to confirm the strongholds and confess to renounce the influence of strongholds in Jesus's name. Each believer has the power of the holy spirit to renounce the influence of strongholds over their life as shown in second Corinthians 10:4. We have the divine power to demolish strongholds. And then you want to meditate and walk according to the word and renew your mind. One of the things I had to deal with, I was a workaholic. But it was rooted in fear. So I had to change the number of hours I was working because I was working out of fear. Any self-image contrary to the truth of who God says you are in the spirit is a false self-image. You must agree with God, not with your flesh or the devil. Who said that? That's what you need to ask every time something comes into your head that might be contrary to your identity. "Let this mind be in you. It is also in Jesus Christ." Philippians 2:5. So whatever God sets you free from this and automatically gives you an anointing to set other people free from the same thing you were a victim of. That is your payback on the enemy. For I the lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. Take a look at this. This is a fascinating comparison of two families over a 200 year generation. Max Jutes was married to an atheist woman. They had 560 descendants, 310 died as paupers, 150 criminals, seven murderers, 100 drunkards, one half of the women were prostitutes. It cost the US government 1.2 million in 19th century dollars. But Jonathan Edwards, a preacher, married a godly woman. They had 1,394 descendants, 295 graduated from college, three state governors, 13 college presidents, 65 professors, three US senators, 30 judges, 100 lawyers, 56 doctors, 75 military officers, 100 missionaries, preachers, and authors, and 80 held public office, three mayors, and one comptroller of the US. Don't tell me the gospel doesn't make a huge difference in family systems. So you need to transform your past into a new beginning. You need to realize your identity and learn to contend for it. All right, well that concludes our session for today. I hope that it was helpful and encouraging to you. If you want to go deeper in this topic, I have developed a book called Overcoming Hindrances to Fulfill Your Destiny. It has a lot more information in it and more teaching in this resource. It's only about 100 pages and you can get it off of our website at tgifbookstore.com. Earlier I mentioned about this new program that we're going to be launching soon, but we're not ready to announce it yet. But if you do want to know about it, just get on our waiting list and you'll be the first to be notified. You can go to our website, becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. And that will have your name on our waiting list and you'll be the first one to be notified. And you'll also receive a free resource called My Top 10 Biblical Truths for Succeeding in Life and Work. And this was a resource that I put together recently that were the top 10 things that I felt were the most important in my journey to be able to be successful in business and in ministry. So I hope that that will be of help to you. Just click on the website listed on the screen there. So we look forward to seeing you in the next session. We're doing weekly podcasts now. We've set up this on our YouTube page and also iTunes. If you just want to listen to the sessions you can listen to them on iTunes as well as YouTube at the TGIF At Work podcast. God bless. See you next time.

Hey guys. Are you going through adversity or anxiety or fear or depression right now? If so, stay tuned because this session is for you. How do I bring my faith to work? How do I tap into the power of God in my work life call? Why am I going through this adversity? Is God mad at me? I'm Os Hillman and I've been helping leaders like you answer these questions and more for over 30 years. That's what this podcast is all about. Let's learn and grow together. Welcome to TGIF Today God is First. And welcome to our podcast this week. You know today we're going to be talking about adversity and overcoming hindrances to our life. And it's a topic that I teach a lot about because I went through some major adversities back in 1994 that really changed my life. And so if you find yourself in that place, this session is for you. You know, I've been teaching this session overcoming hindrances to fulfill your destiny for many years. Because I feel like I'm an authority on this topic. And so today's session is a teaching that I did a few weeks ago for a nightly meeting that I did on overcoming hindrances. And you know, it's really tied to what I went through in 1994, where I had major losses in my life. I lost over a half a million dollars. I had my wife leave me after going through extensive counseling. I had 80% of my business disappear within a few weeks when a client stuck me for $140,000. And then my vice president left me and took my second largest account in my ad agency. And this ushered me into a seven year season of adversity. And man I thought life was over. But you know, two years into that adversity I met Gunnar Olson, the founder of the International Christian Chamber of Commerce. And in our first meeting, he listened to my story and he said, "Os, you have a Joseph calling on your life." And I said, "What is a Joseph calling?" And so he explained it to me. And that would ultimately lead to a relationship that's been over 25 years now. I just talked with him last week and he's been a spiritual mentor to me and father in the marketplace for me. And so this session will help you understand some of the dynamics that we can go through that can hinder us from fulfilling our destiny. And over that time, here now over almost 30 years, I've discovered many of the things that cause my adversity and now I'm able to help many others. So I hope that you'll find this session helpful to you. So let's go ahead and begin the teaching. I was teaching in Scotland a number of years ago, and someone came up to me after going through this session that I'm about to share with you and said, "I just realized something. You must become a free agent before you can become a change agent." And I said, "Well, that's very true. Both God and Satan want you dead but each for different reasons." In second Corinthians four, Paul says, "For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus's sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh so then death is working in us but life in you." And then we see in first Peter five, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." And so Satan wants to kill your destiny. I once heard a mentor of mine say, "Dead men can't have stress." And I said, "Well, that's kind of obvious isn't it. If he can't get out of the coffin he's certainly not going to have stress." In Romans six, it says, "Likewise you also recon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." I once had a mentor say to me, "The only thing wrong with you Os is that you're not dead yet. As soon as you let your flesh die, you will be free. So I suggest you die quietly." What happens at spiritual birth? Well, we all know that our human existence is made up of spirit, soul, and body. And when we become born again, our spirits instantly become 100% holy by the power of the holy spirit and God's work in our life. But our mind and will and emotions, which reside in our soul, they don't get redeemed completely in the sense that we don't change immediately. It's a process of sanctification. And that sanctification will go on until we die. And then of course we have the physical body. But we relate to God through our spirit. First Thessalonians 5:23 says, "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of the lord Jesus Christ." So that's where we get spirit, soul, and body. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms. We live in a war zone, and the prize that Satan wants is our heart." You know, years ago I read the fictional story of Screwtape by C.S. Lewis. One of his great works. It's about a demon coaching an underling demon. And he says to that demon, "I wonder if you should ask me whether it is a essential to keep the patient in ignorance of your own existence. That question at least for the present phase of the struggle has been answered for us by the high command. Our policy for the moment is to conceal ourselves." C.S. Lewis once said, "There are two mistakes the church makes when dealing with the devil. To blame everything on him or to blame nothing on him." Here's an amazing statistic. 24% of the general population believe that Satan is real and 52% of Christians believe Satan is real, which means 48% of them don't believe he's real. When you're deceived you don't know you are deceived. Satan's strategy is to kill. Jesus and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. So Satan tried to kill Jesus at birth. Now what are Satan's three greatest lies to human beings? These are common to every person. Every one of us have been tempted by these statements. You are powerless over your circumstances. You are a victim of an unjust God who left you here to suffer. Just think about it. Have you ever thought those thoughts, that you're powerless over your circumstances or that you're a victim of an unjust God who doesn't love you, who left you hear to suffer and deal with this stuff all by yourself? If you're honest, you've probably felt that way at one time or another. We blame God for evil. In Mark 14:27 it says, "Jesus told him, 'You're all going to feel that your world is falling apart and it's my fault.'" He was saying that to the disciples. The story of your life is a story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could become and he fears it. That is the one thing Satan fears is that you're going to really know the truth because the truth shall make you free. "For I am poor and needy and my heart is wounded within me," said the psalmist in psalm 109. You see, Satan, that word Satan means opposer. And some of the characteristics of Satan are found throughout the scripture. He's an angel of light, he seeks to kill and destroy, he's an accuser. He deceives and lies. He wars against those who obey. He's a lion, a devourer to kill. He blinds unbelievers. So we need to know our enemy and how he works against us. Finally, be strong in the lord and his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you've done everything to stand. For this purpose the sun of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. You see, that was another reason Jesus came to earth, was to destroy the works of the devil. You know I'm often asked by people about why do we go through adversity? And I believe there are four core reasons we will go through adversity. The first one is a consequence of the call. Joseph went through his adversity because of a consequence of the call. It wasn't because of any sin that he did. He was a typical teenage boy that might have been a little bit narcissistic. But it wasn't because of a major sin. And God used that to save an entire people. The second reason we can go through adversity is sin. Gehazi sinned against his employer Elisha, and as a result he was struck with leprosy because he wanted to get money from the general that was healed by Elisha. And so God judged his sin and if we have any open doors in our life then God will judge those sins. A third reason we can go through is sonship. And sonship means that God's going to treat us as sons and daughters, which means there are times that he needs to reprove us and to really correct us in order that we fulfill the purpose and destiny has over our life. A fourth reason we can go through adversity is spiritual warfare. As I've said earlier, John 10:10 says, "Satan wants to steal, kill and destroy from your life. But Jesus wants to give you life." And so there's a war on earth vying for our heart. And so our job is to understand what reason we might be going through adversity and it could be a combination of these. But ask the lord and show him, what is the root. Now Jesus had no sin in his life and when he said this verse out of John 14, it references the fact that he had no sin so he would never go through adversity because of sin. He says to the disciples, "Hereafter, I'll not talk much with you for the prince of this world cometh and that nothing in me." Basically that says, there's nothing in him that he has a right to. There was no sin. There was no open door in his life. He had no entry to Jesus's life due to his sinless life. Now, therefore my primary hindrance is to becoming a Christian who transforms your workplace. And I've talked about this in the past and that is an un-biblical view of work in ministry. We need to understand the holy calling that is upon us. Colossians 3:23 says, "Whatever you do, do unto the lord. It's the lord Christ you are serving." And then there's a Greek versus Hebraic view of God. If we fall to the Greek influence in our relationship with God, that can hinder us and then the religious sprit and generational strongholds. And we're going to talk about the ladder three of these hindrances tonight. I've talked over the years about this sacred secular and this dichotomy of calling. If there's one statement I hate hearing it's, I'm in full-time ministry. Well, we're all in full-time ministry. We just get our checks different places. And that's not a higher calling. We need to define our ministry as anything that we're doing that's not against the will of God as a holy calling. So whatever you do, do unto the lord. It tells us in Colossians 3:23. Hindrance number two deals more with the influence of the Greek philosophers versus the Hebraic roots. There's a prophetic verse in Zechariah 9:13, "For I have bent Judah my bow, fitted the bow with Ephraim and raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons. O Greece made you like the sword of a mighty man." And so this is a prophetic verse about the conflict between the Hebraic heart set versus the Greek mindset. Hebraic deals with the heart and it's active and appeals to the heart. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and appeals to the intellect. The Greek philosophers understood the difference between Greek and Hebraic roots. So you see Greeks acquired wisdom by reason and analysis and Hebrews acquired wisdom by obedience. Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom in the early church." Understood that knowledge was not what changed the world. It was the power of God working through people. Paul said, "My message in my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." Paul wrote that explaining that the reason he was so effective was it had nothing to do with his knowledge and his persuasive oratory skills, but it was because of the power of God working though him. Now there's two systems that you and I could be relating to God through and one of them would be the Hebraic system. And the Hebraic system is a process focus. Obedience is a priority and relationships are a priority and this yields transparency and love. And it produces mature believers. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and has more of a program focus. Information is a priority with controlled groups and this ends up being more service and activity based in our relationship toward God. And this ultimately produces shallow believers. Another hindrance is the religious spirit. See, Peter Wagner wrote, Freedom From the Religious Spirit. And in that book he defines the religious spirit as an agent of Satan assigned to prevent change and maintain the status quo by using religious devices. And of course that's what Jesus ran into in his ministry was the Pharisees. And that's what made him the angriest. "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill, and cumin, but you have neglected the more important matters of the law. Justice, mercy, and faithfulness." So the spirit of religion says I must do something to be acceptable by God. It puts people under the yoke of bondage and legalism. Religion divides us into sacred secular mentality. And religion says only overt spiritual activity is acceptable to God. If you remember the chariots of fire, the runner from Scotland, Eric Little. He told his sister, "When I run, I feel his pleasure." Well his sister thought running was a secular idea and he needed to be on the mission field. But in reality Eric was a more spiritual person. Another spirit of religion comment would be bible study at work is not necessary. I go to church on Sunday. That would be a statement that comes from a religious spirit. Why do I need to participate in a kingdom initiative like that? Religion versus relationship looks like this. I had this vision of this diagram years ago that I had an illustrator make up. And so many of us have grown up thinking that well if I do all these things on the right, prayer and devotions and church attendance and bible study and giving money and witnessing and perform and be a church volunteer, then I'll earn God's love and acceptance and favor. But the truth is it's the exact opposite. When we love God, and when we know and understand the acceptance of God, and know his favor, the byproduct of that is that we want to engage in prayer, we want to do devotions, we want to study our bible, we want to be witnesses as salt and light to our community. These become byproducts of a healthy relationship with God. The religious spirit motivates believers to live out their faith in legalistic and rigid ways. And this is especially evident in the south. Now let's spend the balance of our time talking about spiritual warfare strongholds and childhood wounds. I want you to meet John tonight. He had a need for recognition from performance. Things like civic projects and sports and business success. He had an emphasis on building financial security and so he became a workaholic. He lacked emotional intimacy in his marriage and with other people, and he had an activity based relationship towards God very Greek based. And he exhibited symptoms of over controlling people and circumstances. Well, that person was me. I came out of a family of three generations of business owners and our generation stronghold was insecurity and fear that resulted in motivations to control people and circumstances around us. And the bible says in second Corinthians 10:5, "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." So a stronghold can come into our lives because we have a need and we don't understand how to meet that need without allowing ourselves to be opened up to a stronghold. The opposite of stronghold is exhibited in Ephesians 3:17. "And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." So you and I were created with seven basic needs. We have a need for dignity and authority, for blessing, and for vision and security, for purpose and meaning and freedom and boundaries, and intimate love and companionship. These are seen in Genesis one and two. They're not listed like this, but they're evidenced in how God related to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were born with all of these needs and God met those needs for them. But whenever we seek to meet one or more of these basic needs outside God, we have set the stage for the development of a generational stronghold. Satan convinced Eve to believe God was holding out on her and he would not meet her needs so she chose to meet her own need. Let's look at some examples of generational strongholds. We see deceit and lying in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We see control with Laban, Rebecca, Jacob, and King Saul. We see a sexual stronghold in David, Rahab, Bathsheba, Absalom, Abner, and Solomon. In fact, it would be a pretty good bet that David was probably an illegitimate son. You see, he says in Psalm 51 that I was conceived in iniquity. And then when you look at the fact that his father didn't even consider him when the prophet Samuel came to look at his sons as potential candidates to be the next king. We can surmise from that that perhaps David, not only was he the littlest and smallest, maybe that he was conceived in iniquity. Well, I learned more about this stronghold concept when a mentor of mine who created this workbook that we later published for him. He said, "There's no problem with you Os. You just have a stronghold of insecurity and fear." And I said, "You can't prove that." And he says, "Oh, I think I can." And so, he had me take this little self-assessment tool and rank each one of these symptoms from one to 10 and then added the total and took the average. So that, as you can see in the example on the top right, deceit ... The attributes were six, two, one, nine, and seven for different characteristics. You add those numbers up and divide by six, or five I guess it is, you get the average number of five. So you would do that with each one of these strongholds. So when I did it, I did control, and I would rank those and that became the highest one. And then fear and insecurity, that also was a high one at the time. So he took me through a process of prayer and confession in order to deal with those strongholds. We eventually published a book about this, a workbook called Demolishing Strongholds. We only had the PDF version of that online. But you can find it on our website at tgifbookstore.com. It's a wonderful resource and I've used it to counsel many people over the years. So spiritual strongholds work at the subconscious level. Their influence is often unseen until there is a problem. Strongholds are designed to keep us from experiencing God's love and they're often generational as I have said. All strongholds that are built in our lives are a result of seeking to meet one or more of these needs apart from God's will for us. So here's how a stronghold develops. Satan inspires a thought into my mind subconsciously. We're not even conscious of it. Which appeals to my natural tendencies to meet needs. We entertain these thoughts and it brings on emotions. And then we give in to emotions and this eventually leads to some sort of action. And continual participation in this behavior causes me to develop a habit. And once a habit's developed a stronghold is built by that spirit. Now, strongholds oppress versus possess. They control, dictate, and influence our attitudes and behavior. Remember when Jesus was speaking to Peter. He said, "Peter, Satan has wanted to sift you." And he was telling him that Satan was impacting his thought life. So strongholds oppress and discourage us and affect how we view or react to situations, circumstances, or people. I was once in Singapore and a woman came up to me after I'd spoken on this topic and she said, "Oh, would you go to lunch with me and my friend?" And I had lunch available so I went with them and she was very, very aggressive and I could see some things that were coming through her that I picked up on. So when we were at lunch I said, "Tell me about your father. What kind of relationship do you have with your father?" And she said, "Well, why in the world would you want to ask me that? I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about something else." And I said, "Well just humor me. Just tell me how your relationship is with your dad." And she said, "Oh, it's not good. He says I'll never amount to anything and he says I'm fat and he just doesn't have good things to say about me." And I said, "Well, you have a spirit of rejection over your life and part of the reason that you're very, very aggressive is because you're seeking to get approval and you have to be successful at all costs because one of the vows that you've made is that you're going to prove your value to your father by being successful. And so you're a slave to what your father has said about you. So you need to pray. We need to break that over you." And we did. She began to cry as I began to share that with her. And we broke that over her that day at lunch and her whole countenance changed. I also believe that strongholds are a lot like wearing sunglasses. Let's say that you're born with sunglasses on and you go through life wearing those sunglasses and one day it's cloudy and a man says, "Did you know that if you took those sunglasses off you'd be able to see much clearer?" And so you take those sunglasses off and you say, "Oh my gosh, look how bright it is out here." Well that's the way strongholds are. You don't really know that you're operating in that until symptoms begin to show up. So what we need to do is understand where the entry points of those strongholds came in. And one of the resources that we found helpful in addition to our book on demolishing strongholds is a book called Operating In the Courts of Heaven, by Robert Henderson. This book is a great book to help you understand how the devil operates from a legal basis and how we need to do business in heaven at the legal court in heaven as he is our defender. Now, we need to look at the role shame plays in our life. Shame says I am a failure or a mistake, whereas guilt says I made a mistake, but I am not a mistake. We need to understand the difference and walk in Godly guilt versus shame. But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every good man's conscience in the sight of God. So I want to pause for a moment and say that if you have any questions or comments, please enter them in the chat area or the Q&A area. Just tell me what you think. Tell me what God's speaking to you about this area in your life. And if you have any questions I'd love to take those. I want to spend the last few minutes talking about arrested development. And this is out of a book called Broken Children, Grown Up Pain, by Dr. Paul Hegstrom. Dr. Hegstrom passed away last year. He was a good friend of mine. And I actually went through counseling with him years ago. He says, "When a wounded childhood frees his emotional maturity to within two years of a wound, the adult lives as a child emotionally." That's what it means to be arrested in your development. In other words, somebody might say, "Well he's acting like a child." Well, that might be really true. Because your emotional state in life, even as an adult, you might be living as a 12 year old emotionally because you had a trauma happen in your life that froze you emotionally. So we need to understand that arrested development is caused by the wounds of childhood and amplifies or magnifies our sin nature. The deeper the wounds, the more we act selfishly and childishly. And when we have too much childhood trauma, we're hindered in our ability to develop genuine healthy relationships with our creator and others close to us. We can't readily reach out or accept others because our wounds have made us unteachable. Unable to trust and afraid of truth. Now I believe that Michael Jackson was arrested in his development. Many people felt that there was a sexual issue with him because he liked to hang out with kids. I think that he was arrested in his development and was probably emotionally around a 12 or 13 year old because his father beat him growing up when he didn't sing songs the way he thought he should sing them. And so he had some deep wounds. We also need to realize that when we are impacted from arrested development we can become a false self and we can be a poser in our way we handle ourselves and try to be somebody that we're not. So we seek to hide from our true self because our shame says we will not be acceptable to others as we are. We are driven to hide behind our fig leaf, our false self or false covering that protects us from our true self. This all happens on a subconscious basis as a built in protection mechanism from wounds we received as a child. You know, the movie Groundhog Day is a good example of this where he learns something about him every time he goes through a 24 hour period. And as he goes through each one of those 24 hour periods he changed one aspect of his behavior to get a different outcome. And that's kind of like what we're talking about with our false self and poser. Hegstrom says 90% of our marital difficulties are rooted in a trauma experienced by one or more spouses between the age of five and nine. Arrested development sabotages the heart's good intentions and turns us into a spiritual hypocrite. We all require others to live by the rules we were required to live by in childhood. What does that mean? Well, let's say that you're in a situation that, let's say you're a business owner. And you see people that are just totally inept around you and you really lose your patience because you've been trained to do things with excellence and you've been trained to have high performance. So when you don't see that in others, you get angry. Your expectations are not being met. So you're living by a rule that you were required to live by in your life. And this can show up in a lot of different ways. In perfectionism, impatience, and shame. Competence becomes our method of dealing with a wounded heart. So we can hide behind our competence and compensate for our own pain through our competence. John Eldridge said his plan from the beginning was to assault the heart, just as the wicked witch did to the tin woodman. Make them so busy they ignore the heart and wound them so deeply they don't want a heart. Twist their theology so they despise the heart. Take away their courage, destroy their creativity. Make intimacy with God impossible for them. Of course your heart would be the object of a great and fierce battle. It's your most precious possession. Without your heart you cannot have God. Without your heart you cannot have love. Without your heart you cannot have faith. Without your heart you cannot find the work you were meant to do. In other words, without your heart you cannot have life. "He delivers the afflicted in their affliction and opens their ears to his voice in adversity," says Job. God forces us back into or wound to learn the truth about our wound in order to become healed and free. It says that Satan is an accuser. "Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down." So what voice are you listening to when you hear something in your head that accuses you? Are you listening to that accuser? Whenever we grant anyone other than Jesus Christ authority to tell us who we are, we've made that person a god in our life and entered into idolatry. Let's say that you grew up with a parent that said you're never going to amount to anything, or you're not good at this or that, and you were criticized. You were even shamed. Well, you've got to correct that identity and not believe that identity because that's not what God says about you. You need to believe what God says about you. Let's talk for a moment about addictions. Addictions are anything you cannot willingly stop. Addictions are rooted in the need to be loved. And anything you cannot lay down by an act of your will is an addiction. It's a counterfeit desire for love and intimacy. It becomes an isolation chamber designed to mask our pain. In the brain we have something called a neurotransmitter. It emits two feel good hormones. Serotonin and dopamine. Negative or painful emotion causes the under secretion of serotonin. And that's where Satan comes into our hypothalamus and the brain stem connection. And this is where we drop in serotonin. But if we start looking at pornography or we do something that makes us feel good, it helps to bring our serotonin back. It gives us a high. And that is what leads to addictive behavior. The neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin act as chemical messengers that relay nerve signals through the brain. Dopamine regulates muscle movement, motivation, and the sensation of pleasure. Whereas serotonin primarily affects mood, impulsiveness, and social behaviors. My good friend Craig Hill wrote a small book that talks about the lies of an addiction. Anyone caught in addiction believes that God is not faithful and that the addictive habit will satisfy their addiction. They believe the habit is stronger than the power of God and that addiction is just the way you are. So they're all lies. They're false beliefs, if you will, that Satan plants into our life. Now, men who struggle with sex. Sometimes if a man was not nurtured growing up, he can be a sexualized adult. In other words, he may not necessarily be a sex addict, but he's an affection addict. So sex becomes that affection for him and he'll often look to the wife to get what they did not get in childhood. Maybe they didn't get touched much in childhood. Or hugs. They lack touch. And they came to know sex as love. And the unfortunate thing is the wife can never satisfy that hunger for live if that root issue is not dealt with. And you might even hear the wife say, "You're a sex addict," when he might not necessarily be a sex addict. It might be a basic need that was never met as a child. When we live in compromise we lose confidence in the faith dimension of our lives. We struggle to hear the voice of God, which forces us to live our Christian life through performance and the flesh. In Psalm 106 he says, "And he gave them their requests but sent leanness in their soul." Hey guys. I want to pause for a minute to tell you about something that just give you a heads up on. For the last many years we've been helping men and women like yourself understand what it means to live the larger story of your life. So my gift is really in teaching and I love encouraging believers to fulfill their purpose and destiny. So we've been thinking about a new initiative that could really help people and so we're getting close to announcing it, but we're not there yet. But if you want to know about that and be one of the first ones to know about it when we do release it, you can get on our waiting list. And we've set up a webpage just for that called becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. In addition, we provide a free download for you if you go on there and put your name on the waiting list. It's called Os Hillman's Top 10 Biblical Truths For Success In Life and Work. These are 10 areas that I believe contributed to my own journey with God and business. And I hope that this resource will be helpful to you. There's no cost. Just go to that. But you don't need to go there now. We'll make an announcement at the end of this as well so that you have that website address at your fingertips. Let's go back to the teaching and we'll talk about this later. God bless. So we overcome the influence of these strongholds by renouncing and repenting of their influence through the prayer of faith and Jesus's blood to cleanse us from these influences. Now whenever the reaction to a situation seems to be extreme compared to the offense, you can know there is unresolved pain or the enemy is at work in the situation. So if somebody gives you a response that is a 10, that should be a two on the Richter scale, you know that something is going on under the hood. That their behavior is not logical. So it merely indicates there is a root problem. It's like a dashboard and the lights on the dash coming on. What's the root of this behavior? So you need to revisit the wound. Identify the events, and then renounce it and ask God to bring healing to that area. Discover the lie. What agreement have you been making with the enemy? And apply the truth. The truth shall make you free. So the steps of freedom from a stronghold is one, identify the strongholds and their symptoms. Rank them from one to 10 by the level of influence they have. And work with someone close to you to confirm the strongholds and confess to renounce the influence of strongholds in Jesus's name. Each believer has the power of the holy spirit to renounce the influence of strongholds over their life as shown in second Corinthians 10:4. We have the divine power to demolish strongholds. And then you want to meditate and walk according to the word and renew your mind. One of the things I had to deal with, I was a workaholic. But it was rooted in fear. So I had to change the number of hours I was working because I was working out of fear. Any self-image contrary to the truth of who God says you are in the spirit is a false self-image. You must agree with God, not with your flesh or the devil. Who said that? That's what you need to ask every time something comes into your head that might be contrary to your identity. "Let this mind be in you. It is also in Jesus Christ." Philippians 2:5. So whatever God sets you free from this and automatically gives you an anointing to set other people free from the same thing you were a victim of. That is your payback on the enemy. For I the lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. Take a look at this. This is a fascinating comparison of two families over a 200 year generation. Max Jutes was married to an atheist woman. They had 560 descendants, 310 died as paupers, 150 criminals, seven murderers, 100 drunkards, one half of the women were prostitutes. It cost the US government 1.2 million in 19th century dollars. But Jonathan Edwards, a preacher, married a godly woman. They had 1,394 descendants, 295 graduated from college, three state governors, 13 college presidents, 65 professors, three US senators, 30 judges, 100 lawyers, 56 doctors, 75 military officers, 100 missionaries, preachers, and authors, and 80 held public office, three mayors, and one comptroller of the US. Don't tell me the gospel doesn't make a huge difference in family systems. So you need to transform your past into a new beginning. You need to realize your identity and learn to contend for it. All right, well that concludes our session for today. I hope that it was helpful and encouraging to you. If you want to go deeper in this topic, I have developed a book called Overcoming Hindrances to Fulfill Your Destiny. It has a lot more information in it and more teaching in this resource. It's only about 100 pages and you can get it off of our website at tgifbookstore.com. Earlier I mentioned about this new program that we're going to be launching soon, but we're not ready to announce it yet. But if you do want to know about it, just get on our waiting list and you'll be the first to be notified. You can go to our website, becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. And that will have your name on our waiting list and you'll be the first one to be notified. And you'll also receive a free resource called My Top 10 Biblical Truths for Succeeding in Life and Work. And this was a resource that I put together recently that were the top 10 things that I felt were the most important in my journey to be able to be successful in business and in ministry. So I hope that that will be of help to you. Just click on the website listed on the screen there. So we look forward to seeing you in the next session. We're doing weekly podcasts now. We've set up this on our YouTube page and also iTunes. If you just want to listen to the sessions you can listen to them on iTunes as well as YouTube at the TGIF At Work podcast. God bless. See you next time.

Hey guys. Are you going through adversity or anxiety or fear or depression right now? If so, stay tuned because this session is for you. How do I bring my faith to work? How do I tap into the power of God in my work life call? Why am I going through this adversity? Is God mad at me? I'm Os Hillman and I've been helping leaders like you answer these questions and more for over 30 years. That's what this podcast is all about. Let's learn and grow together. Welcome to TGIF Today God is First. And welcome to our podcast this week. You know today we're going to be talking about adversity and overcoming hindrances to our life. And it's a topic that I teach a lot about because I went through some major adversities back in 1994 that really changed my life. And so if you find yourself in that place, this session is for you. You know, I've been teaching this session overcoming hindrances to fulfill your destiny for many years. Because I feel like I'm an authority on this topic. And so today's session is a teaching that I did a few weeks ago for a nightly meeting that I did on overcoming hindrances. And you know, it's really tied to what I went through in 1994, where I had major losses in my life. I lost over a half a million dollars. I had my wife leave me after going through extensive counseling. I had 80% of my business disappear within a few weeks when a client stuck me for $140,000. And then my vice president left me and took my second largest account in my ad agency. And this ushered me into a seven year season of adversity. And man I thought life was over. But you know, two years into that adversity I met Gunnar Olson, the founder of the International Christian Chamber of Commerce. And in our first meeting, he listened to my story and he said, "Os, you have a Joseph calling on your life." And I said, "What is a Joseph calling?" And so he explained it to me. And that would ultimately lead to a relationship that's been over 25 years now. I just talked with him last week and he's been a spiritual mentor to me and father in the marketplace for me. And so this session will help you understand some of the dynamics that we can go through that can hinder us from fulfilling our destiny. And over that time, here now over almost 30 years, I've discovered many of the things that cause my adversity and now I'm able to help many others. So I hope that you'll find this session helpful to you. So let's go ahead and begin the teaching. I was teaching in Scotland a number of years ago, and someone came up to me after going through this session that I'm about to share with you and said, "I just realized something. You must become a free agent before you can become a change agent." And I said, "Well, that's very true. Both God and Satan want you dead but each for different reasons." In second Corinthians four, Paul says, "For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus's sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh so then death is working in us but life in you." And then we see in first Peter five, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." And so Satan wants to kill your destiny. I once heard a mentor of mine say, "Dead men can't have stress." And I said, "Well, that's kind of obvious isn't it. If he can't get out of the coffin he's certainly not going to have stress." In Romans six, it says, "Likewise you also recon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." I once had a mentor say to me, "The only thing wrong with you Os is that you're not dead yet. As soon as you let your flesh die, you will be free. So I suggest you die quietly." What happens at spiritual birth? Well, we all know that our human existence is made up of spirit, soul, and body. And when we become born again, our spirits instantly become 100% holy by the power of the holy spirit and God's work in our life. But our mind and will and emotions, which reside in our soul, they don't get redeemed completely in the sense that we don't change immediately. It's a process of sanctification. And that sanctification will go on until we die. And then of course we have the physical body. But we relate to God through our spirit. First Thessalonians 5:23 says, "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of the lord Jesus Christ." So that's where we get spirit, soul, and body. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms. We live in a war zone, and the prize that Satan wants is our heart." You know, years ago I read the fictional story of Screwtape by C.S. Lewis. One of his great works. It's about a demon coaching an underling demon. And he says to that demon, "I wonder if you should ask me whether it is a essential to keep the patient in ignorance of your own existence. That question at least for the present phase of the struggle has been answered for us by the high command. Our policy for the moment is to conceal ourselves." C.S. Lewis once said, "There are two mistakes the church makes when dealing with the devil. To blame everything on him or to blame nothing on him." Here's an amazing statistic. 24% of the general population believe that Satan is real and 52% of Christians believe Satan is real, which means 48% of them don't believe he's real. When you're deceived you don't know you are deceived. Satan's strategy is to kill. Jesus and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. So Satan tried to kill Jesus at birth. Now what are Satan's three greatest lies to human beings? These are common to every person. Every one of us have been tempted by these statements. You are powerless over your circumstances. You are a victim of an unjust God who left you here to suffer. Just think about it. Have you ever thought those thoughts, that you're powerless over your circumstances or that you're a victim of an unjust God who doesn't love you, who left you hear to suffer and deal with this stuff all by yourself? If you're honest, you've probably felt that way at one time or another. We blame God for evil. In Mark 14:27 it says, "Jesus told him, 'You're all going to feel that your world is falling apart and it's my fault.'" He was saying that to the disciples. The story of your life is a story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could become and he fears it. That is the one thing Satan fears is that you're going to really know the truth because the truth shall make you free. "For I am poor and needy and my heart is wounded within me," said the psalmist in psalm 109. You see, Satan, that word Satan means opposer. And some of the characteristics of Satan are found throughout the scripture. He's an angel of light, he seeks to kill and destroy, he's an accuser. He deceives and lies. He wars against those who obey. He's a lion, a devourer to kill. He blinds unbelievers. So we need to know our enemy and how he works against us. Finally, be strong in the lord and his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you've done everything to stand. For this purpose the sun of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. You see, that was another reason Jesus came to earth, was to destroy the works of the devil. You know I'm often asked by people about why do we go through adversity? And I believe there are four core reasons we will go through adversity. The first one is a consequence of the call. Joseph went through his adversity because of a consequence of the call. It wasn't because of any sin that he did. He was a typical teenage boy that might have been a little bit narcissistic. But it wasn't because of a major sin. And God used that to save an entire people. The second reason we can go through adversity is sin. Gehazi sinned against his employer Elisha, and as a result he was struck with leprosy because he wanted to get money from the general that was healed by Elisha. And so God judged his sin and if we have any open doors in our life then God will judge those sins. A third reason we can go through is sonship. And sonship means that God's going to treat us as sons and daughters, which means there are times that he needs to reprove us and to really correct us in order that we fulfill the purpose and destiny has over our life. A fourth reason we can go through adversity is spiritual warfare. As I've said earlier, John 10:10 says, "Satan wants to steal, kill and destroy from your life. But Jesus wants to give you life." And so there's a war on earth vying for our heart. And so our job is to understand what reason we might be going through adversity and it could be a combination of these. But ask the lord and show him, what is the root. Now Jesus had no sin in his life and when he said this verse out of John 14, it references the fact that he had no sin so he would never go through adversity because of sin. He says to the disciples, "Hereafter, I'll not talk much with you for the prince of this world cometh and that nothing in me." Basically that says, there's nothing in him that he has a right to. There was no sin. There was no open door in his life. He had no entry to Jesus's life due to his sinless life. Now, therefore my primary hindrance is to becoming a Christian who transforms your workplace. And I've talked about this in the past and that is an un-biblical view of work in ministry. We need to understand the holy calling that is upon us. Colossians 3:23 says, "Whatever you do, do unto the lord. It's the lord Christ you are serving." And then there's a Greek versus Hebraic view of God. If we fall to the Greek influence in our relationship with God, that can hinder us and then the religious sprit and generational strongholds. And we're going to talk about the ladder three of these hindrances tonight. I've talked over the years about this sacred secular and this dichotomy of calling. If there's one statement I hate hearing it's, I'm in full-time ministry. Well, we're all in full-time ministry. We just get our checks different places. And that's not a higher calling. We need to define our ministry as anything that we're doing that's not against the will of God as a holy calling. So whatever you do, do unto the lord. It tells us in Colossians 3:23. Hindrance number two deals more with the influence of the Greek philosophers versus the Hebraic roots. There's a prophetic verse in Zechariah 9:13, "For I have bent Judah my bow, fitted the bow with Ephraim and raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons. O Greece made you like the sword of a mighty man." And so this is a prophetic verse about the conflict between the Hebraic heart set versus the Greek mindset. Hebraic deals with the heart and it's active and appeals to the heart. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and appeals to the intellect. The Greek philosophers understood the difference between Greek and Hebraic roots. So you see Greeks acquired wisdom by reason and analysis and Hebrews acquired wisdom by obedience. Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom in the early church." Understood that knowledge was not what changed the world. It was the power of God working through people. Paul said, "My message in my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." Paul wrote that explaining that the reason he was so effective was it had nothing to do with his knowledge and his persuasive oratory skills, but it was because of the power of God working though him. Now there's two systems that you and I could be relating to God through and one of them would be the Hebraic system. And the Hebraic system is a process focus. Obedience is a priority and relationships are a priority and this yields transparency and love. And it produces mature believers. Whereas the Greek mindset is more cognitive and has more of a program focus. Information is a priority with controlled groups and this ends up being more service and activity based in our relationship toward God. And this ultimately produces shallow believers. Another hindrance is the religious spirit. See, Peter Wagner wrote, Freedom From the Religious Spirit. And in that book he defines the religious spirit as an agent of Satan assigned to prevent change and maintain the status quo by using religious devices. And of course that's what Jesus ran into in his ministry was the Pharisees. And that's what made him the angriest. "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill, and cumin, but you have neglected the more important matters of the law. Justice, mercy, and faithfulness." So the spirit of religion says I must do something to be acceptable by God. It puts people under the yoke of bondage and legalism. Religion divides us into sacred secular mentality. And religion says only overt spiritual activity is acceptable to God. If you remember the chariots of fire, the runner from Scotland, Eric Little. He told his sister, "When I run, I feel his pleasure." Well his sister thought running was a secular idea and he needed to be on the mission field. But in reality Eric was a more spiritual person. Another spirit of religion comment would be bible study at work is not necessary. I go to church on Sunday. That would be a statement that comes from a religious spirit. Why do I need to participate in a kingdom initiative like that? Religion versus relationship looks like this. I had this vision of this diagram years ago that I had an illustrator make up. And so many of us have grown up thinking that well if I do all these things on the right, prayer and devotions and church attendance and bible study and giving money and witnessing and perform and be a church volunteer, then I'll earn God's love and acceptance and favor. But the truth is it's the exact opposite. When we love God, and when we know and understand the acceptance of God, and know his favor, the byproduct of that is that we want to engage in prayer, we want to do devotions, we want to study our bible, we want to be witnesses as salt and light to our community. These become byproducts of a healthy relationship with God. The religious spirit motivates believers to live out their faith in legalistic and rigid ways. And this is especially evident in the south. Now let's spend the balance of our time talking about spiritual warfare strongholds and childhood wounds. I want you to meet John tonight. He had a need for recognition from performance. Things like civic projects and sports and business success. He had an emphasis on building financial security and so he became a workaholic. He lacked emotional intimacy in his marriage and with other people, and he had an activity based relationship towards God very Greek based. And he exhibited symptoms of over controlling people and circumstances. Well, that person was me. I came out of a family of three generations of business owners and our generation stronghold was insecurity and fear that resulted in motivations to control people and circumstances around us. And the bible says in second Corinthians 10:5, "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." So a stronghold can come into our lives because we have a need and we don't understand how to meet that need without allowing ourselves to be opened up to a stronghold. The opposite of stronghold is exhibited in Ephesians 3:17. "And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." So you and I were created with seven basic needs. We have a need for dignity and authority, for blessing, and for vision and security, for purpose and meaning and freedom and boundaries, and intimate love and companionship. These are seen in Genesis one and two. They're not listed like this, but they're evidenced in how God related to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were born with all of these needs and God met those needs for them. But whenever we seek to meet one or more of these basic needs outside God, we have set the stage for the development of a generational stronghold. Satan convinced Eve to believe God was holding out on her and he would not meet her needs so she chose to meet her own need. Let's look at some examples of generational strongholds. We see deceit and lying in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We see control with Laban, Rebecca, Jacob, and King Saul. We see a sexual stronghold in David, Rahab, Bathsheba, Absalom, Abner, and Solomon. In fact, it would be a pretty good bet that David was probably an illegitimate son. You see, he says in Psalm 51 that I was conceived in iniquity. And then when you look at the fact that his father didn't even consider him when the prophet Samuel came to look at his sons as potential candidates to be the next king. We can surmise from that that perhaps David, not only was he the littlest and smallest, maybe that he was conceived in iniquity. Well, I learned more about this stronghold concept when a mentor of mine who created this workbook that we later published for him. He said, "There's no problem with you Os. You just have a stronghold of insecurity and fear." And I said, "You can't prove that." And he says, "Oh, I think I can." And so, he had me take this little self-assessment tool and rank each one of these symptoms from one to 10 and then added the total and took the average. So that, as you can see in the example on the top right, deceit ... The attributes were six, two, one, nine, and seven for different characteristics. You add those numbers up and divide by six, or five I guess it is, you get the average number of five. So you would do that with each one of these strongholds. So when I did it, I did control, and I would rank those and that became the highest one. And then fear and insecurity, that also was a high one at the time. So he took me through a process of prayer and confession in order to deal with those strongholds. We eventually published a book about this, a workbook called Demolishing Strongholds. We only had the PDF version of that online. But you can find it on our website at tgifbookstore.com. It's a wonderful resource and I've used it to counsel many people over the years. So spiritual strongholds work at the subconscious level. Their influence is often unseen until there is a problem. Strongholds are designed to keep us from experiencing God's love and they're often generational as I have said. All strongholds that are built in our lives are a result of seeking to meet one or more of these needs apart from God's will for us. So here's how a stronghold develops. Satan inspires a thought into my mind subconsciously. We're not even conscious of it. Which appeals to my natural tendencies to meet needs. We entertain these thoughts and it brings on emotions. And then we give in to emotions and this eventually leads to some sort of action. And continual participation in this behavior causes me to develop a habit. And once a habit's developed a stronghold is built by that spirit. Now, strongholds oppress versus possess. They control, dictate, and influence our attitudes and behavior. Remember when Jesus was speaking to Peter. He said, "Peter, Satan has wanted to sift you." And he was telling him that Satan was impacting his thought life. So strongholds oppress and discourage us and affect how we view or react to situations, circumstances, or people. I was once in Singapore and a woman came up to me after I'd spoken on this topic and she said, "Oh, would you go to lunch with me and my friend?" And I had lunch available so I went with them and she was very, very aggressive and I could see some things that were coming through her that I picked up on. So when we were at lunch I said, "Tell me about your father. What kind of relationship do you have with your father?" And she said, "Well, why in the world would you want to ask me that? I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about something else." And I said, "Well just humor me. Just tell me how your relationship is with your dad." And she said, "Oh, it's not good. He says I'll never amount to anything and he says I'm fat and he just doesn't have good things to say about me." And I said, "Well, you have a spirit of rejection over your life and part of the reason that you're very, very aggressive is because you're seeking to get approval and you have to be successful at all costs because one of the vows that you've made is that you're going to prove your value to your father by being successful. And so you're a slave to what your father has said about you. So you need to pray. We need to break that over you." And we did. She began to cry as I began to share that with her. And we broke that over her that day at lunch and her whole countenance changed. I also believe that strongholds are a lot like wearing sunglasses. Let's say that you're born with sunglasses on and you go through life wearing those sunglasses and one day it's cloudy and a man says, "Did you know that if you took those sunglasses off you'd be able to see much clearer?" And so you take those sunglasses off and you say, "Oh my gosh, look how bright it is out here." Well that's the way strongholds are. You don't really know that you're operating in that until symptoms begin to show up. So what we need to do is understand where the entry points of those strongholds came in. And one of the resources that we found helpful in addition to our book on demolishing strongholds is a book called Operating In the Courts of Heaven, by Robert Henderson. This book is a great book to help you understand how the devil operates from a legal basis and how we need to do business in heaven at the legal court in heaven as he is our defender. Now, we need to look at the role shame plays in our life. Shame says I am a failure or a mistake, whereas guilt says I made a mistake, but I am not a mistake. We need to understand the difference and walk in Godly guilt versus shame. But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every good man's conscience in the sight of God. So I want to pause for a moment and say that if you have any questions or comments, please enter them in the chat area or the Q&A area. Just tell me what you think. Tell me what God's speaking to you about this area in your life. And if you have any questions I'd love to take those. I want to spend the last few minutes talking about arrested development. And this is out of a book called Broken Children, Grown Up Pain, by Dr. Paul Hegstrom. Dr. Hegstrom passed away last year. He was a good friend of mine. And I actually went through counseling with him years ago. He says, "When a wounded childhood frees his emotional maturity to within two years of a wound, the adult lives as a child emotionally." That's what it means to be arrested in your development. In other words, somebody might say, "Well he's acting like a child." Well, that might be really true. Because your emotional state in life, even as an adult, you might be living as a 12 year old emotionally because you had a trauma happen in your life that froze you emotionally. So we need to understand that arrested development is caused by the wounds of childhood and amplifies or magnifies our sin nature. The deeper the wounds, the more we act selfishly and childishly. And when we have too much childhood trauma, we're hindered in our ability to develop genuine healthy relationships with our creator and others close to us. We can't readily reach out or accept others because our wounds have made us unteachable. Unable to trust and afraid of truth. Now I believe that Michael Jackson was arrested in his development. Many people felt that there was a sexual issue with him because he liked to hang out with kids. I think that he was arrested in his development and was probably emotionally around a 12 or 13 year old because his father beat him growing up when he didn't sing songs the way he thought he should sing them. And so he had some deep wounds. We also need to realize that when we are impacted from arrested development we can become a false self and we can be a poser in our way we handle ourselves and try to be somebody that we're not. So we seek to hide from our true self because our shame says we will not be acceptable to others as we are. We are driven to hide behind our fig leaf, our false self or false covering that protects us from our true self. This all happens on a subconscious basis as a built in protection mechanism from wounds we received as a child. You know, the movie Groundhog Day is a good example of this where he learns something about him every time he goes through a 24 hour period. And as he goes through each one of those 24 hour periods he changed one aspect of his behavior to get a different outcome. And that's kind of like what we're talking about with our false self and poser. Hegstrom says 90% of our marital difficulties are rooted in a trauma experienced by one or more spouses between the age of five and nine. Arrested development sabotages the heart's good intentions and turns us into a spiritual hypocrite. We all require others to live by the rules we were required to live by in childhood. What does that mean? Well, let's say that you're in a situation that, let's say you're a business owner. And you see people that are just totally inept around you and you really lose your patience because you've been trained to do things with excellence and you've been trained to have high performance. So when you don't see that in others, you get angry. Your expectations are not being met. So you're living by a rule that you were required to live by in your life. And this can show up in a lot of different ways. In perfectionism, impatience, and shame. Competence becomes our method of dealing with a wounded heart. So we can hide behind our competence and compensate for our own pain through our competence. John Eldridge said his plan from the beginning was to assault the heart, just as the wicked witch did to the tin woodman. Make them so busy they ignore the heart and wound them so deeply they don't want a heart. Twist their theology so they despise the heart. Take away their courage, destroy their creativity. Make intimacy with God impossible for them. Of course your heart would be the object of a great and fierce battle. It's your most precious possession. Without your heart you cannot have God. Without your heart you cannot have love. Without your heart you cannot have faith. Without your heart you cannot find the work you were meant to do. In other words, without your heart you cannot have life. "He delivers the afflicted in their affliction and opens their ears to his voice in adversity," says Job. God forces us back into or wound to learn the truth about our wound in order to become healed and free. It says that Satan is an accuser. "Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down." So what voice are you listening to when you hear something in your head that accuses you? Are you listening to that accuser? Whenever we grant anyone other than Jesus Christ authority to tell us who we are, we've made that person a god in our life and entered into idolatry. Let's say that you grew up with a parent that said you're never going to amount to anything, or you're not good at this or that, and you were criticized. You were even shamed. Well, you've got to correct that identity and not believe that identity because that's not what God says about you. You need to believe what God says about you. Let's talk for a moment about addictions. Addictions are anything you cannot willingly stop. Addictions are rooted in the need to be loved. And anything you cannot lay down by an act of your will is an addiction. It's a counterfeit desire for love and intimacy. It becomes an isolation chamber designed to mask our pain. In the brain we have something called a neurotransmitter. It emits two feel good hormones. Serotonin and dopamine. Negative or painful emotion causes the under secretion of serotonin. And that's where Satan comes into our hypothalamus and the brain stem connection. And this is where we drop in serotonin. But if we start looking at pornography or we do something that makes us feel good, it helps to bring our serotonin back. It gives us a high. And that is what leads to addictive behavior. The neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin act as chemical messengers that relay nerve signals through the brain. Dopamine regulates muscle movement, motivation, and the sensation of pleasure. Whereas serotonin primarily affects mood, impulsiveness, and social behaviors. My good friend Craig Hill wrote a small book that talks about the lies of an addiction. Anyone caught in addiction believes that God is not faithful and that the addictive habit will satisfy their addiction. They believe the habit is stronger than the power of God and that addiction is just the way you are. So they're all lies. They're false beliefs, if you will, that Satan plants into our life. Now, men who struggle with sex. Sometimes if a man was not nurtured growing up, he can be a sexualized adult. In other words, he may not necessarily be a sex addict, but he's an affection addict. So sex becomes that affection for him and he'll often look to the wife to get what they did not get in childhood. Maybe they didn't get touched much in childhood. Or hugs. They lack touch. And they came to know sex as love. And the unfortunate thing is the wife can never satisfy that hunger for live if that root issue is not dealt with. And you might even hear the wife say, "You're a sex addict," when he might not necessarily be a sex addict. It might be a basic need that was never met as a child. When we live in compromise we lose confidence in the faith dimension of our lives. We struggle to hear the voice of God, which forces us to live our Christian life through performance and the flesh. In Psalm 106 he says, "And he gave them their requests but sent leanness in their soul." Hey guys. I want to pause for a minute to tell you about something that just give you a heads up on. For the last many years we've been helping men and women like yourself understand what it means to live the larger story of your life. So my gift is really in teaching and I love encouraging believers to fulfill their purpose and destiny. So we've been thinking about a new initiative that could really help people and so we're getting close to announcing it, but we're not there yet. But if you want to know about that and be one of the first ones to know about it when we do release it, you can get on our waiting list. And we've set up a webpage just for that called becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. In addition, we provide a free download for you if you go on there and put your name on the waiting list. It's called Os Hillman's Top 10 Biblical Truths For Success In Life and Work. These are 10 areas that I believe contributed to my own journey with God and business. And I hope that this resource will be helpful to you. There's no cost. Just go to that. But you don't need to go there now. We'll make an announcement at the end of this as well so that you have that website address at your fingertips. Let's go back to the teaching and we'll talk about this later. God bless. So we overcome the influence of these strongholds by renouncing and repenting of their influence through the prayer of faith and Jesus's blood to cleanse us from these influences. Now whenever the reaction to a situation seems to be extreme compared to the offense, you can know there is unresolved pain or the enemy is at work in the situation. So if somebody gives you a response that is a 10, that should be a two on the Richter scale, you know that something is going on under the hood. That their behavior is not logical. So it merely indicates there is a root problem. It's like a dashboard and the lights on the dash coming on. What's the root of this behavior? So you need to revisit the wound. Identify the events, and then renounce it and ask God to bring healing to that area. Discover the lie. What agreement have you been making with the enemy? And apply the truth. The truth shall make you free. So the steps of freedom from a stronghold is one, identify the strongholds and their symptoms. Rank them from one to 10 by the level of influence they have. And work with someone close to you to confirm the strongholds and confess to renounce the influence of strongholds in Jesus's name. Each believer has the power of the holy spirit to renounce the influence of strongholds over their life as shown in second Corinthians 10:4. We have the divine power to demolish strongholds. And then you want to meditate and walk according to the word and renew your mind. One of the things I had to deal with, I was a workaholic. But it was rooted in fear. So I had to change the number of hours I was working because I was working out of fear. Any self-image contrary to the truth of who God says you are in the spirit is a false self-image. You must agree with God, not with your flesh or the devil. Who said that? That's what you need to ask every time something comes into your head that might be contrary to your identity. "Let this mind be in you. It is also in Jesus Christ." Philippians 2:5. So whatever God sets you free from this and automatically gives you an anointing to set other people free from the same thing you were a victim of. That is your payback on the enemy. For I the lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. Take a look at this. This is a fascinating comparison of two families over a 200 year generation. Max Jutes was married to an atheist woman. They had 560 descendants, 310 died as paupers, 150 criminals, seven murderers, 100 drunkards, one half of the women were prostitutes. It cost the US government 1.2 million in 19th century dollars. But Jonathan Edwards, a preacher, married a godly woman. They had 1,394 descendants, 295 graduated from college, three state governors, 13 college presidents, 65 professors, three US senators, 30 judges, 100 lawyers, 56 doctors, 75 military officers, 100 missionaries, preachers, and authors, and 80 held public office, three mayors, and one comptroller of the US. Don't tell me the gospel doesn't make a huge difference in family systems. So you need to transform your past into a new beginning. You need to realize your identity and learn to contend for it. All right, well that concludes our session for today. I hope that it was helpful and encouraging to you. If you want to go deeper in this topic, I have developed a book called Overcoming Hindrances to Fulfill Your Destiny. It has a lot more information in it and more teaching in this resource. It's only about 100 pages and you can get it off of our website at tgifbookstore.com. Earlier I mentioned about this new program that we're going to be launching soon, but we're not ready to announce it yet. But if you do want to know about it, just get on our waiting list and you'll be the first to be notified. You can go to our website, becomegodschangeagent.com. Becomegodschangeagent.com. And that will have your name on our waiting list and you'll be the first one to be notified. And you'll also receive a free resource called My Top 10 Biblical Truths for Succeeding in Life and Work. And this was a resource that I put together recently that were the top 10 things that I felt were the most important in my journey to be able to be successful in business and in ministry. So I hope that that will be of help to you. Just click on the website listed on the screen there. So we look forward to seeing you in the next session. We're doing weekly podcasts now. We've set up this on our YouTube page and also iTunes. If you just want to listen to the sessions you can listen to them on iTunes as well as YouTube at the TGIF At Work podcast. God bless. See you next time.

Both God and His redemptive purposes are unchangeable. We look at the implications of that for the believer and our security in Christ. An exposition of Hebrews 6:16-18.

Both God and His redemptive purposes are unchangeable. We look at the implications of that for the believer and our security in Christ. An exposition of Hebrews 6:16-18.

Notes: 1. Allow young children in God's presence, with time God will show Himself to them. 2. Obey people both above and beneath you. 3. Both God's wrath and favour are like a laser guided missile and can locate you. 4. You will always need someone to point you to your next level of anointing.

Continues to be Both God and Man (Hebrews 2:10-18, Belgic Confession Article 19) 1/6/19 PM by First CRC South Holland

Both God and man have a wish list, but there are differences between them.

My professor, Lois Malcolm, teaches that some people need to check their ego while others need to start taking up some space.  Just before the Gospel we heard today from Mark, Jesus says that the second commandment after loving the LORD your God is to “Love your neighbor as yourself” Jacqueline Bussie reflects on this commandment and also recognizes people who need to take up space.  She writes that some people, like her mom, like me, maybe like you, need to view this commandment as “you already adore other people and you are fabulous at it, now remember to love yourself as much as you do them.”  It is within the context of loving my neighbor and loving myself that I consider the message of scripture today. We hear about two widows and I wonder if they’re victims of the one-way love street as well.  Within the patriarchal system of the time, widows had no rights, they were the poorest of the poor and were often reduced to begging.  Neither woman is named, which is perhaps yet another sign of the marginalization of widows within this culture.  Sometimes I’m astounded by the outrageousness of ordinary people’s actions in the Bible.  I consider myself a fairly ordinary person, but compared to these people, not so much.  My first reaction is to feel guilty because I don’t give nearly as much as these ordinary people.  I see myself residing in a comfortable bubble of security where I first recognize my privilege.  But when I hear the words of Lois Malcolm and Jacqueline Bussie and Jesus, I see that this comfortable bubble is not just about money, possessions and privilege, it’s about something else too.  My guilt doesn’t serve God, and so God is poking my bubble.  God is trying to show me a way out of my bubble, a way of faith. In 1 Kings Elijah is sent by God to Zarephath where God has commanded a widow to feed him.  Both God and Elijah don’t seem to accept the present societal system that widows are poor and probably don’t have enough to share.  I’m astounded by outrageous act #1: Elijah doesn’t question this command to go away to be fed by a widow, he just travels to Zarephath.  Outrageous act #2: Elijah arrives and meets a widow right at the gate of the town!  It seems that he didn’t have to look far.  Outrageous act #3:  He actually calls out to her for a drink of water, and as an aside, to bring him some bread too.  I’m a bit relieved that she reasonably argues that she has so little food, not enough to share, she plans to go home and die with her son.  Outrageous act #4: Elijah tells her “Do not be afraid;” go make some bread for me first then for you and your son.  “Do not be afraid” he tells her.  So, she doesn’t back-talk Elijah, this stranger who just ordered her to fix him some food -- at the moment of her greatest despair when she expects she will die, she does outrageous act #5:  scripture says “She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days.  The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail.”  Outrageous act #6:  They ate for many days.  This widow demonstrates incredible generosity and faith during the time of her deepest need.  She gives everything she has and God shows up.           This seems like a straightforward message until we hear today’s Gospel from Mark.  It begins with Jesus teaching and criticizing the Temple leaders for how they expect and receive the best treatment and respect while “They devour widows’ houses”.  This is not an outrageous scene for me, although I wonder if it should be, this is a too-familiar scene.  A scene I see in news reports about powerful people enjoying their place of privilege openly, seemingly unaware of the oppression this privilege imposes upon others.  It’s the paradox of the powerful and the oppressed, the ego-driven and the nearly invisible.  Not long after Jesus’ teaching, A poor widow enters the Temple and drops two copper coins into the treasury.  Jesus exclaims that she “has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”  Here I see outrageous act #7:  she put in everything she had, all she had to live on.  And outrageous act #8:  Jesus notices.  Again this widow demonstrates incredible generosity and faith, but Jesus doesn’t praise her for this.  Along with these outrageous actions, Jesus’ teaching makes me wonder if these widows are making smart choices.  Even as a person who is still learning to take up her own space and love herself, I recognize that these are not smart choices.  We live in a culture where it’s smart to save money for college, for retirement, for an emergency, for home improvements, for vacation, the list goes on.  While Jesus was criticizing the system that oppresses this widow, he does not agree with her choice to give the last of her money.  Jesus condemns the value system that motivates her action, and he condemns the people who conditioned her to do it.  I can almost hear Jesus telling the widow “Stop! Love yourself!”  It first seems like God is calling people to give everything they have and yet human experience and even Jesus insists that giving everything isn’t a very smart choice.  This is not a one size fits all message, God loves each of us as we are.  Where does this paradox leave us?   God is not asking us this morning to empty our cupboards and bank accounts, but God is challenging us to reconsider the way we operate.  This is not an either-or operation, it draws us into operating in a way of both-and.  God asks me to hold the tension between security and chance, between checking my ego and taking up space, between loving my neighbor and loving myself.  God gives us the freedom to choose and to learn how to hold this tension.  At the same time God is calling us to a place of deeper faith and trust in Him for the sake of God’s kingdom on earth.  A place where we recognize God in ourselves and in one another.  A place where the powerful see the oppressed, and respond! The good news is that God shows up in my life and is replacing my insecurities with strength.  Strength to recognize oppressive powers and live into the person that God has created me to be.  This is how together, we as the church, can change communities, nations and the world.  God shows up.  God is telling us “Do not be afraid.”  Have courage.  Courage to take another chance, to give all that we have, and to witness the awesomeness of God showing up. . .again.  “Do not be afraid.”  Step outside of your bubble. 

Our special guest is Dr. Ian Hutchinson, the author of Can a Scientist Believe in Miracles: An MIT Professor Answers Questions on God and Science. Plasma physicist Ian Hutchinson has been asked hundreds of questions about faith and science: What is faith and what is science? Are they compatible? Are there realities science cannot explain? Is God's existence a scientific question? Is the Bible consistent with the modern scientific understanding of the universe? Are there scientific reasons to believe in God? In this comprehensive volume, Hutchinson answers a full range of inquiries with sound scientific insights and measured Christian perspective. Without minimizing challenging questions, he explores how science and Christianity are mutually supportive and intellectually consistent. Both God and science truthfully address our curiosity and destiny. Find answers to your deepest questions. Ian Hutchinson is a plasma physicist and professor of nuclear science and engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was born in England, educated at Cambridge University, and received his doctorate from Australian National University. His research group explores the confinement of plasmas hotter than the sun's center, aimed at producing practical energy from nuclear fusion reactions, the energy source of the stars. A frequent Veritas Forum presenter, Ian has written and spoken widely on the relationship between science and Christianity. He is the author of over two hundred research articles, and his books include Principles of Plasma Diagnostics and Monopolizing Knowledge. Visit Dr. Hutchinson's website http://ongodandscience.net/  

This episode continues our series on the development of the character of God in the Bible. In this episode, the guys discuss one of the strangest stories in the Bible: Israel and the golden calf in Exodus 32. In part one (00:00-09:45), the guys review the idea that God primarily interacts with the world through a human mediator. Understanding how God interacted with Israel through Moses is key to understanding this important theme in the Bible. Tim points out that in the Old Testament, the two most important personal portraits to understand are David and Moses. They are the two people who get the most page length in the Old Testament. Tim says that Moses' story should be creating a role, an expectation that the world would be a better place if there were more Moses-like characters who are intimately tied with Yahweh. In part two (09:45-21:20), the guys talk about the story of the golden calf in Exodus 32. Moses represents Israel to God and he represents God to Israel. Tim points out a strange detail of the story. God says he wants to destroy Israel, but then it seems as though God changes his mind after Moses implored him to reconsider. Tim says this story has puzzled all Bible readers over thousands of years. Does God change his mind based on human input? Tim quotes from biblical scholar Christopher Wright's commentary on Deuteronomy: “This story explores the mystery about prayer in general and intercession in particular, and raises questions: Was God really serious in this declared threat? If Moses had not interceded, would God have carried out the destruction of Israel? If God was not really planning to destroy the people (10:10b), did God only “pretend” to listen to Moses’ prayer? Did Moses actually change God’s mind? It seems important first of all to say that there is not much point in wrestling with alternative hypothetical scenarios posed by such questions. Asking “what if” serves little theological purpose. Both God and Moses appear to be behaving straightforwardly. There is nothing in the text to suggest that God’s anger was overdone for mere effect; no suggestion that God’s threat was a bluff intended to secure a hasty repentance. The threat of destruction was real. Likewise, Moses’ reaction to the divine wrath was not a patronizing dismissal of authority, like saying, “You can’t be serious!” Rather, Moses recognized that this was a sincere threat that could be countered only with appeal to prior words and actions of the same God. The paradox is that in appealing to God to change, he was actually appealing to God to be consistent —which may be a significant clue to the dynamic of all genuine intercessory prayer. Yet perhaps there is a hint of the divine intention in God’s fascinating words, Leave me alone… (v. 14). The discussion of this line in Jewish scholarship has sensed deep meaning here. After all, God need not have spoken such words, or indeed any words at all, to Moses. In wrath God could have acted “immediately” without informing or consulting Moses in any way. God pauses and makes the divine will “vulnerable” to human challenge. The fact is that, far from human intercession being an irritating but occasionally successful intrusion upon divinely prefabricated blueprints for history, Moses’ prayer becomes an integral part of the way God’s sovereignty in history is exercised. That does not totally solve the mystery, but it puts it in its proper biblical perspective. God not only allows human intercession, God invites it and builds it into the decision-making processes of the heavenly council in ways we can never fathom. “God takes Moses’ contribution with utmost seriousness; God’s acquiescence to the arguments indicates that God treats the conversation with Moses with integrity and honors the human insight as an important ingredient for the shaping of the future” Intercessory prayer, then, flows primarily not from human anxiety about God but from God’s commitment to covenant relationship with human beings…. Moses was not so much arguing against God, as participating in an argument within God. Such prayer, therefore, not only participates in the pain of God in history, but is actually invited to do so for God’s sake as well as ours. This is a measure of the infinite value to God of commitment to persons in covenant relationship. The Point: The figure of Moses in the Torah creates a portrait of the kind of figure necessary for God and humanity to exist together in successful covenant relationship. Moses’ eventual failure in the wilderness (Numbers ch. 21) disqualifies him for the role he filled. His story creates a “Help Wanted” sign in the biblical narrative.” In part three (21:20-33:30), the guys continue to discuss the story of the golden calf. Jon summarizes Tim’s position. Tim draws another parallel to the story of the great flood in Genesis. God destroys all of humanity except for Noah and his family. Then God says that “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil, from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). This is a paradox; God has just pronounced mankind as evil, but he refuses to destroy them or break relationship with them. Tim says that the Hebrew Bible is pointing forward to a person who they want to be a “better Moses.” In part four (33:30-39:50), Tim shares a quote from The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. “One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself—creatures, whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food. He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.” In part five (39:50-end), Tim shares the evolution of the portrait of Moses in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah says that the hoped for figure who can save Israel is a mashup between the best characteristics of David and Moses. Israel needs a priest and a king; this person is Jesus. But Jon makes a point that if the idea is that Israel only needs an “exalted human” to save them, then theology like a Jehovah’s Witness that claims that Jesus was only an exalted human begins to form. Tim sees this point. Many people throughout history have thought that Jesus was only an “exalted human,” but the apostles and authors of the New Testament believed that Jesus was also divine. For example in 2 Corinthians 3-4 and the book of Hebrews, the claim is that Jesus was not just “another Moses,” he was greater than Moses. Tim says that the New Testament author's claims that Jesus is divine can sometimes be hard to see to modern readers because they make the claims in very Jewish ways. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2 that Jesus is “the wisdom of God.” This sounds nice to modern readers, but to an ancient Hebrew rabbi, it would be blasphemous because claiming to be his wisdom is equivalent to claiming to be one with God. Ancient Jews would have no problem claiming that Jesus was a mediator “like” Moses, but saying he was greater eventually leads to the split between the Messianic Jews and other Jewish communities. Thank you to all of our supporters! Next week is a big episode for us. It’s our 100th episode!!!! To celebrate, we’re going to do a live Q+R at our studio in Portland. Want to participate? Send us your question and it might be read during the show. The show will stream live on our YouTube channel starting at 7pm (PST) on Thursday September 6th. You can watch it live by going to youtube.com/thebibleproject/live We’ll release the show right here on our podcast feed the following week. We want to say thank you to all our listeners of the past 99 episodes. Thank you for your wonderful questions, support, and encouraging words. We love reading the reviews and hearing your thoughts. It has been such a wonderful ride, and we’re looking forward to the next 100 episodes. Thanks for being a part of this with us. Send your questions to: info@jointhebibleproject.com Show Resources: The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis Deuteronomy (Understanding the Bible Commentary Series), Christopher J. H. Wright Check out all our resources for free at www.thebibleproject.com. Show Music: Defender Instrumental, Tents Another Chance, Tae the Producer Faith, Tae the Producer In the Distance, Tae the Producer Show Produced By: Dan Gummel, Jon Collins, Matthew Halbert-Howen

Today we tell the tale of the perilous story of Dinah, Jacob's daughter. Dinah was just minding her own business when out of nowhere this asshole named Shechem who lived in Shechem. They were not original people at all. She was violated and then he creepily started to pillow talk her like he didn't just violate her. It's very odd to hear your rapist talk about how your eyes fills his heart with joy.... Then Jacob told Dinah's brothers about the incident and then went to have a word with Shechem. They didn't kick his ass, they just bartered for their sister. Yeah they charged Shechem his foreskin and the foreskin of his entire town to have Dinah. Then the two brothers went and killed all of them after having their genitals mutilated. Both God and Jacob didn't object to the morality of the situation. Only that other tribes would fuck them up. Subscribe to this channel ➽➽➽https://goo.gl/2oZaqY Donate to Engineers without Borders ➽➽➽https://goo.gl/qcqhzo Become a Patron ➽➽➽http://goo.gl/VRVjxK Follow me on Twitter ➽➽➽https://goo.gl/BbxhWL LIKE on Facebook ➽➽➽https://goo.gl/3xEibn

Jesus says we can't worship BOTH God and money - we all need to make a choice. So what does that look like?

Both God and his people love their human enemies, but not in the same way, since God is all-wise and all-governing, and we are finite.

Charles Spurgeon once quipped, “If you find the perfect church, don't go there….you'll ruin it!” At the end of Acts 4 we see a church experiencing unprecedented unity and radical generosity, but it isn't long before sin creeps in. Both God's grace and God's holiness are dramatically put on display. It is only when we see the heights of God's holiness and the depths of our sinfulness, that we will ever begin to understand the magnitude of God's love.

Most of us are familiar with the old fable by Hans Christian Andersen titled, The Emperor’s New Clothes.  The story is about two tailors who pretend to make an Emperor a new suit of clothes that they convincingly argue is invisible only to incompetent fools. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his “new suit of clothes,” no one dares to say that he is naked for fear of being deemed a fool.  Finally, a child declares what everyone else is thinking but is too scared to say, “The Emperor has no clothes!” The story is a lesson in speaking your convictions even in the face of public ridicule. At the risk of being seen as a fool, you must tell the plain truth. Even if it goes against popular opinion or the common norms of a society one must be willing to speak out against that which seems clearly wrong. That is much easier said than done. Back when I served on staff in a Reformed Southern Baptist Founders church and still affirmed Calvinism, I do recall several moments where I felt the TULIP systematic “had no clothes on,” so to speak. But I was not about to put myself out there as “the fool who is just too stupid to see it.” I knew all the pat answers and could quote all the right verses when any question was raised, but deep down I knew there was no rational answer against the charge of divine culpability for moral evil if Calvinism’s claims were true. Calvin himself admitted as much when he wrote: “How it was ordained by the foreknowledge and decree of God what man’s future was without God being implicated as associate in the fault as the author or approver of transgression, is clearly a secret so much excelling the insight of the human mind, that I am not ashamed to confess ignorance…. I daily so meditate on these mysteries of his judgments that curiosity to know anything more does not attract me.” (there are quotes from Piper, MacArthur and Sproul appealing to this same mystery) It is as if Calvin is saying, “I see the naked Emperor but I’ve grown so troubled by looking at him that I’ve chosen to advert my eyes instead of just admitting the obvious truth of what I see.” I suppose that approach works for some, as it did for me…at least for a while.  (Read more on this inconsistency in Calvinism HERE) Others deal with “the Emperor’s nakedness” by appealing to the uniqueness of God and His ways. They might argue something like, “God’s judgement, love and goodness looks different than ours because His ways are simply higher and cannot be understood.” In response to this approach, C. S. Lewis answered: “If God’s moral judgement differs from ours so that our “black” may be His “white”, we can mean nothing by calling Him good; for to say “God is good,” while asserting that His goodness is wholly other than ours, is really only to say “God is we know not what.” And an utterly unknown quality in God cannot give us moral grounds for loving or obeying Him. If He is not (in our sense) “good” we shall obey, if at all, only through fear – and should be equally ready to obey an omnipotent Fiend. The doctrine of Total Depravity – when the consequence is drawn that, since we are totally depraved, our idea of good is worth simply nothing – may thus turn Christianity into a form of devil-worship.–The Problem of Pain, pg. 29 And the founder of Methodism, the esteemed John Wesley, wrote even more boldly: “[Calvinism] destroys all [God’s] attributes at once: It overturns both his justice, mercy, and truth; yea, it represents the most holy God as worse than the devil, as both more false, more cruel, and more unjust. More false; because the devil, liar as he is, hath never said, “He willeth all men to be saved:” More unjust; because the devil cannot, if he would, be guilty of such injustice as you ascribe to God, when you say that God condemned millions of souls to everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, for continuing in sin, which, for want of that grace he will not give them, they cannot avoid: And more cruel; because that unhappy spirit “seeketh rest and findeth none;” so that his own restless misery is a kind of temptation to him to tempt others. But God resteth in his high and holy place; so that to suppose him, of his own mere motion, of his pure will and pleasure, happy as he is, to doom his creatures, whether they will or no, to endless misery, is to impute such cruelty to him as we cannot impute even to the great enemy of God and man. It is to represent the high God (he that hath ears to hear let him hear!) as more cruel, false, and unjust than the devil!”http://www.umcmission.org/Find-Resources/John-Wesley-Sermons/Sermon-128-Free-Grace These two men clearly saw a naked Emperor when they looked at Calvinism’s claims and they were not afraid to say so.  It should be noted that both Lewis and Wesley, at other times in their ministry, tempered such boldness with gentler remarks toward their Calvinistic brethren. And I am not referencing these quotes to bring a charge of “devil worship” against those who affirm the TULIP systematic. I know full well that Calvinists see “a beautiful suit of clothes on the Emperor” and their intentions are sincere, but it does not change the fact that many believers (if not most) simply see a naked Emperor rather than a beautiful suit. (Read this great article by Austin Fischer for more on the beauty that Calvinists see in relation to others) So, why am I writing this article? Many of you know I debated the very seasoned apologist, Dr. James White, over the soteriological perspective represented in Romans 9 earlier this year. From the first day I engaged with Dr. White over this issue he has treated me as “the fool” who simply cannot see “the emperor’s new clothes.”  Given that I once claimed to see the suit and declared it to be beautiful only fuels the fire of ridicule.  After all, if you ever really did see the emperor’s suit then you would not be saying he is naked today.  If you were ever really smart enough to see the suit then you would know better than to question it. In a recent exchange over social media, Dr. White wrote: “Last night I listened to some portion of a dialogue he had on YouTube, and was once again astounded at the horrific eisegesis that marks his entire system. But in noting someone’s reply to him just now, I saw this statement: ‘are you talking about the filthy rags you determined to do or that God determined you to do? :-)’ Notice the contradiction he attempts to create that the Bible will have none of: he seems to think that one action has to be EITHER “determined” by man or by God, but it cannot be BOTH. Now, again, Flowers claims to have once been a Calvinist, but as normal, his recollection of what that means seems to have gotten pretty hazy. For he surely should know that there are a number of very, very important texts in which the Bible itself makes it plain that you have BOTH God and man acting in the very same action. That is EXACTLY what you have in Genesis 50:20 without question. The same is true in Isaiah 10, and in Acts 4 in reference to the crucifixion of Jesus in the sovereign plan of God. So, the Bible’s answer to Flower’s false quandary is, ‘both, I, to my shame and destruction, and God, to His glory and fame.’ And if Leighton’s system is so shallow and paltry as to not be able to withstand the pressure of that Biblical revelation, then he needs to dump it and get one that is actually worth professing!” Let’s unpack this a bit: 1. He defers to the old tactic, “instead of responding to the actual arguments I’ll just say he doesn’t do proper exegesis.” This approach might work if I were not standing on the shoulders of much more seasoned exegetes of scripture than myself. It is not as if I am making up my interpretation as I go along. (See the article titled “Debate Over Exegesis” for my response to this tactic) 2. He argues for “both/and” versus “either/or” in regard to who is making “determinations.”  He writes, “[Flowers] seems to think that one action has to be EITHER ‘determined’ by man or by God, but it cannot be BOTH.” I think if one were given the opportunity to press Dr. White on this point he would admit that God’s determination is the one that controls the man’s ‘determination,’ thus making this qualification nothing more than a semantical difference without a distinction. Also, Dr. White seems to forget that we do affirm the doctrine of  Judicial Hardening and God’s sinless use of sinful means to accomplish SOME divine purposes throughout redemptive history. We simply deny the heinous assumption that the example of God using man’s free moral choices to bring about the redemption of sin on Calvary is somehow proof that God meticulously determined all the heinous sin that Christ died for at Calvary.  It seems irrational for God to work in the same manner to redeem sin as He supposedly does to cause the sin He is redeeming. 3.  Again, he questions my claims of once being a Calvinist on the basis that I no longer interpret passages like Genesis 50:20 in the same way he does. I suppose anyone who claims to have once been an Arminian (or a Traditional Southern Baptist) cannot change their interpretations or question the positions they formerly held?  This double standard is apparently a blind spot for White because I am quite certain he does not call out the former Arminians for daring to oppose the doctrines they have now recanted. (For those interested in going deeper than these surface level accusations, I do present our view of passages like Gen. 50 in the article referenced above. And I discuss why non-Calvinists will always be accused of misrepresenting Calvinists no matter what we say or how we say it in this article.) 4. White wrote, “So, the Bible’s answer to Flower’s false quandary is, ‘both, I, to my shame and destruction, and God, to His glory and fame.'” So, let’s apply White’s theology to the real world and see how it plays out: Question: Why did Jeffery Dahmer determine to rape and eat a child?Answer: Dahmer determined to do it to his shame and destruction and God determined for Dahmer to do it to His own glory and fame.” I’m sorry, but I’m simply not willing to teach that our perfectly Righteous, Pure and Holy God determined a man to rape, torture and eat children for His own glory and fame. Instead, I must say, “The Emperor has no clothes!”

No one has an excuse to deny God or to disobey His commands. Both God and His law are plainly seen in creation and more clearly in Scripture. David knows this, knows his own sin, and prays to God for help in pursuing holiness in thought, word, and deed.

Both God and Satan want you dead, each for different reasons. Os Hillman shares from a new book on how to defeat the work of the enemy in your life. Learn the strategies that Satan employs against believers and how to overcome him

Both God and Satan want you dead, each for different reasons. Os Hillman shares from a new book on how to defeat the work of the enemy in your life. Learn the strategies that Satan employs against believers and how to overcome him

Both God and Satan want you dead, each for different reasons. Os Hillman shares from a new book on how to defeat the work of the enemy in your life. Learn the strategies that Satan employs against believers and how to overcome him

Both God and Satan want you dead, each for different reasons. Os Hillman shares from a new book on how to defeat the work of the enemy in your life. Learn the strategies that Satan employs against believers and how to overcome him

Both God and Satan want to kill you, but each for different reasons. Satan wants to kill your destiny; God wants to kill your old man so that Christ can fully live through you. In this message you will undestand why each of us must go to the cross for our old man.

Both God and Satan want to kill you, but each for different reasons. Satan wants to kill your destiny; God wants to kill your old man so that Christ can fully live through you. In this message you will undestand why each of us must go to the cross for our old man.

Both God and Satan want to kill you, but each for different reasons. Satan wants to kill your destiny; God wants to kill your old man so that Christ can fully live through you. In this message you will undestand why each of us must go to the cross for our old man.

Both God and Satan want to kill you, but each for different reasons. Satan wants to kill your destiny; God wants to kill your old man so that Christ can fully live through you. In this message you will undestand why each of us must go to the cross for our old man.

Both God and Satan want you dead, but for different reasons. Satan wants to destroy your destiny, but God wants your old man to die so that Christ can fully live His life through you. In Part 1 of Top 10 Things Guaranteed to Kill Your Destiny (and how to avoid them), Os Hillman shares 1 of 10 things he believes are strategies of the enemy of our soul to keep us from fulfilling your destiny.

Both God and Satan want you dead, but for different reasons. Satan wants to destroy your destiny, but God wants your old man to die so that Christ can fully live His life through you. In Part 1 of Top 10 Things Guaranteed to Kill Your Destiny (and how to avoid them), Os Hillman shares 1 of 10 things he believes are strategies of the enemy of our soul to keep us from fulfilling your destiny.

Both God and Satan want you dead, but for different reasons. Satan wants to destroy your destiny, but God wants your old man to die so that Christ can fully live His life through you. In Part 1 of Top 10 Things Guaranteed to Kill Your Destiny (and how to avoid them), Os Hillman shares 1 of 10 things he believes are strategies of the enemy of our soul to keep us from fulfilling your destiny.

Our lives aren't served by the vices of government; collectivistic abstractions don't promote virtue The Rejection of Liberty by Rick Flame http://rejectionofliberty.bravehost.com/ http://www.tolfa.us/arts/roj.htm (from: http://www.tolfa.us/L18.htm) How to Save Endangered Tigers: Kill Them? http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=7544724 Part 4: 5/8/09 John Stossel's "You Can't Even Talk About It" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSPkVoGx5c4 Common pool problems are created by governments (http://completeliberty.com/chapter3.php#68) The biggest understatement imaginable: "Government is undesirable from an economic point of view" CLP listener's new site: http://www.whatisliberty.co.nz/ A Vision of Liberty: America in 2030 by Jim Davies (http://www.takelifeback.com/) http://www.theanarchistalternative.info/bopubord/ People in government try to make the wrong seem right; whatever good intentions they have are undermined by the coercive institution of government itself People naturally want to minimize conflict; for example, Merchant Law Self-ownership isn't for sale: http://completeliberty.com/chapter3.php#65 People own things and they are sovereign Semantics of "ownership" in relation to the self... http://polycentricorder.blogspot.com/2009/03/retrospective-thoughts-on-convo-with.html http://polycentricorder.blogspot.com/2009/05/why-i-reject-self-ownership-redux.html The God Who Wasn't There - http://www.thegodmovie.com/ - History of the Gospels: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=696492648668420724 Mystics of spirit want you to surrender your mind to their hockshops of authority http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/mystics_of_spirit_and_muscle.html http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/faith.html Both "God" and "Government are invalid concepts, just invalid in different ways An Issue Of Mortality http://www.logicallearning.net/libanissueofmort.html The noncepts of omniscience, omnipotence, and infallibility - In Our Own Image And Likeness http://www.logicallearning.net/libertyourownima.html Our age of pre-logic promotes various contradictory mythologies Grown adults advocating a worse life! Why?! Fear of Chaos. Favorite Problem. Analysis Paralysis. Family and Friends. Identification with the Government. Reluctance to Upset Existing Conditions. and... Religion. Vested Interests (working for the government). Free Talk Live Extended Internet Only Edition (Sam and Ian discuss a eloquent letter at the end) http://media.libsyn.com/media/ftl/FTL2009-06-19.mp3 As more and more people reject fear as a motivator, we'll attain more and more liberty; self-esteem is the key to freedom Advocating a night watchmen State (as the "final authority") is reflective of a lack of individuation from one's authoritarian parents Supporting the status quo is easy If friends and family persist in advocating violence and threats of violence (statism), then you know that their love of control, domination, and fear, is greater than their love of you and peaceful relations Most parents are the recipients of the intergenerational transfer of tribal and statist memes, which result in pretenses and defenses that support aggression, power imbalances, and disrespect If we don't speak up about the truth, the adults in our world will perpetuate the status quo and invariably bring about the destruction of the human race A good reference guide in this process - Real-Time Relationships: The Logic of Love http://freedomainradio.com/free/#RTR We must individuate from the "group" - Honoring the Self: Self-Esteem and Personal Transformation http://www.nathanielbranden.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21_23&products_id=43 Taking Responsibility: Self-Reliance and the Accountable Life http://www.nathanielbranden.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21_23&products_id=36 One of the biggest obstacles to liberty today is the vast governmental employment system and its myriad ties to the private sector Individualists must strive to work in the free enterprise sector, and unschool their kids... Episode 51 - From schooling to unschooling, respecting little people, the unenlightened job ticket process http://completeliberty.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=425371 We must develop a consistent conception of liberty (complete liberty), based on property rights and individual choices Abdicating your own decision-making process means rejecting liberty The Crucial Faculty Of Choice http://www.logicallearning.net/libfreewill.html Irrefutable philosophical axioms: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/axioms.html http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/axiomatic_concepts.html Each and every self-contained neural system, each human, must be allowed (by other humans) to function naturally, according to reason An assertion of determinism that attempts to deny choice still is a choice; to deny conceptual selection (volition) would be contradictory It's crucial to explore your subconscious thoughts and feelings--and the most effective and efficient way to do that is via sentence completion exercises Please visit my site http://happinesscounseling.com for more details! bumper music "Rise" (Acoustic) by The Cult (could only find here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEyMdtMLjfI) http://www.the-cult.com/beyond.html  http://www.myspace.com/cultmusic to comment, please go to http://completeliberty.com/magazine/category/91697  

I. Introduction I remember well my first attempt at rappelling. Rock climbers use ropes to scale rocky cliffs and go back down them. I had never done it before. It was my first week at college, where you do all kinds of insane and crazy things. And so, there I was on the fifth floor of a town house on Beacon Street in Boston, on the wrong side of the fire escape. And I had the rappelling rope in my left hand and a harness around my body, and my right hand was holding firmly onto the fire escape. I knew my hand, but I didn't know anything about this rope. I knew what my hand could do, but did I dare let go with my right hand and trust that rope? Well, I did, and it worked, and so I stand before you today. I survived, and I never did it again. I didn't really see the point. There was no great thrill in bouncing down the side of that brick house and making it down, except getting that harness off and saying, "I'll never do this again!" Now, others may enjoy doing that kind of thing. More power to them. But I want to focus on that moment. I remember it well. When I looked at my right hand, I had to kind of tell it to let go, and it didn't want to. It seemed to know better than I did. "I'm saving your life, you don't want me to let go!" But it is a spiritual principle too. We know what we can do, and we are accustomed to trusting in ourselves. But this scripture today that we are looking at commands us to trust in Christ, to look away from what we can do, what schemes and plots and arrangements we can make to get ourselves out of whatever situations we find ourselves in, and to trust in Christ alone. And it is so hard for us to do it, to live by faith, not by sight, to learn how to rely on God who is invisible, to trust in the certainty of his promises, to look away from what we can achieve and to trust in him. I think this is one of the biggest questions that we face in our lives. On what or on whom are you really trusting? What are you relying on? What is the truest source of confidence for your own life? Now most of the time, I think, in everyday life this question doesn't really come up. You're not asking intensely as you pour milk on your cereal in the morning, "Now, what am I relying on at this moment? Can I do it?" Or when your cell phone rings and you pull it out, "Do I have the power with which to answer this call?" Everyday life can just lure you into a sense of false security. You get behind the wheel, you turn on the ignition and you think, "I've done this before. I've driven many times to church, I can handle it." And so you don't really pray, you don't really think much about Christ at that moment and so you just go about your business. But this is a grave misunderstanding of how totally and constantly we should be depending and relying on Christ, on Christ alone. It is a devastating state to be in spiritually, to rely on yourself. It will damn the soul. Because we cannot save ourselves and we must be trained to look away from what we can achieve and look instead to Christ and to him alone. And so, as we come to Isaiah seven, the central lesson of Isaiah seven, I believe is, “Stop trusting in yourself and the alliances you can make in your own strength, and rely on Immanuel. Rely on God alone, who is with us." Now, as we come to this passage, Judah is facing a crisis. The little kingdom of Judah is led by a faithless king. And this faithless king, Ahaz, a descendant of king David, is the very man whom God confronts with this promise: “God with us.” God wants to entrust the sign of Immanuel to him and Ahaz doesn't want any part of it. II. Crisis Reveals True Faith (verses 1-2) Ahaz: David’s Faithless Descendant We need to understand the geopolitical context of Isaiah 7 to get its full richness. That's the challenge before me today, because you think about the history, what was going on, who are these names that were read for us? Pekah son of Remaliah, and the son of Tabeel, and Aram and Ephraim - who are all these and what does it have to do with anything? But this is the crisis that was revealing the true faith of Ahaz, I would have to say, his lack of faith in almighty God. As we come to Ahaz, we come to a descendant of David, grandson of Uzziah. He is the king of the southern kingdom of Judah. Now, remember your history. Because of his wickedness, because of his idolatry, Solomon’s heart had turned away from God. And God had decided to judge him, not in his lifetime, but that his son would lose ten tribes. And those ten tribes became the northern kingdom of Israel. The house of David was left with one tribe, Judah, the southern kingdom. And the northern kingdom Israel, and the southern kingdom of Judah were for the most part bitter enemies from that point forward. And so Israel was the northern kingdom, and Judah the southern kingdom. Aram, Edom, Moab - these were all little kingdoms or little countries in the ancient near east in Palestine that jockeyed for position. At times some would be a little bit more powerful than the other, etcetera, similar perhaps to the small nations of Serbia and Belgium in pre-World War I days. But then there were the big empires, the big rulers like in pre-World War I days when you had Russia, you had the Austria Hungarian empire, you had Germany and Britain. So in those days, you had Assyria. Assyria was the big monster swimming in that small pool, the superpower of the ancient near east - violent, ruthless and brutal. Called the Nazis of the ancient world, Assyria was poised to gobble up all these minor nations like a lion devouring scraps of meat. That is the context. Now this man Ahaz was Uzziah's grandson, but he had none of Uzziah's piety, none of Uzziah's love for the Lord. 2 King 16:3-4 says Ahaz “walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, on the hilltops and under every spreading tree.” And so God gave him over. Because of his sins, God gave him over to his enemies. There is a plain connection between the king's false religion and his defeat by both Israel and Aram on the battlefields. The story is told in 2 Chronicles 28:5-6. Because of Ahaz's sins, “therefore the Lord his God handed him over to the king of Aram. The Arameans defeated him and took many of his people as prisoners and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hands of the king of Israel, who inflicted heavy casualties on him. In one day Pekah son of Remaliah killed a hundred and twenty thousand soldiers in Judah - because Judah had forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers." Sadly, however, Ahaz did not learn the lesson. He was of the pragmatic school of religion - what works is what we need to follow. And he followed the “if you can't beat them, join them” approach. So in 2 Chronicles 28:23 it says, “He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus, who had defeated him; for he thought, 'Since the gods of the kings of Aram have helped them, I will sacrifice to them so they will help me.' But they were his downfall and the downfall of all Israel.” The Crisis: A Scary Alliance So that's the context. The immediate context in the issue of Isaiah 7 is a scary alliance. That is the crisis. Two of these little kingdoms have agreed to join together in alliance against little Judah, and the odds are overwhelming. If Judah can't stand up against one of them, how is Judah going to survive against both of them allied together? And so, look at Isaiah 7:5,6. “Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah's son have plotted your ruin, saying, ‘Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.’” This is the plot. This is what's going on. Fluttering Like a Leaf It is a dire situation for Ahaz and for the people of Judah. And as a result in verse two their hearts are fluttering like a leaf. “So the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.” The crises of our lives reveal true character. Even more significantly, they reveal what we are truly trusting in. And so God brings us through crises sometimes to show us our faith, what we really trust in, and perhaps to show us what we are not trusting in and how we should be trusting in Christ more. These people, including Ahaz, had no solid foundation in the sovereignty of God. They had nowhere to turn, and so they were terrified, fluttering like leaf. III. The Sovereign Lord Intervenes, Promises and Warns (verses 3-9) The Sovereign Lord Intervenes And so the sovereign Lord intervenes. He steps in. Our God doesn't stand passively on the sidelines of history. That's not the God of the Bible. He is not an idler. He is not rooting and hoping for a proper outcome, powerless to do anything about it. No, he steps in and brings it about. He accomplishes what he decides. He is sovereign in deciding what will happen on the stage of history. He moves his little finger and the nations convulse. This is our God. And so, he begins with a quiet word from the prophet to the king. His real desire, the real focus of God, is the hearts of his people. What is going on in your heart? Do you trust or do you not? That's what it is all about. And so he is moving so that his people will learn to trust him, even in the midst of that kind of a crisis. He sends Isaiah the prophet. So Isaiah goes out to confront Ahaz as he is making preparations for battle. Look at verse three. “Then the Lord said to Isaiah, ‘Go out, you and your son Shear-Jashub, to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman's field.’” So he is out there, making preparations, perhaps getting some water ready for a siege. He is out there, and Isaiah goes to confront him, to deal with him. God’s Command: Don’t Be Afraid… Only Believe And God gives Ahaz and the people of Judah a command. He says, “Don't be afraid, only believe.” Look at verse four. “Say to him, 'Be careful, keep calm and don't be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood - because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah.” So he gives them a command. So often Jesus does the same thing with his own disciples. In the midst of the storm, he rebukes them and said, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” (Matthew 8:26). So, often we get afraid of the future, and we should be trusting in God. Faith drives out fear and makes us strong and courageous. And so, God gives a command, and he says, “Don't be afraid, only believe.” God’s Promise: The Secret Plans of Man Will Fail And he gives them a promise as well: “The secret plans of man will fail.” Look at verses five through seven. "Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah's son have plotted your ruin, saying, 'Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.' Yet this is what the Sovereign Lord says: 'It will not take place, it will not happen.'" That, my friends, is the final word on that. When God speaks like that, who can turn aside his will? His hand is stretched out and who is able to turn it back? He's made a decision in this matter and this will not take place. It's a promise. The secret purposes of man will not prevail. “Man Proposes, God Disposes” You've heard the saying, "Man proposes but God disposes." God makes the final decision. Oh, many verses teach this. Proverbs 19:21 says, "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." Others teach plainly God's sovereign authority over the rise and fall of nations. Daniel 4:17, "The Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men." Some verses even discuss directly the plots and plans and schemes and lies that political leaders make, even to one another, sitting at a conference table, and say God's sovereign plan will overrule all of that. Read Daniel 11. Well, here God decrees failure for this alliance. It will not take place. It will not happen. And here faith must find its resting place in the sovereign power of God. He decrees what will and will not happen. And in that we find our sure security, our stable resting point. Tragically, however, Ahaz will not listen. He is not going to listen. Instead, he is going to flee willingly into the arms of the monster Assyria. He is going to turn away from a loving God and he is going to embrace Assyria to save him. Now Judah's enemies are merely human. How many times does it say, "The head of this country is only so and so. The head of that country is only so and so." They're only men. They are nothing. Within sixty-five years, Ephraim will be too shattered to even to be a people. Who is speaking these words? Later in the book of Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 22 and following, "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. 'To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?' says the Holy One." "The head of such and such country is only so and so, but I, I sit enthroned above the circle of the Earth, and all the nations are like grasshoppers before me. Who do you fear?" The Warning: Grave Danger for Unbelief And therefore he gives Ahaz, and through him Judah and all of us a warning: "Grave danger for unbelief." Look at verse nine. To me, this is the center of this whole chapter. I know the promise of Immanuel is wonderful. We will talk about it. But the lesson that takes in the whole picture of Isaiah 7 is this one verse, verse nine, “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.” That is the warning that Isaiah gives to Ahaz. The greatest danger in the universe is unbelief in Almighty God, for this makes the sovereign Lord, who sits enthroned above the circle of the Earth, it makes him your enemy. And who can stand before him? Here I perceive also the same issue as the gospel itself. Romans 1:17, “The righteous will live by faith.” Those who refuse to believe in Christ will be destroyed, and they will be destroyed by the very things they trust in, as Ahaz was destroyed by the very nation he trusted in, Assyria. Unbelievers trust in false gods and false good works, and they will prove the greatest enemies of our souls on judgment day. IV. The Sovereign Lord Gives a Sign: Immanuel (vs. 10-17) Stooping to Our Weakness And so the sovereign Lord stoops to our weakness. He stoops to Ahaz's weakness, and he wants to give him a sign, the sign of Immanuel. It's amazing, isn't it? How sweetly patient our God is. How much he is willing to reach out. "All day long," He says, "I have held out my hands to an obstinate people” (Isaiah 65:2). This is God. And so he stoops to Ahaz's weakness, and he wants to give him a sign. He knows Ahaz's heart is terrified. He knows it is faithless. He wants to give him a sign to help him. And so Isaiah, on behalf of the Almighty God, hands Ahaz a blank check with God's signature and says, "Fill it in, any amount, anything you want, and I will do it." It's an astonishing statement here. "Ask the Lord your God," verse 11, "Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights, [anything, and I'll do it.]" And notice the language here, very hopeful. Speaking to Ahaz, "Ask the Lord your God, Ahaz.” “Your God” - that will change in a moment. But at this point, he has an invitation to trust in the God of his father David, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of power. And look at the graciousness of the command: "Ask for any sign." Remember one time during the period of the conquest, when Joshua was fighting, and he asked God for an extraordinary thing. He just wanted a little more time that day to finish off the battle. Do you remember that from Joshua 10:12-14? "On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel: 'O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.' So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies. … The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a man. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!" Well, here Isaiah goes out on behalf of the sovereign Lord and says, "You can ask for anything. I'll even do that again if you want, so that you will know that God is still fighting for his people." Ahaz’s Transparent Hypocrisy But what does Ahaz do with this blank check? He crumples it up and throws it on the ground. And he does it with a transparent hypocrisy that is really quite shocking. "I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test" (verse 12). Oh, that is really lousy. And that smells. I know he's quoting Deuteronomy and all that. And I know the Lord said this in terms of casting himself off the pinnacle of the temple and all that. “Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massah” (Deuteronomy 6:16). But God had told him to do it! That’s the whole issue. If the Lord had commanded, if God had commanded Jesus to cast himself from the pinnacle of the temple, Jesus would have done it without hesitation, knowing that God would send his angels to catch him. But God hadn't commanded Jesus to do that. The whole issue is what is God commanding? And here the sovereign Lord has commanded Ahaz, "Ask for a sign." And he says, "I won't do it." The fact is that God is really testing Ahaz. He wants Ahaz, he wants all of us to see what is in his heart. There is nothing there toward God. He doesn't want to ask God to give him a sign, because he doesn't want God to do the sign. He doesn't want anything to do with Yahweh. He doesn't want anything to do with a mighty, wonder working God. All he wants is to solve his problems his own way. He already knows what he is going to do. He is making preparations for the siege. He already knows what his plan is. We'll get to that in a moment. But Isaiah gives him a sharp reply from the Lord. Verse 13: “Then Isaiah said, ‘Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also?’” Oh, that is significant. Notice he doesn't say your God here. The moment has passed. There is a moment, and it passes. There was an opportunity there for Ahaz, and he threw it on the ground. And so now it is my God. This is the decisive moment, I believe, in Ahaz's life. He refuses the grace and help that the Lord will give. Judah will be saved, but not by Ahaz. Not by Ahaz. The Sign: Immanuel And so, here comes the sign, verses 14 through 16, "The Lord Himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him, Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste." Alright, so Ahaz won't ask for a sign, the Lord will choose the sign. He is going to give a sign. This time it is of the Lord's choosing. And notice that the sign is given to the whole nation. The word is plural. It's not just to Ahaz singular. It's "to you, the Lord will give all of you a sign." And this sign is a word. It is a child who symbolizes the word "Immanuel" - God with us. Three Issues with the Sign Now there are three weighty issues with this verse, three significant issues we need to try to figure out. First and foremost, was there an immediate sign given in Ahaz's time? Did God do something for Ahaz in his generation? Second, does this verse teach the virgin birth? Third, what is the significance of the word, "Immanuel"? Three key questions here. Let's take the first. Was there an immediate sign given in Ahaz's time? Absolutely, yes, there was. The whole thing with Christian prophecy in the Old Testament is that of shadow and fulfillment. There is a reality that acts out an aspect of Christ's life, and then the perfect fulfillment is in Christ. And so, we have that again here. There was an Israelite young lady who was going to give birth to a son at that time, and they would give him the name "Immanuel." And that son, that boy, would be a sign and a symbol of something the Lord was going to do. This mysterious name, this word "Immanuel," is the essence of the sign. The boy, I believe, was just an ordinary boy. But he became somewhat like a time clock, measuring what God intended to do. And so, how long does it take for a young boy to know right from wrong? It says, "He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste." They are not even going to be an issue anymore. Well that's what - five or six years? In a very, very, very short time, it is going to be laid waste. And you are not going to be wondering anymore about those two kingdoms that are allied together against you. And so there's the sign. It's a time clock. In a very, very short time - you won't have to wait long - those two kingdoms will be destroyed. So yes, there was a sign immediately given in Ahaz's day. Secondly, does this verse teach the virgin birth? Now, that is problematic. I just said there would be a baby born. Born to a virgin? I think not. Why do I say that? I think that was utterly unique in all of redemptive history, the virgin birth. Never to be repeated. Never happened before. Now, we recognize that Mathew picked this verse as a prediction of the virgin birth. Mathew 1:22-23, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ - which means, ‘God with us.’” But the virgin birth is utterly unique in all of history. I can't imagine that a child born in Ahaz's day was born from a virgin. So Isaiah uses a word, "almah", a Hebrew word which always refers in the Old Testament to a virgin, but which does not emphasize specifically her virginity as another Hebrew word would have. I love Martin Luther's quote on this. Martin Luther offered one hundred guilders, one hundred gold coins to anyone who could show that the Hebrew word "almah" ever referred to a married woman. In characteristic fashion Luther said only God knew where he'd get the one hundred guilders if someone could meet his bet. “I don't have that kind of money, but I'm pretty confident on this one, that you'll never be able show me that this word refers to a married woman.” So I think this Hebrew word is admirably suited both for the immediate circumstances of Ahaz, and then for the future glorious fulfillment. I don't think anyone really could have understood until it happened that a virgin would literally be with child by the power of the sovereign God. What is the significance of the word "Immanuel"? Well, the word literally means “God with us.” Here in Ahaz's day, it meant that the true source of Judah's safety was the fact that Almighty God was protecting her. That is the source of Judah's true safety. Look over, if you would, just one chapter to Isaiah 8, perhaps right there on the same page, and look at verses nine and ten. “Raise the war cry, you nations, and be shattered! Listen, all you distant lands. Prepare for battle, and be shattered! Prepare for battle, and be shattered! Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted; propose your plan, but it will not stand.” Why? “For God is with us.” Do you see that? There's the protection. All you nations that mean us harm, just know this, you will lose. You go ahead and make your plans. Get yourself ready. It doesn't make a difference. Why? Because the sovereign God is on our side. We will find out later what he can do with one angel in one night - 185,000 troops. He can do anything. So the real safety and security for Judah is this: God is with us. No nation, no matter how mighty, can defeat God's people while God is fighting for them. And so Deuteronomy 32:9-11 says this: “For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance… He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions.” Oh, what a glorious picture! God as a powerful eagle protecting the little ones, and none can harm them because he is sovereign and powerful. That's what Immanuel means, the power of God to defeat all of our enemies. Now the deeper significance of Immanuel comes with the birth of Christ. More in a moment on that. V. False Faith Proves Ruinous: Assyria is Coming! (vs. 17-25) Both God and Ahaz Summon Assyria But then we see the false faith of Ahaz that proves ruinous. Assyria is coming. Assyria is coming, verses 17 through 25, and amazingly, both God and Ahaz are going to summon Assyria for very different purposes. Faithless Ahaz turns away from God to Assyria for help Despite the sweet promises of protection from the Lord, Ahaz turns away in faithless unbelief. He has no faith in the Lord. He must save himself, and so he makes a fatal alliance with Assyria. The tragic story is told fully in 2 Kings 16:7-9, "Ahaz sent messengers to say to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, 'I am your servant and your vassal.'" That should just make the hairs come up in the back of your neck. "I am your servant, O king of Assyria." I want to be a servant of the living God, don't you? I don't want to say that to anybody, “I am your servant.” Not in this sense. "I am your servant and your vassal. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Aram and of the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.” “Come up and save me," he says. "And Ahaz took the silver and gold found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace and sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria. The king of Assyria complied by attacking Damascus and capturing it." So there is a little boy Immanuel. Within a handful of years, the two kingdoms will be destroyed and laid waste. By whom? By Assyria. Assyria is going to come and lay them waste. And in honor of his new liege Lord, the king of Assyria, Ahaz changes the worship patterns of Judah. He sees an Assyrian altar there in Damascus and sends the plans for the altar back to be built according to that pattern. When he goes back and sees his replica altar, he offers sacrifices on it according to his own new religion, and he seeks guidance from it. He took things out of the temple of the Lord and sent them in honor to the king of Assyria. “But that did not help him” (2 Chronicles 28:21). He eventually shut the doors of the Lord's temple entirely and set up altars on every street corner in Jerusalem and worshipped false gods after the pagan pattern of Assyria. That's what he did. Wholesale defection. That's why I say the key moment is here in Isaiah 7, when God invites him and asks him to ask for a sign. This foolish act would eventually destroy most of Judah. And why? Because Assyria is coming. One commentator said, "It's like a little mouse fighting against two larger mice and summoning the cat to come help. And so the cat comes gladly and takes care of the two little mice. And what's left? The third little mouse. And Judah is going to get gobbled up too. God predicts and brings Assyria Now, I said both Ahaz and Almighty God summoned Assyria, but for very different reasons. Now he is going to use Assyria to search the hearts of his own people on this very issue: Who are you trusting? Are you going to trust God, or are you going to trust Assyria? So when they come (look at verses 17 through 20), “The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah - he will bring the king of Assyria. In that day the Lord will whistle for flies from the distant streams of Egypt and for bees from the land of Assyria. They will all come and settle in the steep ravines and in the crevices in the rocks, on all the thornbushes and at all the water holes. In that day the Lord will use a razor hired from beyond the River - the king of Assyria - to shave your head and the hair of your legs, and to take off your beards also.” Notice God does not merely predict that Assyria will come. That's not what it says. No, he brings them. He is going to bring the king of Assyria. He is going to whistle, like the master of bees and flies, for them to come. He is going to hire a razor to come do the shaving. He is going to humiliate his people. He is going to bring them. And the bottom line is this: What you trust in, if not the Lord, will ultimately destroy you. Assyria came not to save, but to destroy. Isaiah 10:6 tells us the purpose of the Assyrians. "To seize loot, and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets." That's their motive. Now, I believe if Ahaz had trusted in the Lord, I don't know what would have happened, but I think Assyria would have come anyway to take care of the northern kingdom. They were done. He would have come to destroy Aram, but they would have stopped at the border and would not have entered in. They might have wanted to come in, but they are not getting in there, because the sovereign Lord would have protected that little kingdom of Judah, as he can do. That's just speculation, but I think that's what would have happened. But instead, Ahaz – Judah - reaches out to Assyria and God brings them. The final result is that the land will be destroyed. It will be a cursed land. Look at Verses 23 through 25. "In that day, in every place where there were a thousand vines worth a thousand silver shekels, there will be only briers and thorns.” In that place where there was rich fruitfulness, there is going to be cursing. “Men will go there with bow and arrow, for the land will be covered with briers and thorns.” That's cursed. Verse 25: “As for all the hills once cultivated by the hoe [that's a blessed land], you will no longer go there for fear of the briers and thorns [that's the curse]; they will become places where cattle are turned loose and where the sheep run.” The land is going to be destroyed because of faithlessness, because they wouldn't trust in God. VI. The Immanuel Sign Fulfilled: Christ is Born Now, I want to focus on this sign, Immanuel, and its glorious fulfillment, Jesus Christ our Savior. The virgin birth - centuries later God remembered the sign that he had promised Ahaz. And Mary, the mother of Jesus, was pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is clear and given a clear testimony in Luke 1 and Matthew 1. After Mary was told by the angel what would happen to her, she yearned to understand. Luke 1:34-35, “‘How will this be,’ Mary asked the angel, ‘since I am a virgin?’ The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.’” But it is Matthew who links this event back to this prophecy and focuses on the word “Immanuel”. “An angel of the Lord appeared to him [Joseph] in a dream” (Matthew 1:20). Joseph was resolving to divorce Mary. He had trouble believing, as any of us would, that this virgin was really a virgin with child. It had never happened before. And so being a just man, he resolved to divorce her quietly. “But… an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ - which means ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:20,21). “God with us” – a literal fulfillment - Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. “The Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us, and we have beheld his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Hebrews 2:14, "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity." He is God with us as a human being. More than that, however, sweetly more than that, he is God on our side, God who has come to save us, God who has come to deliver us, God for us. Romans 8:31, "What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?” “Who cares who's against us?” My translation. Well, not a translation, just a few extra things. We'll just preach on that. "Who cares who's against us?!” Assyria, Satan, the world and the flesh, it doesn't matter. If God is for us, who could be against us? God for us and God with us - through everything we're going through. As he says in Hebrews 13:5, "Never will I leave you; Never will I forsake you.” “When you pass through the rivers, I will be with you. When you walk through the fire, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2). Forever he is with us. God walking alongside us in temptation. He was tempted in every way just as we are, yet he was without sin. Let's go to him then that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. God is with us in the midst of suffering. We endure, knowing that Jesus suffered more than any of us ever could or ever will on the cross. He knows suffering. Go to him as you are suffering. He is God with us. He is God with us in the trial of death. "He tasted death for everyone," it says in Hebrews 2:9. He is also God with us in all of the work he gives us to do. Remember how, through the flames of the burning bush, God sent Moses to Pharaoh? And he said, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?" (Exodus 3:11). And what did the Lord say? "I will be with you." "I will be with you" (Exodus 3:12). And so he has entrusted to us the work of reconciliation for the whole world. To the church he has entrusted to us that we should “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19,20). But what does he say after that? “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” God with us in everything he has commanded us to do. He will never leave us and never forsake us. The True Deliverance And God with us to deliver us from the true danger. It's not the Assyrians. It's not the Arameans. It's not Israel. It's none of that. The true deliverance is from sin and death and hell. Hallelujah! He has come to deliver us from those enemies, and so he drank the cup of God's wrath. He drank hell in on the cross. He suffered hell for us so that we could be delivered. “And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest day or night” (Revelation 4:11). That's the real deliverance we need. We need to be delivered from hell. We need to be delivered from judgement and from wrath. And we deserve it. We know it. The Final Fulfillment: Eternally with God But Jesus has come to deliver us from what we truly deserve by giving us a free gift. And the final fulfillment of God with us is heaven itself. Heaven itself. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:1-3). That's God with us friends. "Father," he says in John 17:24, “I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory.” And so the final fulfillment of Immanuel is Revelation 21:2,3. “I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men.’” God with men. That's Immanuel. “And he will live with them, [Immanuel], "they will be his people, and God himself will be with them, [that's Immanuel], "and [he will] be their God.” That is the fulfillment of the promise of Isaiah 7:14. Eternity in Heaven in face to face fellowship with Almighty God. VII. Central Lesson: In What Are You Trusting? How Do You React During Trials? So what is the central lesson of Isaiah 7? This is: What are you trusting in? What do your trials show you that you are trusting in? How do you react when you get bad news? Whether it's financial, or medical, relational, spiritual - when you get bad news and your heart is laid bare what are you really trusting in? Is your heart fluttering like a leaf when you get some bad news? Or are you rock solid knowing there is a God who sovereignly overrules your life and nothing can touch you except what is passed through his wise and loving hands. Which is it? Are you stable or are you fluttering? Christ is saying, "Be careful, keep calm and don't be afraid. Do not lose heart" (Isaiah 7:4). Even More Poignantly, What About Your Soul?? Even more poignantly he says to all of us, to the human race, “There is an earthquake coming far greater than any we've seen in the current events. It is going to shake what you built. It is going to shake everything. Once more he will return and shake the earth. And if you do not stand by faith on that day, you will not stand at all.” Romans 1:16-17 puts it this way, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’” I appreciated singing “Come Ye Sinners, Poor And Needy.” Oh, is that powerful! Wasn't that powerful? I wanted there to be twenty more verses. I guess then I wouldn’t be preaching now. But that's fine. We'd still be singing. But that's fine. Oh the rich theology. The rich, rich theology. And one of the verses said this, Lo, the incarnate God, ascended, Pleads the merit of his blood: Venture on Him, venture wholly, Let no other trust intrude! Oh, is that potent. Venture out like you're on the seventh floor of a burning high rise and a hook and ladder has come to save your life. Don't hesitate. Go. Venture forth and don't look for anything else to save you. “There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must saved” (Acts 4:12). It's Jesus alone. Call on the name of the Lord and you will be saved. And it says, “Let no other trust intrude! Yesterday, I had the privilege of performing a wedding for Jim and Claire Ewell. And standing right here at the very end of the ceremony, I gave them permission, actually kind of a command. “You may kiss the bride.” I think he was eager to do it. And so he stepped forward and he embraced his bride and kissed her. A public display of affection right here in church. He gave her a big kiss. But at that moment of marital embrace, there was not a man or woman or child on the face of the earth who would have been welcome to join them. No one. I was closest to them. I wasn't tempted. That was their moment. That's a picture of the soul in Christ. Let no other trust intrude. He is the lover of your soul. He is the only one who can save you. Nothing else has a right to intrude on the embrace of your soul and your savior Jesus Christ. Close with me in prayer.

The title of this episode, Part 6 in the Series 500 Yrs, in commemoration of the Half-Millennial anniversary of The Reformation, is “The Way It Was;” a brief look at popular religion of the Middle and Late Middle Ages in Europe.We've spent most of our time in this series on the Reformers, many of whom were professional clergy before they broke with Rome.A fair question to ask is, “What was religion like for commoners, peasants; the vast majority of the population?”Since it was only the clergy and a handful of the nobility who could read, people didn't attend Bible studies. Their religion was something designed and promulgated by The Church. It centered on the veneration of saints, especially Mary, relics, pilgrimages, & the quest to capture the Holy Land.As the Faith spread, the Church made use of Europe's pagan heritage. The old shrines and festivals were co-opted to Christian use. While theologians understood the difference between the Trinity and saints, the distinction was lost on the peasantry. The old gods were subsumed under saints names and holidays commemorating their martyrdom. Pagan temples became churches.The 12th C saw a surge in the importance of the Virgin Mary as central to the religious devotion of the common people. Both God the Father and God the Son, as males, were cast as angry deities worked up about sin and ready to swat down the wicked. Mary was a mother who's tender mercy stood between these angry guys and helpless humans. She interceded with Her Son, because what son can say “No” to his mama?So Mary's role as an intercessor was advanced. When it was declared she was so holy she'd ascended bodily into heaven, her cult grew since she now transcended time and space. While the use of beads as a prayer device had been going on for some time among in monasteries, the rosary with its prayers to the Virgin, was added as a practice for all Christians in the early 13th C.In the popular mind of the average European peasant of the Middle Ages, It may have been Jesus' work on the Cross that atoned for sin, but it was Mary's intercession that secured that salvation to the needy soul. And that, only after each person had done their utmost to compensate for their sin through confession and penance.That's where priests came in. People believed unless they died in a state of sinlessness, they'd have to go to Purgatory, where they'd be tormented for ages. That much desired sinless state was attained by confessing your sins to a priest, then doing the penance he specified; 50 Ave Marias and 20 Pater Nosters, or whatever.But of course, no one could remember every sin they'd committed, even if they went to confession every day. So all those unconfessed sins added to one's time in Purgatory. Then some clever cleric came up with the idea that people could secure relief from these forgotten & unconfessed sins by drawing on the excess holiness of the saints. While most people had a holiness deficit, there were special people; Jesus, Mary, the Apostles, Saints, popes, etc. who'd done way more good in their lives than their own faults and foibles needed. All this extra goodness and spiritual merit went into a kind of heavenly reservoir called the Treasury of Merit. Since Jesus gave Peter the Keys of the Kingdom, and he'd passed them on to his successors, that mean the pope had the authority to transfer some of this surplus merit to the needy. He did this through his agents, priests and special representatives who'd occasionally make the rounds selling certificates called Indulgences.These either dispensed with the need to do penance, or in the late Middle Ages, were used as a way to buy a deceased loved one's way out of Purgatory.One of the ways people could do penance and score major points was by going on a pilgrimage. The goal of such journeys was some shrine or cathedral housing a religious relic. The cathedral of Cologne, for instance, had several relics, the most important of which was a reliquary, a gold covered box, said to contain the bones of the 3 Magi.The trade in relics exploded with people of every social level desiring some memento they could own that would accrue to them divine favor. The more famous the saint it belonged to, the more expensive. Clever entrepreneurs came up with all kinds of supposed relics with varying prices to satisfy the religious itch of everyone.Merchants carried splinters of the true cross as protection form highwaymen. Knights carried saints' teeth, finger bones, & hair in the hollow of sword hilts. People could buy drops of Jesus' bloody sweat, or the Virgin's milk at local faires.Every church needed a relic for its altar. When cities realized there was profit to be made from pilgrimages, they began stealing relics from other towns in the hope it would increase traffic.Martin Luther's patron, Frederick of Saxony, had amassed a huge and valuable collection of relics. When the Reformation took hold, one of the first things to go bye-bye was the trade in relics.The pilgrimages Europeans made during the Middle Ages in pursuit of penance or out of a desire to rack up some divine favor, became increasingly popular. The grand-daddy of all pilgrimages, of course, was to the Holy Land. But that was both an expensive and dangerous proposition. So Pilgrimages were designed within Europe itself. The most popular Western destinations were Rome, Canterbury & Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain. The pilgrimage routes were carefully arranged, with hostels spaced out along the way. A pilgrimage was usually a light-hearted affair. Pilgrims were a kind of spiritual tourist who travelled in groups and stopped at frequent shrines along the way.Earlier I mentioned that the peasantry was illiterate. Their entire understanding of the Christian Faith came from the local priest told them. Those priests, while usually literate themselves, did not read the Bible. They may have read it during their first year as a monk novitiate. But after that clergy mainly read & studied Peter Lombard's 12th C work known as The Sentences. Lombard collected the marginal notes and glosses notable scholars had left in their Bibles. These notes were a kind of commentary on the scriptures. To get an idea of what The Sentences were, imagine you collect the Bibles of a dozen of your favorite Bible teachers. You then carefully cull their marginal notes in order from Genesis to Revelation. Now, remove all Bibles, so that all that's left is your collection of notes. That's what the Church used as it's authoritative text from the 12th through 15th C. People weren't being taught God's Word. They were being taught AS God's Word the commentary of religious scholars.No wonder the theology of the Late Middle Ages was messed up and desperately needed reform. And no wonder when Eastern scholars fleeing the Turks arrived as refugees, carrying ancient Greek manuscripts of the Bible, they were snapped up, European priests and scholars relearned Greek, and began pouring over the original text of Scripture like starving men given fresh bread.