Podcasts about Temptation

The devil threatens us with all sorts of temptations in this world. The only way we can overcome those threats is by putting our faith in Jesus, the only Way, Truth and Life.

And Also With You is a podcast about reclaiming an ancient Christian faith for modern Christian life, helmed by two millennial women Episcopal priests and moms (Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail and Rev. Laura Di Panfilo). For our fourth season we are diving deep into SIN, EVIL, and DEATH, and we're starting out with a bang: what is the sin of Christian Nationalism?  The theology of MAGA Christian nationalism has nuances, but the connective tissue is this: the world is not safe, and God must be defended from many, many enemies — and when God is defended on earth, God will reign over His chosen children with love, while exacting vengeance on everyone else. It is explicitly patriarchal even as it can empower women in positions of prestige and leadership, provided they are still “under” a man in some way. MAGA Christian nationalism creates communal identity based not so much on what Christian nationalists have in common, but on what they are against and, therefore, whom they must defeat. But while MAGA Christian nationalism offered a tempting promise, its popularity is actually the self-consuming dragon ... and this is the nature of sin, evil, and death. So buckle up cutie pies, we're tearing this idol apart brick by brick.  This podcast is entirely possible because of listeners like YOU, so please support our work here  via PAYPAL, VENMO, OR APPLE PAY: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/AQ74PDBMBXYVA Lizzie's piece for The Preamble: https://thepreamble.com/cp/211884325 +++ Like what you hear? We are an entirely crowd-sourced, you-funded project.  SUPPORT US ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/AndAlsoWithYouPodcast There's all kinds of perks including un-aired live episodes, Zoom retreats, and mailbag episodes for our Patreons! +++ Our Website: https://andalsowithyoupod.com Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andalsowithyoupodcast/ ++++ MERCH: https://www.bonfire.com/store/and-also-with-you-the-podcast/ ++++ More about Father Lizzie: BOOK: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/762683/god-didnt-make-us-to-hate-us-by-rev-lizzie-mcmanus-dail/ RevLizzie.com https://www.instagram.com/rev.lizzie/ https://www.tiktok.com/@rev.lizzie Jubilee Episcopal Church in Austin, TX - JubileeATX.org  ++++ More about Mother Laura: https://www.instagram.com/laura.peaches/ https://www.tiktok.com/@mother_peaches St. Brendan's Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, PA - https://www.stbrendans.org ++++ Theme music: "On Our Own Again" by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue). New episodes drop Mondays at 7am EST/6am CST! 

The story of Jephthah is a heartbreaking one because of the tragic vow he made to God and the consequences of following through with it (Judges 11:30).In this episode, I discuss three main things that may have influenced Jephthah to make this vow to God. We also explore how, as believers, we can overcome these same struggles and avoid the temptation to make rash or unnecessary vows.What are your thoughts on this episode? Let me know in the comment section!I hope this episode blesses you and encourages you in your walk with God.

In this episode, Nancy Wilson draws from Richard Rogers's Holy Helps for a Godly Life to consider the neglected Christian duty of watchfulness—paying attention to our own hearts, resisting temptation, and standing firm through prayer, faith, sobriety, and the whole armor of God. Correction: In the episode, Nancy refers to Hebrews 6:10–18; the passage quoted is Ephesians 6:10–18. Find more from Nancy and others on Canon+: https://canonplus.com/tabs/none/pages/nancy-wilson  IT'S HERE! Pre-Order the 4th installment of the Ashtown Burial Series at ashtownburials.com.

In this episode, the guys unpack Proverbs 5-7, where Solomon exhorts his sons to pursue sexual wisdom. Where does sexual folly lead? How do I become sexually wise? Listen and find out.We are continuing our study in the book of Proverbs. In 2026, if there is any area that we need wisdom it is in the area of sexuality. When you look around at the world, there is massive confusion in this area. But Proverbs gives us clarity. It diagnoses sexual folly and tells us where that leads. And then it reveals sexual wisdom.Topics covered:- Ben birdied three of his last four at the Champions Tour in South Dakota- Presidents Cup preview and a brand new PGA Tour event in Asheville, NC- Mailbag: how to play well in tournament rounds, and how to pursue your future wife in a godly way- The forbidden woman represents any sexual activity or temptation to any sexual activity outside of the relationship between a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage- The downward spiral of sexual folly: Draws, Dependence, Distortion, Damage, and Destruction- For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil (Proverbs 5:3)- The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin (Proverbs 5:22-23)- Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? (Proverbs 6:27-28)- He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself (Proverbs 6:32)- Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death (Proverbs 7:27)- 7 R's for sexual wisdom: Remember Your God, Repent of Your Sin, Resolve to Walk in Purity, Refrain from Temptation, Rehearse the Truth, Rely on Others, Romance Your Wife- For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths (Proverbs 5:21)- If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9)- Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house (Proverbs 5:8)- Her lips drip honey. But her feet go down to death. Play out the whole clip.- Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment (Proverbs 18:1)- Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love. (Proverbs 5:18-19)- Sex is like fire. In the fireplace it keeps us warm. Outside the fireplace it burns down the house.Follow Bible Caddie:Instagram: @biblecaddieTikTok: @biblecaddieX: @biblecaddieListen and subscribe: https://www.biblecaddie.com/podcastInterested in starting a Bible Caddie Featured Group? groups@biblecaddie.comQuestions or inquiries: info@biblecaddie.comShop Bible Caddie: https://www.biblecaddie.com

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After a super exciting race, the boys join David to recap the IM 70.3 world championships in Nice. They discuss their races, tactical choices, equipment and fueling. They also look forward to Kona, previewing some training, and discussing what has changed as a result of Nice, including their competitors. (00:00) Introduction(00:32) How are the Boys? (01:26) How was Gustav's Drive? (02:24) Kristian's Swim & Early Bike(05:30) Gustav's Swim & Early Bike(07:25) Is There a Temptation to Push the Run in T1?  (08:33) Taking Note of Other Athletes to Work Together on the Bike(10:20) Gustav's Bike (10:46) Col de Vence (11:40) Tactics & Pacing on the Bike (14:22) Gustav's Broken Race Ranger (16:03) 20m Rule Issues Early on the Bike (18:12) Course Variations and Pacing(18:57) Fueling the Bike(21:05) Gustav's Bike Course Record(23:15) Kristian's New Bike and Bike Choice Going Forward(24:04) Was Kristian Surprised by the Bike Dynamics? (25:18) Kristian's Run (27:05) Gustav's Thoughts in T2(27:37) Gustav's Run and Thoughts on the Run (29:35) Gustav's Run Fueling (30:30) Kristian's Thoughts on the Run (32:15) Kristian's Run Fueling(32:50) Thoughts Whilst Hunting a Podium (34:55) Gustav's Thoughts on his Run and During the Run (37:43) Interviews Post Race (38:50) Supporting on the Run (39:47) Rating the Race (41:42) Training Plans Going Forward(44:00) Competitor Analysis from Nice for Kona (47:08) General Training vs Specific Training Towards Kona(48:08) Gustav's Hair and ‘the Cap' Thanks to the sponsors of this podcast series:MaurtenTo benefit from the one-time code and get 15% off your next purchase on Maurten.com, simply enter the code “TNMS4” at checkout. The code is applicable once per customer, on all products except the Maurten Bicarb System, valid until 31/12/2026.Maurten WebsiteInstagram: @maurten_officialYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MaurtenOfficialHosted, edited and produced by Dr David LipmanEditing, video and introduction by Roj Ferman

Life can feel like one test after another. A difficult diagnosis. Financial uncertainty. Relationship struggles. Temptation that won't go away. Grief that refuses to leave. In this message from Luke 8, discover how God uses life's tests to reveal the depth of our roots and grow our faith. Jesus' Parable of the Sower reminds us that trials don't create our roots—they reveal them.  

The temptation you are facing may be an opportunity to develop the faith, discipline and character required for what lies ahead.

Support Copro's Kickstarter to complete my epic painting "The Temptation of St. Anthony"! (as of this upload it is having issues launching but it should be taken care of soon) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coprogallery/chet-zars-biggest-painting-ever-temptation-of-st-anthony Become an Official Member of the Dark Art Society! www.patreon.com/DarkArtSociety This week I speak to my artist friend and former H3 Show crew member Cameron Grant! Cam created tons of art and graphics for the show and was a well known and popular personality on H3 and also worked at Adult Swim in the early days! We have a shared interred in the occult and supernatural so an interview definitely had to happen! We met a few years back and I have been wanting him to come on the show ever since. The wait is over! Also, a quick life update. Cam's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/camgrants/ Our sponsor: The Skull Shoppe: https://www.SkullShoppe.com The Dark Art Society Podcast is produced by Chet Zar. Become an Official Member of the Dark Art Society: https://www.patreon.com/DarkArtSociety Chet's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ChetZar The Dark Art Society Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darkartsociety Official Dark Art Society Website: https://www.darkartsociety.com The Dark Art Society Podcast is now available in a variety of places, including the following platforms: SoundCloud: @darkartsociety iTunes: https://apple.co/2gMNUfM Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=134626&refid=stpr Podbay: https://podbay.fm/show/1215146981 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrQBJayd-dfarbUOFS5m7hQ https://DarkArtSociety.com Copyright Chet Zar LLC 2026

We must see that, with God's help, we have the power to flee and to run away from temptation. If we are hesitant, if we wait and entertain the temptation, we lose power against it. God's Word teaches us to flee.Main Points:1. Temptation is something every one of us will face. No one is immune. To be tempted is not sin – it's what you do with the temptation that's important.  Even Jesus was tempted.2. So, how do we flee temptation? We can always pray. We can cry out to God for strength against whatever temptation we are facing. Sometimes it may be necessary to physically flee your environment. You may need to call a friend or family member for support.3. What is essential is that you choose a course of action before you face the temptation. If you wait until you are tempted, it's too late. Decide today how you will flee temptation.Today's Scripture Verses:Matthew 6:13 - “Lead us not into temptation.”2 Timothy 2:22 - “Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”1 Corinthians 6:18 - “Flee sexual immorality.”  1 Corinthians 10:14 - “Flee from idolatry.”1 Corinthians 10:13 - “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”Psalm 141:4 - “Do not let my heart be drawn to what is evil so that I take part in wicked deeds along with those who are evildoers…”Quick Links:Donate to support this podcastLeave a review on Apple PodcastsGet a copy of The 5 Minute Discipleship JournalConnect on SocialJoin The 5 Minute Discipleship Facebook Group

A podcast by Trinity Fellowship. Join us every week Monday through Thursday for The Biblecast! On The Biblecast we take a deeper dive into God's word. We also love to pray for each other. If you would like to submit a prayer you can do so at Biblecast@tfc.org from wherever you are listening! So I want to encourage you - be ready to grab your hot coffee, grab your hot tea, and let's dive in together to God's Word.

Sunday, September 13, 2026 // Pastor Aaron Varner

The Israelites experienced God's presence, provision, and deliverance, yet those spiritual privileges did not make them immune to temptation or its consequences.In Week 7 of Discernment Matters, we learn that past faithfulness does not eliminate present vulnerability. We must discern our privilege, remain honest about our weakness, and look for the path to obedience that God faithfully provides in every temptation.

As the World Cup illustrated, in the happy moments of scoring a goal or celebrating, we may find it hard to stay focused on our aims. Connect with Us: Email: podcast@gretchenrubin.com Website: gretchenrubin.com Instagram: @gretchenrubin | @lizcraft Take Gretchen's free Four Tendencies quiz Enjoyed this episode? Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or rate us on Spotify—it helps other listeners find the show! Find the transcript for this episode on the episode details page in the Apple Podcasts app.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

God has a specific plan for your life, and He wants to give you more than you have right now, but only when you're ready to receive it without it leading you into temptation. In this episode, Lance shares a revelation that hit him standing in the traditional cave where Jesus taught the Lord's Prayer: that pursuing what you're capable of before you're ready can give you access to things you were never meant to carry. He unpacks "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" as a warning about premature blessing, wealth gotten hastily, and gifts that promote you beyond what your character can sustain. ----------------------------------- Protect Your Savings with Birch Gold!
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https://www.youtube.com/@lancewallnaushow ----------------------------------- Podcast Episode 2242: The Scary Thing About the Prayer - "Lead Us Not Into Temptation" | don't miss this! Listen to more episodes of the Lance Wallnau Show at lancewallnau.com/podcast -----------------------------------

Pastor Nate leads us through James 1:13–18, unpacking the difference between trials and temptation, and how to overcome temptation through the Spirit, prayer, fasting, and honest community.

Luke 4:1–13 — The Wilderness Temptation

Temptation often tries to pull us away from the difficult path of following Jesus, but Mary shows us what it means to remain faithful until the end.Every night, join Father Joseph Matlak as he ends the day with prayer and reflection. In a few short minutes, and using the Douay-Rheims psalter for his reflections, Father Matlak guides you in prayer and shares a brief reflection and a thorough examination of conscience providing you with the encouragement necessary to go forward with peace and strength. ________________

9/13/26, James Park, Everyday Faith, Luke 4:1-13

We get to Luke chapter 4, and it starts off with one of the most famous scenes in the Gospels; the Temptation of Jesus. Today we read this story a little bit differently than how it is usually utilized as a passage. We see four things in this story; Jesus is fighting the devil, the devil is fighting dependence on God, Jesus succeeds where humanity fails, and we need to depend on Jesus. Take a listen! 

Sunday at Victory Family Church with Adam Starling.

Temptation never shows you where it can take you or what it could cost you.

Stay alert and stay in the battle! -------- Thank you for listening! Your support of Joni and Friends helps make this show possible. Joni and Friends envisions a world where every person with a disability finds hope, dignity, and their place in the body of Christ. Become part of the global movement today at www.joniandfriends.org Find more encouragement on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube.

Steve DeWitt Indestructibly Saved Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 1:3-5 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 1:3-5 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 1:3-5 Sermon Series: Spiritual ExilesMessage: Indestructibly SavedAirdate: 9/8 & 9/9/26Programs 2352 & 2353Good morning, Crown Point Campus. And let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be here today. And we pray simply this, that your spirit would come, that he would minister to your people by your word for your glory and for our good. God, we pray that this would be a day truly where your name would be lifted higher. And we want to be a part of that. So we thank you. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, last week we began our new series in 1 Peter entitled Exiles.And the title was taken from the first verse of the book, which says this, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion.” And we saw that Peter was writing to Christians who had been part of this colonization, this dispersion, Christians living in Rome or that region sent now to Asia Minor, and they are there living as foreigners, essentially living as exiles, geopolitical exiles. And what Peter does is he draws from their geopolitical situation spiritual truth and application as they dealt with the feelings of alienation. and ostracization from people that saw them as part of the conquering army, people that weren't from there. And so much that we're going to see in this letter. Last week was our introduction, and we saw that... exiles want more than anything is they want a change of location.They think to themselves, what really needs to happen is I need to be somewhere else. And if I was somewhere else, then I would be happy. Then I would feel like I belong. And we see that what Peter is wanting them to realize is that we want to change our location. God wants to change who we are. And that is inward. And that's the work of the spirit. That's the work of the gospel. That's a part of changing us. Now, what might exiles need to know? Think about this with me for a moment. What do they need to know? There they are living in a land of uncertainty, living in a place where they don't, you know, you think of what people experience when they move into a new area. They need a new doctor. They need a new, where do I get my groceries?How do I find my way around? All the things that are sort of new and different and uncertain. That is compounded in the experience of moving in the first century to a whole new region. And there they are, and everything is uncertain. Nothing feels normal. Everything's sort of weird. What do they need to know spiritually? Well, they need to know that there is a day coming when they will not be exiles anymore and where they will feel welcomed and they will feel like they belong. And that's what Peter now moves to in pastoring this group of people. He wants them to realize that they will not always be exiles. It will not always be like it is. There's coming a day when it will be very much different. And our text in our sermon today is 1 Peter 1, verses 3 through 5.And today is a day where I get to preach at Crown Point and at Cedar Lake. And we do this with the use of technology. And hopefully a fast commute. That's where we're going today. That's where I'm going today. But our text today is verses 3 through 5. So please listen as I read from God's word. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 1 Peter, if you ask most people what 1 Peter is about, it's about remaining faithful in suffering and in persecution. And I just want to note to you that a letter that begins, a letter that is about suffering, begins with, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that seems out of place, except for when you view your suffering from a Christian perspective. It sounds to me like Job, the famous book on suffering.Job, who endured all of these things in chapter 1. He loses everything, and what is his response to that? The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name. There is within Christianity a kind of faith and a kind of confidence in the goodness of God that allows Christians to suffer loss and to remain doxological, to remain praising, to remain giving thanks to God. And we see that modeled here with Peter. He begins with praise and thanksgiving to the Lord. These verses, verses 3 through 5, they are, it's, This is a jewel, okay? This is a jewel passage in all of the Bible, and there are lots of jewel passages, but this is certainly one of them, because what Peter does here is he lays out the gospel. He goes from praising God, and he says, now, why? Why do we praise the Lord?What is there about what God has done for us that allows us to give praise to God even in the midst of persecution and suffering? And we see him now talking about salvation in this passage from the perspective of the past, what God has done, the present, what God is doing, and the future, what God is yet to do. And I want to hasten to say this. These truths that I'm talking about here, that Peter talks about, only apply to genuine Christians. This is not just a general truth for all of humanity. Let's all feel good about it. This is a truth that applies to people who have genuinely trusted in the Lord Jesus. And the promises that God has made to those that are his children apply then to us and are enumerated here. by Peter.So if you're here and you have not trusted in Jesus as your Savior, what I hope happens today as we talk about the blessings that come to those that are under the grace of God, that it might woo you, that it might draw you to put your hope and your faith in the Lord Jesus and for these promises then to become real and true for you. And that can happen in this service here today. Now, if you're an exile far from home, You are having to accept certain realities about life now. It's almost like a college student who goes away from home for the first time. And suddenly, the reality of being responsible for yourself, doing your own laundry, and managing your own money, and all of the rest comes crashing down on the freshmen.And some of them flunk out as a result of that, right? They're in a faraway land. Everything's sort of strange. And indeed, to be one of these people that he's writing to, in a faraway land where everything feels creepy and people look at you as creepy because you're different created a whole set of problems and difficulties your homeland that where you used to be it felt safe it felt normal it felt secure you had friends that made you feel like you were cared for you had possessions that you had had for a long time They felt normal to you. You had maybe a home. You had a network. You had all of these things that felt cozy and made you feel cared for.To be a person in exile is to live without these things, to live away from all of those identities and all of those securities. In fact, I don't know if you've noticed our series graphic, but just to put that up if we have it a second. I really like this because what is it? It's a guy sitting on a pile of rubble and he's looking to a faraway place, right? And there's sort of this sense of, I wish I was there instead of where I am here. This feels like rubble where I'm at. I wish I was back where I came from. And that is a picture, not a bad one, of what it's like to be in exile.And what Peter wants them, and through this letter and through the Holy Spirit, wants us to realize here today is that what we have in Christ, even as an exile, is far greater and far better than anything we had prior to coming to faith in Christ. I said that very clumsily. And clumsily is a clumsy word itself. Let me try that again. What Peter is wanting to say is that what we have presently as Christians, even as exiles, even on the pile of rubble, is far greater and far better than anything we had back when everything felt cozy, back prior to our faith in Christ. And he lays that out again in terms of past, present, future. So let's begin by looking at the past. And notice what he says here. Wonderful verse. about being born again to a living hope.According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we saw in verse 1 that their exile was by God's choice. We see here in verse 3 that their new birth is by the mercy of God. Born again. Born of what? What are you talking about? That sounds crazy. And that is exactly what Nicodemus said to Jesus when Jesus brought this up to him as well. In John chapter 3, you may know the story. Nicodemus, he's sort of a bigwig spiritual leader in Israel. He comes to Jesus in the night, and he asks him about spiritual, he has spiritual questions for him. And he says, no one except they're born from God could do what you do. And Jesus says to him, you must be born again.You have to be born again. Nicodemus says, what? How can I be born again? I was born of my mother once, I gotta be born of her twice? What are you talking about? And you see that Nicodemus is only looking at things materially. He is not seeing things spiritually, which is what Jesus wants him to see, is there's a whole thing going on here spiritually. You have to be born again. What was Jesus talking about? The New Testament calls it new birth, calls it regeneration. All of these are biblical descriptions of what God does in the heart of the sinner who turns in faith and believes in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. There is a miracle, a powerful supernatural work that God does inwardly in the life of the sinner where like being born again, he makes the sinner alive spiritually.Regeneration is also the word there. The Bible says that we are dead in our sins, that spiritually we are corpses. What has to happen for a corpse to live again? It has to be regenerated. In a sense, it has to be resurrected. And what God does inwardly in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, when we believe, is he births life in us again. Almost like Jesus saying to Lazarus, come forth. There is a summoning and a giving of life that God does within us where all of a sudden now our eyes are opened, our ears are opened, and we become attuned to spiritual realities and spiritual things. And notice that it's God that does this. He has caused us to be born again. Regeneration is something that God does. We can't manufacture it. We can't create it.We can't do enough things to make us think that now spiritually I'm alive.We are dead. Burns Funeral Homes across the street, you can go to every corpse there and try to manufacture life. It's not going to happen. Only God can manufacture life. And God does that within us. We are born again. We are passive in this. You ever hear a baby come out being born and go, wow, look what I did. I'm amazing. No, that mother birthed that child. Amen, mothers? You ain't going to ever forget that, are you? Babies don't take credit for being born, and Christians don't take credit for being born again. This is something God does. We are made spiritually alive, but the change affects our entire being. 2 Corinthians says it this way.If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. It is a miracle of life that permeates our entire being. Suddenly, it's like the switch is turned on. We become aware of spiritual truth. What? I never realized that before. We become aware of the presence of God. We become aware of the presence of sin in our life. All of a sudden we realize, that we indeed are sinners. We become aware of forgiveness. We all of a sudden have an interest in Scripture, which prior to this we would have thought is silly. No, what does it say, actually? I'm kind of interested in that. We become interested in prayer and a host of other things. All of them kind of just, it's like springtime. Here come the leaves, here come the flowers.All of a sudden there is life. God does that. God does that. A few examples of how this is God's work and the change that it brings. I recently heard the story of Rosaria Butterfield, and maybe you've seen this online possibly, but she was a professor. She's very upfront about her sexuality. She was a lesbian. She was a professor at Syracuse University. She was just totally into kind of that whole worldview. And it's a great story because there was just a normal local church that began to kind of care for her and love her. And she, in her own words, writes this about her conversion. “The church had been praying for me for years was there. The church that had been praying for me for years was there. Jesus triumphed, and I was a broken mess. Conversion was a train wreck. I did not want to lose everything that I loved, but the voice of God sang a sanguine love song in the rubble of my world. I weakly believed that if Jesus could conquer death, he could make right my world. I drank tentatively at first, then passionately of the solace of the Holy Spirit.” And now she's married to a Presbyterian minister. So come to Jesus and you get to marry a Presbyterian minister. I would keep most people away. Listen to the words of C.S. Lewis. We've talked at length about him and how God drew him to faith. He writes this about his conversion. “You must picture me alone in that room at Magdalen College. Night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet.” Who's causing this regeneration? Hear it in these words. “That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me in the Trinity term of 1929. I gave in and admitted that God was God and knelt and prayed, perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.” Christian, think about your own life story. Think about the change that has taken place in your life. Is there a natural explanation? for the interest that you have in spiritual things and the course and trajectory of your life. The fact that you're sitting here right now listening to some guy talk about what the Bible has to say.All of these things are things if we knew our natural selves, we would say, I would never do that. And that sounds crazy and that sounds stupid. Just like the people in Asia Minor looked at these Christians and said, what planet are you from? Why are you interested in that stuff? And maybe you have people in your family and friends that similarly look at you and go, you're living your life according to what? What planet are you from? We share the same mother, but you're an alien. I don't know you. How have you come to care about the things that you care about and to love God in the way that you love him and to desire to obey and please and live to his glory in the way that you do? Where did all of that come from? It didn't come from you.That can only come from God. He has birthed life in us, and we are changed. Born again to a living hope, the text says, through the resurrection from the dead. Now, why do you suppose he calls it a living hope? It is because our hope is in a living Savior. Do you see the parallel there? One writer says it this way, Christian hope is ever living because Christ, the ground of that hope, is ever living. So Peter looks back. He says, exiles, look back in your story and realize that this change has not come from you. God has given you life, and he has given you hope. And that hope is a living hope because your Savior is a living Savior. And there we are looking at the passage. Well, that's pretty fantastic, isn't it?Don't you think exiles might be a little encouraged by that? And maybe even Christians living here today might be a little bit encouraged to look back and to see the grace of God in our life. As the hymn writer wrote, “oh God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.” We look to the past and we see God's grace to us. And it gives us, man, God is for me. God is with me. He has done this change in my life. The past, a living hope, a new birth. It is not simply a past, it is a present. And even right there is an interesting thought, which I don't have time to explore right now, but how important it is for us to realize that what God is doing is not just stuff in the past.You ever talk to people like that? Tell me about your spiritual life. Well, back in the past, and all they've got is like old stuff. And to realize that our faith, this thing that we're living, this Christian life, is a today thing. There is something that God is doing today. It doesn't matter how long you've been a Christian. There is a work that God is doing right now for you in your life. And Peter highlights it here. What are we saved to? “An inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who, by God's power, are being guarded through faith.” Now, there's a lot there, okay? There's a lot there, but let's just walk through it. You're going to get this, and you're going to love it. We've been born again to an inheritance, okay?So most of us are probably familiar with the concept of an inheritance. What is an inheritance? An inheritance is something that you receive normally based on a relationship, typically a family relationship, right? So when a person dies, there is a reading of the will. And if your name is in the will, it means that whether you knew it or not, you were an heir to the inheritance. So if you're in the will, you have an inheritance. Most people view that as good news, right? Okay. Now what is true about an inheritance? Inheritances are very, very slippery. Very slippery. Your name can be on the will, but guess what? It can be removed from the will. You were an heir, but now you're not anymore. So you better be careful what you say at the family gathering about grandma. And inheritance can shrink in value.Did you know that? You could be an heir to something that is incredibly valuable, but by the time you get it, it's not so valuable. So that your name is in the will, and they read the will, and your sister gets grandma's diamonds, and you get the cabbage patch collection. And you're like, my sister gets... and I get dolls and you know grandma puts in the notes when I bought these they were really valuable. You're like these aren't worth anything. This is like soft firewood. They can diminish in value. People can steal inheritances. There's a story or two in my own family tree of stolen inheritance and maybe you got a few of those in your family tree. It's amazing what family gets like when money is on the table.Inheritance can be stolen did you know that there are unscrupulous lawyers out there who now there's really godly and fair-minded ones as well but there are unscrupulous lawyers out there who can sometimes get their fingers in the pot and diminish an inheritance. Did you know that there are thieves — there are thieves — and that has no connection whatsoever with Steve. There are thieves who can steal inheritances. They can steal grandma's jewelry instead of the dolls. Did you know that massive inheritances can be squandered? Some time ago, I got watching on the History Channel, had this series called The Men Who Build America. Maybe some of you saw it, but we got into it for whatever reason. Tell the story of these icons of industry in the past.I got a little interested in the Vanderbilt family some years ago. I got a tour of the Biltmore, which is one of the descendants of, he built that with just an inheritance that he got. If you've ever seen that place, it's incredible. But I got interested in the Vanderbilt family. And just to give you an idea very quickly about the Vanderbilt fortune, they at one time, at the height of their power and value, they were worth over $300 billion in today's money. Now, $300 billion, to give you an idea, Bill Gates, who's currently the richest man in the world, is somewhere around $70 billion. They had $300 billion. The world has hardly ever, if ever, seen, other than Rockefeller, a fortune like the Vanderbilt family fortune.In 1973, this is just 75 years from the height of their power and wealth, There was a gathering of 120 direct descendants of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and there wasn't one millionaire amongst them. 75 years, 300 billion to, you know, not so wealthy. How does that happen? Inheritances can be squandered. They can just simply disappear. And I say all of that because that connects with the world that we're in, right? Everything is kind of diminishing. Everything that once was cool is kind of getting old now. And that's the world that we live in, right? Our money isn't worth today what it was worth yesterday. There's inflation. There's the stock market. Everything's up and down and all around. But what about spiritually? The inheritance, the Bible describes the inheritance that we have. We are heirs. What is our inheritance like?And he uses some very powerful words to emphasize that our inheritance is not subject to all of the insecurities that everything in this world has. And he uses these words, notice them, imperishable. Okay? To perish is to die. Everything in this world... dies right it's alive it dies the the flowers of the field the grass in the in the in the in the field all of it there and it dies and it withers and we're all withering right look around there's withering people all around you but this is an imperishable inheritance that he wants us to realize that we have undefiled and this speaks to the moral quality of our inheritance It is pure. It is good. Our inheritance doesn't come from unseemly business practices.There's nothing about it to make us feel sort of dirty in taking it or that there's something evil about it. It is holy. It is good. It is beautiful. It is pure, and it will be eternally beautiful and pure. Unfading. This is very similar to the perishing and the withering. It's, again, the human beauty and fame and everything that seems to be cool now. It's all going downhill. And young people don't realize that, but it is, right? It's all going down. Everything fades. And each one of these words is, it's perishable, defiled, and fading, only it has the negating ah in front of each one of those. It is not imperishable. I'm sorry, it's not perishable. It's not defiling. It is not fading. Our inheritance, you say, well, what is it then exactly? Number one, our inheritance is God himself.The number one thing that we look forward to in going to heaven is not seeing grandma, not seeing, you know, whoever. Number one is God. We go to heaven and we get God and we see God and we have him forever. We are his children. He lavishes blessings on us for all of eternity, eternal life, heaven, new earth, rewards that Jesus will give to us for the quality of our service while here on earth, bliss, beauty, and most importantly, and I include this in the God category, is the seeing and the savoring of Jesus himself, our blessed Lord and Savior, who is our inheritance. Christians talk about, oh, my mansion in heaven and all of that. Forget the mansion. Our mansion truly is Christ.And one day when we see him and we sense from him what eternal, pure, sacrificial, agape love is like, and he looks at us and we feel the love of the divine for us, the thought of a house or something else will just sort of fade away. This will be our greatest moment. It is that beatific vision that theologians talk about. and then to feel and to receive from him the lavishing of his grace and his love in material ways, even in the new earth, in the experience of what all of that is going to be like, and to realize that all of it is according to his mercy, that none of it we deserve, maybe with a vision of hell, and to realize that's what I deserve right there.And I'm getting this, how and why it is the mercy of God and his love for us. This is the inheritance, and Peter says it never goes away. It never diminishes. It never somehow dies. It remains secure in the character and the promises of God, and it's going to be great. And you, my friend, if you are a Christian, you are an heir, an heir to the most wonderful fortune, the fortune of God, the spiritual blessing of being a child of God forever. The verse goes on, kept in heaven for you who by God's power are being guarded through faith. This inheritance that we have is located in heaven. Jesus describes it as a place where moth and rust do not decay and thieves don't break in and steal. That's a pretty good bank vault, isn't it? Anybody's bank here make that kind of guarantee?Probably not. Now notice there's a little shift here in the text because he's describing our inheritance. That is kept in heaven. That's our inheritance. The next word, though, is who. See that? Who. So he moves from our inheritance to us. He moves from keeping our inheritance to God keeping us. So the inheritance is kept in heaven, but we are kept in earth. We are kept in faith on our time on earth. By God's power, our being guarded through faith. And the word there, the Greek word for the word guarded there, it's the word garrisoned, okay? So military people, this is like a word for you. This is the protection. This is the, in the ancient days, they would protect the city gates, the armament of the city gates. We are guarding the city walls, the walls of our faith.It also can refer to keeping us from escaping, okay? So it's both. It is both the attacks from without, and it is me fleeing from within. God is working in our faith, keeping us from both of those dangers. And here we have, and we can do a whole message on this, the doctrine of preservation. The doctrine of preservation, which says that God is the one who keeps us saved. We are preserved in our faith by the power of God. So notice the flow in the text. We are exiles by the choice of God. We are born again by the mercy of God. We are kept in our salvation by the power of God. Our faith is being guarded. And the tense of the verb there is ongoingly, continuously being guarded.It's as if each one of us has a 24-hour, seven days a week security detail. Now, the closest thing that I can think of to illustrate this would be What the President of the United States has, of course, which is the famous Secret Service. And all of us probably are familiar with the Secret Service and what they do 24 hours a day, seven days a week to keep the President alive, to protect him. That is their job. And so for whatever reason, they've decided wearing dark suits and sunglasses helps with that. And so wherever the president is, there's these guys walking around near him and they've got dark suits on and they've got sunglasses. All of them look like they've lifted weights their entire life. You know, they're big, they're bad, they're tough. There's little bulges around in their suit.You know what's in there, right? They can call upon what they need in a moment's notice to take care of business. And so they're there and they're talking into their hands and they got the little wires out of their ears. And you know that there's satellites and there's, you know, who knows all the things that they've got going on wherever the president goes. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, always keeping him safe. But as history shows, they can't even guarantee that, can they? Even the best of the best in the world today can't perfectly protect the life of the president. Notice what Peter says here about us, okay? Kept by the infinite power of God. It's almost like By the power of God, we each have our own spiritual secret service detachment.Everywhere we go, all the time, we are protected spiritually by the power of God. I got thinking about what this might be like. She's about to speak to Miss Gossip. Move in right now. He's leaving on a business trip with Mr. Skeptic and Mrs. Temptation, all units code red. He's in church right now. He's not listening. Taze him. Did anybody just feel something, by the way? No? God's power is always at work protecting our faith, keeping us from running away from our commitment to Christ, keeping us from the wolves, keeping us from doctrine and beliefs and temptations that would ultimately undermine our faith commitment to Christ. And that doesn't mean that we don't sin. It doesn't mean that we don't have seasons and all of that.But it does mean that even through those dark times, God is by his power protecting a faith that he has promised that he will carry on to completion, Philippians 1. And my dear Christian, that is true for you. Think of it just for a moment. Think of it. Right now, God's power is focused upon you and your faith and is ensuring that you are going to make it. That faith will not die. It's the power of God. It's like being born, right? We don't take credit for that. And I don't take credit for my faith continually because naturally I am a sinner and I am human and I am wishy -washy. None of us would make it through this week left to ourselves. But we are not left to ourselves, not by God who loves us. We are kept in this faith.Past, we were born again in the present. We're being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. And the future aspect of this is when our inheritance changes into a possession, okay? An heir is no longer an heir when the inheritance now is something that they own. Think of Prince Charles, like all these years waiting to become king. He's heir to the throne. There's probably a day coming when he will no longer be an heir. When? When he's actually king. And Buckingham Palace and the crown jewels and all the things, all of it is his then. No longer an heir, but a possessor. And our salvation is like that. We are already saved. We are already children of God. But the full experience of our salvation is yet to come.Someday, and the text here says, in the last time, referring to that future consummation of history. Someday, when Jesus returns and final judgment takes place, our ultimate inheritance will be ours. And our ultimate inheritance is Christ himself. And from that point on, we will see and know and worship him. From that point on, we will serve him. fully and faithfully. From that point on, we will be in awe that the Holy Son of God that we see with our own eyes died for us, gave his life for us, and now showers his love upon us for all of eternity. And we will never get over that he did that. We will never get over the mercy of God to us. So that we can say that the Vanderbilts had their fortune by family right, and Prince Charles has his inheritance by birthright.We will have our inheritance forever by new birth and the mercy and the power of God. And so we get to that truth, and what can we say? How about we say what he says in verse 3? “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Amen. Would you pray with me, please? Heavenly Father God, we thank you.This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

What does it take to overcome temptation?In Matthew 4, Jesus enters the wilderness and faces the devil's temptations immediately after His baptism. In the wilderness, Jesus shows us how to resist temptation, stand firm in our identity, rightly understand Scripture, and refuse the shortcuts sin offers.The wilderness may be one of the worst places to be—but it can also become one of the best places for spiritual formation. It is where God exposes what is in us, teaches us dependence, and prepares us to become people who can crush the serpent rather than be ruled by it.In this message, Ethan Bricker explores three common ways temptation works:• Scratch the Itch — when legitimate desires become opportunities for sin.• Is God's Will Flexible to Mine? — when we manipulate Scripture or demand that God accommodate our desires.• Sexy Splendor vs. Matchless Beauty — when the enemy offers shortcuts to things that can only truly be received through God.The way forward is simple, but not easy: flee to the Scriptures and flee to the presence of God.Jesus has given us what we need to overcome. We may not overcome perfectly every time, but in Christ, God has still called us overcomers.Go crush serpents this week—and teach others to do the same.Visit and support the ministry: The Clearing#OvercomingTemptation #Temptation #Jesus #Matthew4 #BibleStudy #ChristianLiving #SpiritualFormation #Discipleship #Faith #HolySpirit #Scripture #ChristianSermon #EthanBrickerFor more information regarding The Clearing Church, visit our website by clicking hereFollow us on Instagram today by clicking hereWatch the message on our YouTube channel here

When Trials Come

A sermon on Christ's Temptation in the wilderness.

Make it your goal to finish well in life. -------- Thank you for listening! Your support of Joni and Friends helps make this show possible. Joni and Friends envisions a world where every person with a disability finds hope, dignity, and their place in the body of Christ. Become part of the global movement today at www.joniandfriends.org Find more encouragement on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube.

Some burdens are not immediately crushing. They become heavy because we carry them for a long time. Family responsibilities. Financial pressure. Temptation. Grief. Leadership. Disappointment. The responsibility of caring for others. The pressure to remain faithful when nobody seems to notice. The weight may not change, but fatigue changes how the weight feels. ⛪ ABOUT CALVARY BAPTIST CHURCHES: We believe that our Calvary Baptist Churches are a movement for all people to know God, Reaching Others, Building Lives, Honouring God and Make a Difference.

Some burdens are not immediately crushing. They become heavy because we carry them for a long time. Family responsibilities. Financial pressure. Temptation. Grief. Leadership. Disappointment. The responsibility of caring for others. The pressure to remain faithful when nobody seems to notice. The weight may not change, but fatigue changes how the weight feels. ⛪ ABOUT CALVARY BAPTIST CHURCHES: We believe that our Calvary Baptist Churches are a movement for all people to know God, Reaching Others, Building Lives, Honouring God and Make a Difference.

Dinesh D'Souza LIVE at the University at Buffalo The socialist temptation  Dinesh D'Souza is a #1 "New York Times" bestselling author, the filmmaker behind "Death of a Nation," "Hillary's America," and "2016: Obama's America," and a nationally sought-after speaker. He brings a fiery message of limited government, personal responsibility, and individual liberty to campuses all across the country, debunking #FakeHistory everywhere he goes. Watch this video at- https://youtu.be/URXU6BJcK4g?si=VAfbzf4obfL5D8B7 Dinesh D'Souza 808K subscribers 105,526 views Oct 25, 2019 #FakeHistory — Available now: https://www.dineshdsouza.com/socialism Dinesh D'Souza's new book, “United States of Socialism,” reveals how the Left uses the Venezuelan formula for socialism, decisively refutes this new face of socialism, chillingly documents the full range of the Left's gangster tendencies, and provocatively exposes the tactics of the socialist Left. Who is behind it, why is it evil, and how can we stop it? Don't get left in the dark—order Dinesh D'Souza's powerful new book today. — Want to connect with Dinesh D'Souza online for more hard-hitting analysis of current events in America? Here's how: Facebook:   / dsouzadinesh   Twitter:   / dineshdsouza   Instagram:   / dineshjdsouza   Email: http://www.dineshdsouza.com/email/

Hiii GGB:)   Why do we keep falling into the same temptations—and is God ever responsible for the test? In James 1:13–18, we uncover where temptation really comes from, how desire grows into sin, and why God is always the giver of what is good.   We love you so much. Jesus loves you more. -Ang & Ari   Thanks to our sponsors!   Shopify Start your free trial today. https://Shopify.com/GGB   Mint Mobile Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month. https://MintMobile.com/GGB   NOCD Book a free 15-minute call. https://NOCD.com   Glorify Ring Grow closer to God every day and reserve your Glorify Ring. https://Glorify.global/GGB   Hiya Health Get 50% off your first order on any Hiya product. https://HiyaHealth.com/GGB   - Grand Canyon University (GCU)  Find your purpose at GCU. https://GCU.edu   GET OUR BOOK Out of the Wilderness: 31 Devotions to Walk with God Through Your Hardest Seasons Available wherever books are sold. https://GirlsGoneBible.com/book   SEE US ON TOUR Get tickets and find a city near you at https://GirlsGoneBible.com/tour    Follow Girls Gone Bible: Instagram: @girlsgonebible TikTok: @girlsgonebible YouTube: @GirlsGoneBible  

Welcome to Day 2947 of Wisdom-Trek. Thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom. Day 2947 – Wisdom Nuggets – Proverbs 5:1-14 Daily Wisdom Wisdom-Trek Podcast Script - Day 2947 Welcome to Wisdom-Trek with Gramps! I am Guthrie Chamberlain, and we are on Day 2947 of our Trek. The Purpose of Wisdom-Trek is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, and to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. The title for today's Wisdom-Trek is: The Honeyed Trap of Temptation – Preserving Honor, Wealth, and Legacy On our previous podcast, on Day Two Thousand Nine Hundred Forty-Five, we reached the practical summit of Proverbs chapter four. Solomon gave us a total-body audit, showing us how to guard our heart above all else, discipline our speech, fix our eyes straight ahead, and weigh every step of our feet on straight, level paths. Today, as we step onto Day Two Thousand Nine Hundred Forty-Seven of our ongoing trek, we advance into Proverbs chapter five, verses one through fourteen. In these fourteen urgent verses, Solomon takes those internal body defenses we just built and tests them against one of the most destructive traps on life's trail: the seductive lure of sexual immorality and broken covenants. Having spent over fifty years focusing on and studying Biblical wisdom, and having accumulated seventy years of life experiences—watching individuals, families, and ministries either flourish through integrity or crumble under the weight of compromise—I can assure you that the warnings in this passage are not outdated cultural rules. They are life-saving warnings designed to protect your honor, your resources, your physical health, and your eternal legacy. Let us open our minds and ears to the opening command of this fatherly instruction, as recorded in the New Living Translation, grouping together the logical, contiguous thoughts found in Proverbs chapter five, verse one, and verse two. My child, pay attention to my wisdom; listen carefully to my wise counsel. Then you will show discernment, and your lips will express what you've learned. Notice how Solomon begins with the exact same personal, fatherly plea that framed chapter four! He calls out, "My child, pay attention to my wisdom; listen carefully to my wise counsel." Why? Because verse two reveals the purpose: "Then you will show discernment, and your lips will express what you've learned." Discernment—in Hebrew, mezimmah—is the spiritual foresight that enables you to look past immediate pleasure and see the long-term consequences of an action. This connects directly back to what we studied in Proverbs chapter four, verses twenty through twenty-four, where we were commanded to let wisdom penetrate deep into our hearts so that our mouth and lips would be guarded against perverse, corrupt talk. Solomon knows that before temptation can ever seduce your body, it first attacks your mind through persuasive words. If your lips express what you have learned from divine wisdom, your speech becomes a fortified shield against the flattering lies of the world. Now, Solomon pulls back the curtain on the deceptive anatomy of temptation, linking together the contiguous thoughts in Proverbs chapter five, verse three, verse four, verse five, and verse six. For the lips of an immoral woman are as sweet as honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil. But in the end she is as bitter as poison, as sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave. For she cares nothing about the path to life. She staggers along a crooked road, without even realizing it. Look at the stark, terrifying contrast Solomon paints here! In verse three, temptation arrives with incredible sensory appeal: "her lips are as sweet as honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil." Seductive speech always promises sweetness, intimacy, validation, and effortless pleasure. It flatters the ego and soothes the restless heart. But look at the reality in verse four and verse five! "But in the end she is as bitter as poison, as sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave!" In the original language, "death" is Maveth, and "the grave" is Sheol. This connects us directly back to what we uncovered in Proverbs chapter two, verses sixteen through nineteen, where entering the house of the immoral woman led straight to the Rephaim—the dark underworld of spiritual death and brokenness! In the Ancient Israelite divine-council worldview, marriage is a sacred covenant sworn before Yahweh and His heavenly assembly. Seduction is not merely a human mistake; it is an assault against the divine order established by the Creator. It promises life, but its steps lead directly into the realm of spiritual chaos and death. Look at verse six: "For she cares nothing about the path to life. She staggers along a crooked road, without even realizing it." Temptation is perpetually blind to its own destination. It staggers down crooked, unstable paths, entirely oblivious to the imminent cliff ahead. Recognizing the deadly power of this honeyed trap, Solomon delivers a tactical strategy for survival, weaving together the logical thoughts found in Proverbs chapter five, verse seven, verse eight, verse nine, and verse ten. So now, my children, listen to me. Don't turn away from what I have to say. Stay away from her! Don't go near the door of her house! If you do, you will lose your honor to others and lose to merciless people all the years you have left. Strangers will consume your wealth, and someone else will enjoy the fruit of your labor. Listen to the absolute urgency in Solomon's voice! In verse eight, he gives the ultimate tactical rule of wisdom: "Stay away from her! Don't go near the door of her house!" Solomon does not tell us to stand near temptation and debate it, test our willpower, or see how close we can get without falling. Remember what we studied in Proverbs chapter four, verses fourteen and fifteen: avoid their way, don't even go near it, turn away and keep moving! The only way to win a battle with seductive temptation is to run in the opposite direction! Then, in verses nine and ten, Solomon lays out the brutal, heartbreaking cost of compromise. If you step through that door, "you will lose your honor to others and lose to merciless people all the years you have left. Strangers will consume your wealth, and someone else will enjoy the fruit of your labor." Over my seventy years of life, and fifty years of studying Scripture, I have sat with men and women who traded thirty years of built-up honor, reputation, and financial security for thirty minutes of passing pleasure. Extortion, legal battles, broken families, and financial devastation inevitably follow. They worked their entire lives to build a legacy, only to watch strangers consume the fruit of their hard labor. Finally, Solomon presents the devastating final scene of this tragic choices, connecting the contiguous thoughts in Proverbs chapter five, verse eleven, verse twelve, verse thirteen, and verse fourteen. In the end you will groan in anguish when disease consumes your body. You will say, “How I hated discipline! If only I hadn't insulted correction! If only I had listened to my teachers and paid attention to my instructors! I have come to the brink of utter ruin, and now I must face public disgrace.” Look at the unbearable regret that crowns the end of this path! In verse eleven, physical health breaks down: "In the end you will groan in anguish when disease consumes your body." This stands in tragic contrast to Proverbs chapter four, verse twenty-two, where God's words brought healing to the whole body! Sin promises pleasure, but eventually leaves the body broken and exhausted. Then comes the agony of self-reproach in verses twelve through fourteen: "How I hated discipline! If only I hadn't insulted correction! If only I had listened to my teachers... I have come to the brink of utter ruin, and now I must face public disgrace!" The Hebrew word for public disgrace refers to standing exposed before the entire assembly—the community court. There is no sorrow deeper than looking back across a wasted life and realizing that you brought ruin upon yourself because you arrogantly dismissed wise instruction. As we complete today's trek through Proverbs chapter five, verses one through fourteen, let these sobering warnings calibrate your daily...

What if sin is simpler than we make it? In this episode of The Impossible Life Podcast, Nick Surface and Garrett Unclebach get to the root issue beneath every destructive choice: selfishness. From the Garden of Eden to the decisions men make every day, sin begins when the question shifts from “What did God say?” to “What could this do for me?” That small turn of the heart can distort a man's view of God, damage his relationships, and make everything under his leadership harder.This conversation exposes three lies selfishness uses to pull Christian men off mission: “I deserve this,” “It won't hurt anyone,” and “I need this.” Each one sounds reasonable in the moment, but each one places self above truth. Entitlement tells a man he is owed comfort, reward, respect, or pleasure. Autonomy convinces him his choices happen in a vacuum. Fear tells him he has to take control because obedience might cost too much. But faith requires a man to deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Jesus even when pain, desire, or fear are screaming for authority.Biblical masculinity is not built by letting appetite, comfort, or self-protection lead. It is built when men learn to recognize the tactics of selfishness and choose purpose over pleasure, mission over emotion, and obedience over control. Every compromise sows a seed, and every seed eventually produces a harvest. This episode is a direct challenge to examine the small thoughts that seem harmless, confront the selfishness hiding beneath them, and live with the discipline, wisdom, and maturity God requires.Check out VITL Peptides by clicking hereJoin a group of likeminded Impossible Life listeners in our FREE Skool community by clicking here.Get the Purpose Playbook by clicking hereGet the FREE Basic Discipline Training 30 Day Program by clicking hereJoin us in Mindset Mastery by clicking hereLevel up your nutrition with IDLife by clicking hereGET IN TOUCHSocial Media - @theimpossiblelifeEmail - info@theimpossible.life

Andrew, Isack, and Edwin discuss what stood out to them in Luke 4. They discuss multiple issues. The episode title is connected to the written devo to which you can link below.     Let us know what you are learning or any questions you have. Email us at TextTalk@ChristiansMeetHere.org.    Join the Facebook community and join the conversation by clicking here. We'd love to meet you. Be a guest among the Christians who meet on Livingston Avenue. Click here to find out more. Michael Eldridge sang all four parts of our theme song. Find more from him by clicking here.   Thanks for talking about the text with us today.________________________________________________If the hyperlinks do not work, copy the following addresses and paste them into the URL bar of your web browser: Daily Written Devo: https://readthebiblemakedisciples.wordpress.com/?p=26756The Christians Who Meet on Livingston Avenue: http://www.christiansmeethere.org/Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TalkAboutTheTextFacebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/texttalkMichael Eldridge: https://acapeldridge.com/ 

Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message”Satan is real, the dragons are real, but the most dangerous ones rarely show up with smoke and fire. They show up as early wounds, distorted desires, and quiet lies that tell a man to stay hidden. We talk about what's happening to the heart of a man in a porn-saturated culture, why so many boys encounter explicit content before they ever learn the innocence of real love, and how that early exposure can train the imagination toward consumption instead of commitment. We also face the hard truth that many people carry trauma from abuse and betrayal that came through relationships of trust, and those scars don't vanish at adulthood.We wrestle with the formation crisis behind the crisis: when fathers are absent or emotionally checked out, someone still forms the boy. It might be peers, social media, or an algorithm, but the vacuum never stays empty. From there, we draw an essential distinction between what happened to you and what you choose now. Freedom is possible, and the Christian promise isn't a time machine, it's a Redeemer. The battlefield is the human heart, and spiritual warfare is ultimately about restoration: restoring dignity, restoring the ability to see people as persons, and restoring the capacity to love.We also get practical. Temptation isn't a sin, and we share a simple, repeatable way to “pray with temptation,” turning moments of lust into moments of intercession and grace. Learn more, sign up for our newsletter and enter the battle! Claymore Milites ChristiRead Toms article! If this helps you, subscribe, share it with a brother who needs it, and leave a review so more men can find the fight for freedom.Support the show

Steve DeWitt Indestructibly Saved - Part B Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 1:3-5 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 1:3-5 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 1:3-5 Sermon Series: Spiritual ExilesMessage: Indestructibly SavedAirdate: 9/8 & 9/9/26Programs 2352 & 2353Good morning, Crown Point Campus. And let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be here today. And we pray simply this, that your spirit would come, that he would minister to your people by your word for your glory and for our good. God, we pray that this would be a day truly where your name would be lifted higher. And we want to be a part of that. So we thank you. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, last week we began our new series in 1 Peter entitled Exiles.And the title was taken from the first verse of the book, which says this, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion.” And we saw that Peter was writing to Christians who had been part of this colonization, this dispersion, Christians living in Rome or that region sent now to Asia Minor, and they are there living as foreigners, essentially living as exiles, geopolitical exiles. And what Peter does is he draws from their geopolitical situation spiritual truth and application as they dealt with the feelings of alienation. and ostracization from people that saw them as part of the conquering army, people that weren't from there. And so much that we're going to see in this letter. Last week was our introduction, and we saw that... exiles want more than anything is they want a change of location.They think to themselves, what really needs to happen is I need to be somewhere else. And if I was somewhere else, then I would be happy. Then I would feel like I belong. And we see that what Peter is wanting them to realize is that we want to change our location. God wants to change who we are. And that is inward. And that's the work of the spirit. That's the work of the gospel. That's a part of changing us. Now, what might exiles need to know? Think about this with me for a moment. What do they need to know? There they are living in a land of uncertainty, living in a place where they don't, you know, you think of what people experience when they move into a new area. They need a new doctor. They need a new, where do I get my groceries?How do I find my way around? All the things that are sort of new and different and uncertain. That is compounded in the experience of moving in the first century to a whole new region. And there they are, and everything is uncertain. Nothing feels normal. Everything's sort of weird. What do they need to know spiritually? Well, they need to know that there is a day coming when they will not be exiles anymore and where they will feel welcomed and they will feel like they belong. And that's what Peter now moves to in pastoring this group of people. He wants them to realize that they will not always be exiles. It will not always be like it is. There's coming a day when it will be very much different. And our text in our sermon today is 1 Peter 1, verses 3 through 5.And today is a day where I get to preach at Crown Point and at Cedar Lake. And we do this with the use of technology. And hopefully a fast commute. That's where we're going today. That's where I'm going today. But our text today is verses 3 through 5. So please listen as I read from God's word. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 1 Peter, if you ask most people what 1 Peter is about, it's about remaining faithful in suffering and in persecution. And I just want to note to you that a letter that begins, a letter that is about suffering, begins with, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that seems out of place, except for when you view your suffering from a Christian perspective. It sounds to me like Job, the famous book on suffering.Job, who endured all of these things in chapter 1. He loses everything, and what is his response to that? The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name. There is within Christianity a kind of faith and a kind of confidence in the goodness of God that allows Christians to suffer loss and to remain doxological, to remain praising, to remain giving thanks to God. And we see that modeled here with Peter. He begins with praise and thanksgiving to the Lord. These verses, verses 3 through 5, they are, it's, This is a jewel, okay? This is a jewel passage in all of the Bible, and there are lots of jewel passages, but this is certainly one of them, because what Peter does here is he lays out the gospel. He goes from praising God, and he says, now, why? Why do we praise the Lord?What is there about what God has done for us that allows us to give praise to God even in the midst of persecution and suffering? And we see him now talking about salvation in this passage from the perspective of the past, what God has done, the present, what God is doing, and the future, what God is yet to do. And I want to hasten to say this. These truths that I'm talking about here, that Peter talks about, only apply to genuine Christians. This is not just a general truth for all of humanity. Let's all feel good about it. This is a truth that applies to people who have genuinely trusted in the Lord Jesus. And the promises that God has made to those that are his children apply then to us and are enumerated here. by Peter.So if you're here and you have not trusted in Jesus as your Savior, what I hope happens today as we talk about the blessings that come to those that are under the grace of God, that it might woo you, that it might draw you to put your hope and your faith in the Lord Jesus and for these promises then to become real and true for you. And that can happen in this service here today. Now, if you're an exile far from home, You are having to accept certain realities about life now. It's almost like a college student who goes away from home for the first time. And suddenly, the reality of being responsible for yourself, doing your own laundry, and managing your own money, and all of the rest comes crashing down on the freshmen.And some of them flunk out as a result of that, right? They're in a faraway land. Everything's sort of strange. And indeed, to be one of these people that he's writing to, in a faraway land where everything feels creepy and people look at you as creepy because you're different created a whole set of problems and difficulties your homeland that where you used to be it felt safe it felt normal it felt secure you had friends that made you feel like you were cared for you had possessions that you had had for a long time They felt normal to you. You had maybe a home. You had a network. You had all of these things that felt cozy and made you feel cared for.To be a person in exile is to live without these things, to live away from all of those identities and all of those securities. In fact, I don't know if you've noticed our series graphic, but just to put that up if we have it a second. I really like this because what is it? It's a guy sitting on a pile of rubble and he's looking to a faraway place, right? And there's sort of this sense of, I wish I was there instead of where I am here. This feels like rubble where I'm at. I wish I was back where I came from. And that is a picture, not a bad one, of what it's like to be in exile.And what Peter wants them, and through this letter and through the Holy Spirit, wants us to realize here today is that what we have in Christ, even as an exile, is far greater and far better than anything we had prior to coming to faith in Christ. I said that very clumsily. And clumsily is a clumsy word itself. Let me try that again. What Peter is wanting to say is that what we have presently as Christians, even as exiles, even on the pile of rubble, is far greater and far better than anything we had back when everything felt cozy, back prior to our faith in Christ. And he lays that out again in terms of past, present, future. So let's begin by looking at the past. And notice what he says here. Wonderful verse. about being born again to a living hope.According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we saw in verse 1 that their exile was by God's choice. We see here in verse 3 that their new birth is by the mercy of God. Born again. Born of what? What are you talking about? That sounds crazy. And that is exactly what Nicodemus said to Jesus when Jesus brought this up to him as well. In John chapter 3, you may know the story. Nicodemus, he's sort of a bigwig spiritual leader in Israel. He comes to Jesus in the night, and he asks him about spiritual, he has spiritual questions for him. And he says, no one except they're born from God could do what you do. And Jesus says to him, you must be born again.You have to be born again. Nicodemus says, what? How can I be born again? I was born of my mother once, I gotta be born of her twice? What are you talking about? And you see that Nicodemus is only looking at things materially. He is not seeing things spiritually, which is what Jesus wants him to see, is there's a whole thing going on here spiritually. You have to be born again. What was Jesus talking about? The New Testament calls it new birth, calls it regeneration. All of these are biblical descriptions of what God does in the heart of the sinner who turns in faith and believes in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. There is a miracle, a powerful supernatural work that God does inwardly in the life of the sinner where like being born again, he makes the sinner alive spiritually.Regeneration is also the word there. The Bible says that we are dead in our sins, that spiritually we are corpses. What has to happen for a corpse to live again? It has to be regenerated. In a sense, it has to be resurrected. And what God does inwardly in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, when we believe, is he births life in us again. Almost like Jesus saying to Lazarus, come forth. There is a summoning and a giving of life that God does within us where all of a sudden now our eyes are opened, our ears are opened, and we become attuned to spiritual realities and spiritual things. And notice that it's God that does this. He has caused us to be born again. Regeneration is something that God does. We can't manufacture it. We can't create it.We can't do enough things to make us think that now spiritually I'm alive.We are dead. Burns Funeral Homes across the street, you can go to every corpse there and try to manufacture life. It's not going to happen. Only God can manufacture life. And God does that within us. We are born again. We are passive in this. You ever hear a baby come out being born and go, wow, look what I did. I'm amazing. No, that mother birthed that child. Amen, mothers? You ain't going to ever forget that, are you? Babies don't take credit for being born, and Christians don't take credit for being born again. This is something God does. We are made spiritually alive, but the change affects our entire being. 2 Corinthians says it this way.If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. It is a miracle of life that permeates our entire being. Suddenly, it's like the switch is turned on. We become aware of spiritual truth. What? I never realized that before. We become aware of the presence of God. We become aware of the presence of sin in our life. All of a sudden we realize, that we indeed are sinners. We become aware of forgiveness. We all of a sudden have an interest in Scripture, which prior to this we would have thought is silly. No, what does it say, actually? I'm kind of interested in that. We become interested in prayer and a host of other things. All of them kind of just, it's like springtime. Here come the leaves, here come the flowers.All of a sudden there is life. God does that. God does that. A few examples of how this is God's work and the change that it brings. I recently heard the story of Rosaria Butterfield, and maybe you've seen this online possibly, but she was a professor. She's very upfront about her sexuality. She was a lesbian. She was a professor at Syracuse University. She was just totally into kind of that whole worldview. And it's a great story because there was just a normal local church that began to kind of care for her and love her. And she, in her own words, writes this about her conversion. “The church had been praying for me for years was there. The church that had been praying for me for years was there. Jesus triumphed, and I was a broken mess. Conversion was a train wreck. I did not want to lose everything that I loved, but the voice of God sang a sanguine love song in the rubble of my world. I weakly believed that if Jesus could conquer death, he could make right my world. I drank tentatively at first, then passionately of the solace of the Holy Spirit.” And now she's married to a Presbyterian minister. So come to Jesus and you get to marry a Presbyterian minister. I would keep most people away. Listen to the words of C.S. Lewis. We've talked at length about him and how God drew him to faith. He writes this about his conversion. “You must picture me alone in that room at Magdalen College. Night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet.” Who's causing this regeneration? Hear it in these words. “That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me in the Trinity term of 1929. I gave in and admitted that God was God and knelt and prayed, perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.” Christian, think about your own life story. Think about the change that has taken place in your life. Is there a natural explanation? for the interest that you have in spiritual things and the course and trajectory of your life. The fact that you're sitting here right now listening to some guy talk about what the Bible has to say.All of these things are things if we knew our natural selves, we would say, I would never do that. And that sounds crazy and that sounds stupid. Just like the people in Asia Minor looked at these Christians and said, what planet are you from? Why are you interested in that stuff? And maybe you have people in your family and friends that similarly look at you and go, you're living your life according to what? What planet are you from? We share the same mother, but you're an alien. I don't know you. How have you come to care about the things that you care about and to love God in the way that you love him and to desire to obey and please and live to his glory in the way that you do? Where did all of that come from? It didn't come from you.That can only come from God. He has birthed life in us, and we are changed. Born again to a living hope, the text says, through the resurrection from the dead. Now, why do you suppose he calls it a living hope? It is because our hope is in a living Savior. Do you see the parallel there? One writer says it this way, Christian hope is ever living because Christ, the ground of that hope, is ever living. So Peter looks back. He says, exiles, look back in your story and realize that this change has not come from you. God has given you life, and he has given you hope. And that hope is a living hope because your Savior is a living Savior. And there we are looking at the passage. Well, that's pretty fantastic, isn't it?Don't you think exiles might be a little encouraged by that? And maybe even Christians living here today might be a little bit encouraged to look back and to see the grace of God in our life. As the hymn writer wrote, “oh God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.” We look to the past and we see God's grace to us. And it gives us, man, God is for me. God is with me. He has done this change in my life. The past, a living hope, a new birth. It is not simply a past, it is a present. And even right there is an interesting thought, which I don't have time to explore right now, but how important it is for us to realize that what God is doing is not just stuff in the past.You ever talk to people like that? Tell me about your spiritual life. Well, back in the past, and all they've got is like old stuff. And to realize that our faith, this thing that we're living, this Christian life, is a today thing. There is something that God is doing today. It doesn't matter how long you've been a Christian. There is a work that God is doing right now for you in your life. And Peter highlights it here. What are we saved to? “An inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who, by God's power, are being guarded through faith.” Now, there's a lot there, okay? There's a lot there, but let's just walk through it. You're going to get this, and you're going to love it. We've been born again to an inheritance, okay?So most of us are probably familiar with the concept of an inheritance. What is an inheritance? An inheritance is something that you receive normally based on a relationship, typically a family relationship, right? So when a person dies, there is a reading of the will. And if your name is in the will, it means that whether you knew it or not, you were an heir to the inheritance. So if you're in the will, you have an inheritance. Most people view that as good news, right? Okay. Now what is true about an inheritance? Inheritances are very, very slippery. Very slippery. Your name can be on the will, but guess what? It can be removed from the will. You were an heir, but now you're not anymore. So you better be careful what you say at the family gathering about grandma. And inheritance can shrink in value.Did you know that? You could be an heir to something that is incredibly valuable, but by the time you get it, it's not so valuable. So that your name is in the will, and they read the will, and your sister gets grandma's diamonds, and you get the cabbage patch collection. And you're like, my sister gets... and I get dolls and you know grandma puts in the notes when I bought these they were really valuable. You're like these aren't worth anything. This is like soft firewood. They can diminish in value. People can steal inheritances. There's a story or two in my own family tree of stolen inheritance and maybe you got a few of those in your family tree. It's amazing what family gets like when money is on the table.Inheritance can be stolen did you know that there are unscrupulous lawyers out there who now there's really godly and fair-minded ones as well but there are unscrupulous lawyers out there who can sometimes get their fingers in the pot and diminish an inheritance. Did you know that there are thieves — there are thieves — and that has no connection whatsoever with Steve. There are thieves who can steal inheritances. They can steal grandma's jewelry instead of the dolls. Did you know that massive inheritances can be squandered? Some time ago, I got watching on the History Channel, had this series called The Men Who Build America. Maybe some of you saw it, but we got into it for whatever reason. Tell the story of these icons of industry in the past.I got a little interested in the Vanderbilt family some years ago. I got a tour of the Biltmore, which is one of the descendants of, he built that with just an inheritance that he got. If you've ever seen that place, it's incredible. But I got interested in the Vanderbilt family. And just to give you an idea very quickly about the Vanderbilt fortune, they at one time, at the height of their power and value, they were worth over $300 billion in today's money. Now, $300 billion, to give you an idea, Bill Gates, who's currently the richest man in the world, is somewhere around $70 billion. They had $300 billion. The world has hardly ever, if ever, seen, other than Rockefeller, a fortune like the Vanderbilt family fortune.In 1973, this is just 75 years from the height of their power and wealth, There was a gathering of 120 direct descendants of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and there wasn't one millionaire amongst them. 75 years, 300 billion to, you know, not so wealthy. How does that happen? Inheritances can be squandered. They can just simply disappear. And I say all of that because that connects with the world that we're in, right? Everything is kind of diminishing. Everything that once was cool is kind of getting old now. And that's the world that we live in, right? Our money isn't worth today what it was worth yesterday. There's inflation. There's the stock market. Everything's up and down and all around. But what about spiritually? The inheritance, the Bible describes the inheritance that we have. We are heirs. What is our inheritance like?And he uses some very powerful words to emphasize that our inheritance is not subject to all of the insecurities that everything in this world has. And he uses these words, notice them, imperishable. Okay? To perish is to die. Everything in this world... dies right it's alive it dies the the flowers of the field the grass in the in the in the in the field all of it there and it dies and it withers and we're all withering right look around there's withering people all around you but this is an imperishable inheritance that he wants us to realize that we have undefiled and this speaks to the moral quality of our inheritance It is pure. It is good. Our inheritance doesn't come from unseemly business practices.There's nothing about it to make us feel sort of dirty in taking it or that there's something evil about it. It is holy. It is good. It is beautiful. It is pure, and it will be eternally beautiful and pure. Unfading. This is very similar to the perishing and the withering. It's, again, the human beauty and fame and everything that seems to be cool now. It's all going downhill. And young people don't realize that, but it is, right? It's all going down. Everything fades. And each one of these words is, it's perishable, defiled, and fading, only it has the negating ah in front of each one of those. It is not imperishable. I'm sorry, it's not perishable. It's not defiling. It is not fading. Our inheritance, you say, well, what is it then exactly? Number one, our inheritance is God himself.The number one thing that we look forward to in going to heaven is not seeing grandma, not seeing, you know, whoever. Number one is God. We go to heaven and we get God and we see God and we have him forever. We are his children. He lavishes blessings on us for all of eternity, eternal life, heaven, new earth, rewards that Jesus will give to us for the quality of our service while here on earth, bliss, beauty, and most importantly, and I include this in the God category, is the seeing and the savoring of Jesus himself, our blessed Lord and Savior, who is our inheritance. Christians talk about, oh, my mansion in heaven and all of that. Forget the mansion. Our mansion truly is Christ.And one day when we see him and we sense from him what eternal, pure, sacrificial, agape love is like, and he looks at us and we feel the love of the divine for us, the thought of a house or something else will just sort of fade away. This will be our greatest moment. It is that beatific vision that theologians talk about. and then to feel and to receive from him the lavishing of his grace and his love in material ways, even in the new earth, in the experience of what all of that is going to be like, and to realize that all of it is according to his mercy, that none of it we deserve, maybe with a vision of hell, and to realize that's what I deserve right there.And I'm getting this, how and why it is the mercy of God and his love for us. This is the inheritance, and Peter says it never goes away. It never diminishes. It never somehow dies. It remains secure in the character and the promises of God, and it's going to be great. And you, my friend, if you are a Christian, you are an heir, an heir to the most wonderful fortune, the fortune of God, the spiritual blessing of being a child of God forever. The verse goes on, kept in heaven for you who by God's power are being guarded through faith. This inheritance that we have is located in heaven. Jesus describes it as a place where moth and rust do not decay and thieves don't break in and steal. That's a pretty good bank vault, isn't it? Anybody's bank here make that kind of guarantee?Probably not. Now notice there's a little shift here in the text because he's describing our inheritance. That is kept in heaven. That's our inheritance. The next word, though, is who. See that? Who. So he moves from our inheritance to us. He moves from keeping our inheritance to God keeping us. So the inheritance is kept in heaven, but we are kept in earth. We are kept in faith on our time on earth. By God's power, our being guarded through faith. And the word there, the Greek word for the word guarded there, it's the word garrisoned, okay? So military people, this is like a word for you. This is the protection. This is the, in the ancient days, they would protect the city gates, the armament of the city gates. We are guarding the city walls, the walls of our faith.It also can refer to keeping us from escaping, okay? So it's both. It is both the attacks from without, and it is me fleeing from within. God is working in our faith, keeping us from both of those dangers. And here we have, and we can do a whole message on this, the doctrine of preservation. The doctrine of preservation, which says that God is the one who keeps us saved. We are preserved in our faith by the power of God. So notice the flow in the text. We are exiles by the choice of God. We are born again by the mercy of God. We are kept in our salvation by the power of God. Our faith is being guarded. And the tense of the verb there is ongoingly, continuously being guarded.It's as if each one of us has a 24-hour, seven days a week security detail. Now, the closest thing that I can think of to illustrate this would be What the President of the United States has, of course, which is the famous Secret Service. And all of us probably are familiar with the Secret Service and what they do 24 hours a day, seven days a week to keep the President alive, to protect him. That is their job. And so for whatever reason, they've decided wearing dark suits and sunglasses helps with that. And so wherever the president is, there's these guys walking around near him and they've got dark suits on and they've got sunglasses. All of them look like they've lifted weights their entire life. You know, they're big, they're bad, they're tough. There's little bulges around in their suit.You know what's in there, right? They can call upon what they need in a moment's notice to take care of business. And so they're there and they're talking into their hands and they got the little wires out of their ears. And you know that there's satellites and there's, you know, who knows all the things that they've got going on wherever the president goes. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, always keeping him safe. But as history shows, they can't even guarantee that, can they? Even the best of the best in the world today can't perfectly protect the life of the president. Notice what Peter says here about us, okay? Kept by the infinite power of God. It's almost like By the power of God, we each have our own spiritual secret service detachment.Everywhere we go, all the time, we are protected spiritually by the power of God. I got thinking about what this might be like. She's about to speak to Miss Gossip. Move in right now. He's leaving on a business trip with Mr. Skeptic and Mrs. Temptation, all units code red. He's in church right now. He's not listening. Taze him. Did anybody just feel something, by the way? No? God's power is always at work protecting our faith, keeping us from running away from our commitment to Christ, keeping us from the wolves, keeping us from doctrine and beliefs and temptations that would ultimately undermine our faith commitment to Christ. And that doesn't mean that we don't sin. It doesn't mean that we don't have seasons and all of that.But it does mean that even through those dark times, God is by his power protecting a faith that he has promised that he will carry on to completion, Philippians 1. And my dear Christian, that is true for you. Think of it just for a moment. Think of it. Right now, God's power is focused upon you and your faith and is ensuring that you are going to make it. That faith will not die. It's the power of God. It's like being born, right? We don't take credit for that. And I don't take credit for my faith continually because naturally I am a sinner and I am human and I am wishy -washy. None of us would make it through this week left to ourselves. But we are not left to ourselves, not by God who loves us. We are kept in this faith.Past, we were born again in the present. We're being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. And the future aspect of this is when our inheritance changes into a possession, okay? An heir is no longer an heir when the inheritance now is something that they own. Think of Prince Charles, like all these years waiting to become king. He's heir to the throne. There's probably a day coming when he will no longer be an heir. When? When he's actually king. And Buckingham Palace and the crown jewels and all the things, all of it is his then. No longer an heir, but a possessor. And our salvation is like that. We are already saved. We are already children of God. But the full experience of our salvation is yet to come.Someday, and the text here says, in the last time, referring to that future consummation of history. Someday, when Jesus returns and final judgment takes place, our ultimate inheritance will be ours. And our ultimate inheritance is Christ himself. And from that point on, we will see and know and worship him. From that point on, we will serve him. fully and faithfully. From that point on, we will be in awe that the Holy Son of God that we see with our own eyes died for us, gave his life for us, and now showers his love upon us for all of eternity. And we will never get over that he did that. We will never get over the mercy of God to us. So that we can say that the Vanderbilts had their fortune by family right, and Prince Charles has his inheritance by birthright.We will have our inheritance forever by new birth and the mercy and the power of God. And so we get to that truth, and what can we say? How about we say what he says in verse 3? “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Amen. Would you pray with me, please? Heavenly Father God, we thank you.This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

In 5 Days Mike and Robbie toe the line at Ironman Wisconsin. Today, they talk through some of the thoughts and strategies for their races. Gear, fuel, effort, game plans, it's all here and they can assure you one thing . . . they really can't be sure about anything. Topics:  Wisconsin weather Pack for all seasons Swim skins What to bring Worst thing about race morning Check-In Concierge? Norton plans for both Concerned about a cold day? Burning calories in the cold is complex Don't take off warm gear too soon Nutrition on the hills You'd rather be warm than cold Thinking about temperature changes Temptation to push it too early Race mantras for the full BodyShot-ville Where you need confidence Race plans in pencil Fueling the run Nailing Bike Nutrition It's like a long ride with fuel Caffeine on race day Watchless? Undertrained? Relaxed with focus Aero helmet? Mike Tarrolly - mike@c26triathlon.com Robbie Bruce - robbie@c26triathlon.com

Temptation Resort has always been a little confusing (to us). It's not quite a lifestyle resort, not quite a vanilla resort. It's not clothing optional but also not exactly clothing required either. It somehow manages to exist in a category all its own without being creepy or weird, which is quite an accomplishment tbh.It's not our first trip here, so before heading back, we made a list.Are there actually lifestyle couples there? Are single guys really as bad as people say? How strict are the photo rules? What can you wear right to the edge of "OMG what is she wearing?" Where can you wear it? And what happens if you decide the balcony is part of your 'bedroom'? There are also a few Temptation urban legends we've heard for years that seemed overdue for some highly unscientific testing.We packed up our gear and travelled to the site they call: Temptation Cancun Resort.Four days later, we came home tired, tan and mildly traumatized, but with actual answers to some of the questions. Some are and will forever be the mystery that Temptation Resort is.Along the way, we talk about why Temptation is hard to define, who we think actually enjoys it most, and why the difference between watching the party and becoming part of it may be the whole point. And how to enjoy it most depending on what kind of personality you have.Pack something inappropriate. It's another trip through Room 77.Also in this episode: Meta deleted our Facebook account (still in authorization loop hell), Lauren's rebuilding from scratch and could use the follow, help me rebuild by clicking the link.This Episode Was Brought To You By:Bikini Addiction — bikiniaddiction.com, code ROOM77 for 10% off. NEW Limited Editions drop this month!!!! Two new colors. Help decide which becomes the next stock color! (Colors are under the Tops and Bottoms, not a special page. "Tropic and Shivers"Kush Cube — kingbdistribution.com, code ROOM77 for 10% off. Rocket Pop Blast Off 500mg if you dare! $1.26 each when you buy in bulk with monthly subscription!Room77life.com — Book Temptation travel through Lauren's Box, grab a spot at our Feb 2027 takeover FLIRT, or become a member for as little as $5.

Steve DeWitt Indestructibly Saved - Part A Study Guide for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 1:3-5 Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 1:3-5 Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter Donate to Support The Journey Sermon Transcript for Spiritual Exiles, 1 Peter 1:3-5 Sermon Series: Spiritual ExilesMessage: Indestructibly SavedAirdate: 9/8 & 9/9/26Programs 2352 & 2353Good morning, Crown Point Campus. And let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be here today. And we pray simply this, that your spirit would come, that he would minister to your people by your word for your glory and for our good. God, we pray that this would be a day truly where your name would be lifted higher. And we want to be a part of that. So we thank you. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, last week we began our new series in 1 Peter entitled Exiles.And the title was taken from the first verse of the book, which says this, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion.” And we saw that Peter was writing to Christians who had been part of this colonization, this dispersion, Christians living in Rome or that region sent now to Asia Minor, and they are there living as foreigners, essentially living as exiles, geopolitical exiles. And what Peter does is he draws from their geopolitical situation spiritual truth and application as they dealt with the feelings of alienation. and ostracization from people that saw them as part of the conquering army, people that weren't from there. And so much that we're going to see in this letter. Last week was our introduction, and we saw that... exiles want more than anything is they want a change of location.They think to themselves, what really needs to happen is I need to be somewhere else. And if I was somewhere else, then I would be happy. Then I would feel like I belong. And we see that what Peter is wanting them to realize is that we want to change our location. God wants to change who we are. And that is inward. And that's the work of the spirit. That's the work of the gospel. That's a part of changing us. Now, what might exiles need to know? Think about this with me for a moment. What do they need to know? There they are living in a land of uncertainty, living in a place where they don't, you know, you think of what people experience when they move into a new area. They need a new doctor. They need a new, where do I get my groceries?How do I find my way around? All the things that are sort of new and different and uncertain. That is compounded in the experience of moving in the first century to a whole new region. And there they are, and everything is uncertain. Nothing feels normal. Everything's sort of weird. What do they need to know spiritually? Well, they need to know that there is a day coming when they will not be exiles anymore and where they will feel welcomed and they will feel like they belong. And that's what Peter now moves to in pastoring this group of people. He wants them to realize that they will not always be exiles. It will not always be like it is. There's coming a day when it will be very much different. And our text in our sermon today is 1 Peter 1, verses 3 through 5.And today is a day where I get to preach at Crown Point and at Cedar Lake. And we do this with the use of technology. And hopefully a fast commute. That's where we're going today. That's where I'm going today. But our text today is verses 3 through 5. So please listen as I read from God's word. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 1 Peter, if you ask most people what 1 Peter is about, it's about remaining faithful in suffering and in persecution. And I just want to note to you that a letter that begins, a letter that is about suffering, begins with, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that seems out of place, except for when you view your suffering from a Christian perspective. It sounds to me like Job, the famous book on suffering.Job, who endured all of these things in chapter 1. He loses everything, and what is his response to that? The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name. There is within Christianity a kind of faith and a kind of confidence in the goodness of God that allows Christians to suffer loss and to remain doxological, to remain praising, to remain giving thanks to God. And we see that modeled here with Peter. He begins with praise and thanksgiving to the Lord. These verses, verses 3 through 5, they are, it's, This is a jewel, okay? This is a jewel passage in all of the Bible, and there are lots of jewel passages, but this is certainly one of them, because what Peter does here is he lays out the gospel. He goes from praising God, and he says, now, why? Why do we praise the Lord?What is there about what God has done for us that allows us to give praise to God even in the midst of persecution and suffering? And we see him now talking about salvation in this passage from the perspective of the past, what God has done, the present, what God is doing, and the future, what God is yet to do. And I want to hasten to say this. These truths that I'm talking about here, that Peter talks about, only apply to genuine Christians. This is not just a general truth for all of humanity. Let's all feel good about it. This is a truth that applies to people who have genuinely trusted in the Lord Jesus. And the promises that God has made to those that are his children apply then to us and are enumerated here. by Peter.So if you're here and you have not trusted in Jesus as your Savior, what I hope happens today as we talk about the blessings that come to those that are under the grace of God, that it might woo you, that it might draw you to put your hope and your faith in the Lord Jesus and for these promises then to become real and true for you. And that can happen in this service here today. Now, if you're an exile far from home, You are having to accept certain realities about life now. It's almost like a college student who goes away from home for the first time. And suddenly, the reality of being responsible for yourself, doing your own laundry, and managing your own money, and all of the rest comes crashing down on the freshmen.And some of them flunk out as a result of that, right? They're in a faraway land. Everything's sort of strange. And indeed, to be one of these people that he's writing to, in a faraway land where everything feels creepy and people look at you as creepy because you're different created a whole set of problems and difficulties your homeland that where you used to be it felt safe it felt normal it felt secure you had friends that made you feel like you were cared for you had possessions that you had had for a long time They felt normal to you. You had maybe a home. You had a network. You had all of these things that felt cozy and made you feel cared for.To be a person in exile is to live without these things, to live away from all of those identities and all of those securities. In fact, I don't know if you've noticed our series graphic, but just to put that up if we have it a second. I really like this because what is it? It's a guy sitting on a pile of rubble and he's looking to a faraway place, right? And there's sort of this sense of, I wish I was there instead of where I am here. This feels like rubble where I'm at. I wish I was back where I came from. And that is a picture, not a bad one, of what it's like to be in exile.And what Peter wants them, and through this letter and through the Holy Spirit, wants us to realize here today is that what we have in Christ, even as an exile, is far greater and far better than anything we had prior to coming to faith in Christ. I said that very clumsily. And clumsily is a clumsy word itself. Let me try that again. What Peter is wanting to say is that what we have presently as Christians, even as exiles, even on the pile of rubble, is far greater and far better than anything we had back when everything felt cozy, back prior to our faith in Christ. And he lays that out again in terms of past, present, future. So let's begin by looking at the past. And notice what he says here. Wonderful verse. about being born again to a living hope.According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we saw in verse 1 that their exile was by God's choice. We see here in verse 3 that their new birth is by the mercy of God. Born again. Born of what? What are you talking about? That sounds crazy. And that is exactly what Nicodemus said to Jesus when Jesus brought this up to him as well. In John chapter 3, you may know the story. Nicodemus, he's sort of a bigwig spiritual leader in Israel. He comes to Jesus in the night, and he asks him about spiritual, he has spiritual questions for him. And he says, no one except they're born from God could do what you do. And Jesus says to him, you must be born again.You have to be born again. Nicodemus says, what? How can I be born again? I was born of my mother once, I gotta be born of her twice? What are you talking about? And you see that Nicodemus is only looking at things materially. He is not seeing things spiritually, which is what Jesus wants him to see, is there's a whole thing going on here spiritually. You have to be born again. What was Jesus talking about? The New Testament calls it new birth, calls it regeneration. All of these are biblical descriptions of what God does in the heart of the sinner who turns in faith and believes in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. There is a miracle, a powerful supernatural work that God does inwardly in the life of the sinner where like being born again, he makes the sinner alive spiritually.Regeneration is also the word there. The Bible says that we are dead in our sins, that spiritually we are corpses. What has to happen for a corpse to live again? It has to be regenerated. In a sense, it has to be resurrected. And what God does inwardly in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, when we believe, is he births life in us again. Almost like Jesus saying to Lazarus, come forth. There is a summoning and a giving of life that God does within us where all of a sudden now our eyes are opened, our ears are opened, and we become attuned to spiritual realities and spiritual things. And notice that it's God that does this. He has caused us to be born again. Regeneration is something that God does. We can't manufacture it. We can't create it.We can't do enough things to make us think that now spiritually I'm alive.We are dead. Burns Funeral Homes across the street, you can go to every corpse there and try to manufacture life. It's not going to happen. Only God can manufacture life. And God does that within us. We are born again. We are passive in this. You ever hear a baby come out being born and go, wow, look what I did. I'm amazing. No, that mother birthed that child. Amen, mothers? You ain't going to ever forget that, are you? Babies don't take credit for being born, and Christians don't take credit for being born again. This is something God does. We are made spiritually alive, but the change affects our entire being. 2 Corinthians says it this way.If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. It is a miracle of life that permeates our entire being. Suddenly, it's like the switch is turned on. We become aware of spiritual truth. What? I never realized that before. We become aware of the presence of God. We become aware of the presence of sin in our life. All of a sudden we realize, that we indeed are sinners. We become aware of forgiveness. We all of a sudden have an interest in Scripture, which prior to this we would have thought is silly. No, what does it say, actually? I'm kind of interested in that. We become interested in prayer and a host of other things. All of them kind of just, it's like springtime. Here come the leaves, here come the flowers.All of a sudden there is life. God does that. God does that. A few examples of how this is God's work and the change that it brings. I recently heard the story of Rosaria Butterfield, and maybe you've seen this online possibly, but she was a professor. She's very upfront about her sexuality. She was a lesbian. She was a professor at Syracuse University. She was just totally into kind of that whole worldview. And it's a great story because there was just a normal local church that began to kind of care for her and love her. And she, in her own words, writes this about her conversion. “The church had been praying for me for years was there. The church that had been praying for me for years was there. Jesus triumphed, and I was a broken mess. Conversion was a train wreck. I did not want to lose everything that I loved, but the voice of God sang a sanguine love song in the rubble of my world. I weakly believed that if Jesus could conquer death, he could make right my world. I drank tentatively at first, then passionately of the solace of the Holy Spirit.” And now she's married to a Presbyterian minister. So come to Jesus and you get to marry a Presbyterian minister. I would keep most people away. Listen to the words of C.S. Lewis. We've talked at length about him and how God drew him to faith. He writes this about his conversion. “You must picture me alone in that room at Magdalen College. Night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet.” Who's causing this regeneration? Hear it in these words. “That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me in the Trinity term of 1929. I gave in and admitted that God was God and knelt and prayed, perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.” Christian, think about your own life story. Think about the change that has taken place in your life. Is there a natural explanation? for the interest that you have in spiritual things and the course and trajectory of your life. The fact that you're sitting here right now listening to some guy talk about what the Bible has to say.All of these things are things if we knew our natural selves, we would say, I would never do that. And that sounds crazy and that sounds stupid. Just like the people in Asia Minor looked at these Christians and said, what planet are you from? Why are you interested in that stuff? And maybe you have people in your family and friends that similarly look at you and go, you're living your life according to what? What planet are you from? We share the same mother, but you're an alien. I don't know you. How have you come to care about the things that you care about and to love God in the way that you love him and to desire to obey and please and live to his glory in the way that you do? Where did all of that come from? It didn't come from you.That can only come from God. He has birthed life in us, and we are changed. Born again to a living hope, the text says, through the resurrection from the dead. Now, why do you suppose he calls it a living hope? It is because our hope is in a living Savior. Do you see the parallel there? One writer says it this way, Christian hope is ever living because Christ, the ground of that hope, is ever living. So Peter looks back. He says, exiles, look back in your story and realize that this change has not come from you. God has given you life, and he has given you hope. And that hope is a living hope because your Savior is a living Savior. And there we are looking at the passage. Well, that's pretty fantastic, isn't it?Don't you think exiles might be a little encouraged by that? And maybe even Christians living here today might be a little bit encouraged to look back and to see the grace of God in our life. As the hymn writer wrote, “oh God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.” We look to the past and we see God's grace to us. And it gives us, man, God is for me. God is with me. He has done this change in my life. The past, a living hope, a new birth. It is not simply a past, it is a present. And even right there is an interesting thought, which I don't have time to explore right now, but how important it is for us to realize that what God is doing is not just stuff in the past.You ever talk to people like that? Tell me about your spiritual life. Well, back in the past, and all they've got is like old stuff. And to realize that our faith, this thing that we're living, this Christian life, is a today thing. There is something that God is doing today. It doesn't matter how long you've been a Christian. There is a work that God is doing right now for you in your life. And Peter highlights it here. What are we saved to? “An inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who, by God's power, are being guarded through faith.” Now, there's a lot there, okay? There's a lot there, but let's just walk through it. You're going to get this, and you're going to love it. We've been born again to an inheritance, okay?So most of us are probably familiar with the concept of an inheritance. What is an inheritance? An inheritance is something that you receive normally based on a relationship, typically a family relationship, right? So when a person dies, there is a reading of the will. And if your name is in the will, it means that whether you knew it or not, you were an heir to the inheritance. So if you're in the will, you have an inheritance. Most people view that as good news, right? Okay. Now what is true about an inheritance? Inheritances are very, very slippery. Very slippery. Your name can be on the will, but guess what? It can be removed from the will. You were an heir, but now you're not anymore. So you better be careful what you say at the family gathering about grandma. And inheritance can shrink in value.Did you know that? You could be an heir to something that is incredibly valuable, but by the time you get it, it's not so valuable. So that your name is in the will, and they read the will, and your sister gets grandma's diamonds, and you get the cabbage patch collection. And you're like, my sister gets... and I get dolls and you know grandma puts in the notes when I bought these they were really valuable. You're like these aren't worth anything. This is like soft firewood. They can diminish in value. People can steal inheritances. There's a story or two in my own family tree of stolen inheritance and maybe you got a few of those in your family tree. It's amazing what family gets like when money is on the table.Inheritance can be stolen did you know that there are unscrupulous lawyers out there who now there's really godly and fair-minded ones as well but there are unscrupulous lawyers out there who can sometimes get their fingers in the pot and diminish an inheritance. Did you know that there are thieves — there are thieves — and that has no connection whatsoever with Steve. There are thieves who can steal inheritances. They can steal grandma's jewelry instead of the dolls. Did you know that massive inheritances can be squandered? Some time ago, I got watching on the History Channel, had this series called The Men Who Build America. Maybe some of you saw it, but we got into it for whatever reason. Tell the story of these icons of industry in the past.I got a little interested in the Vanderbilt family some years ago. I got a tour of the Biltmore, which is one of the descendants of, he built that with just an inheritance that he got. If you've ever seen that place, it's incredible. But I got interested in the Vanderbilt family. And just to give you an idea very quickly about the Vanderbilt fortune, they at one time, at the height of their power and value, they were worth over $300 billion in today's money. Now, $300 billion, to give you an idea, Bill Gates, who's currently the richest man in the world, is somewhere around $70 billion. They had $300 billion. The world has hardly ever, if ever, seen, other than Rockefeller, a fortune like the Vanderbilt family fortune.In 1973, this is just 75 years from the height of their power and wealth, There was a gathering of 120 direct descendants of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and there wasn't one millionaire amongst them. 75 years, 300 billion to, you know, not so wealthy. How does that happen? Inheritances can be squandered. They can just simply disappear. And I say all of that because that connects with the world that we're in, right? Everything is kind of diminishing. Everything that once was cool is kind of getting old now. And that's the world that we live in, right? Our money isn't worth today what it was worth yesterday. There's inflation. There's the stock market. Everything's up and down and all around. But what about spiritually? The inheritance, the Bible describes the inheritance that we have. We are heirs. What is our inheritance like?And he uses some very powerful words to emphasize that our inheritance is not subject to all of the insecurities that everything in this world has. And he uses these words, notice them, imperishable. Okay? To perish is to die. Everything in this world... dies right it's alive it dies the the flowers of the field the grass in the in the in the in the field all of it there and it dies and it withers and we're all withering right look around there's withering people all around you but this is an imperishable inheritance that he wants us to realize that we have undefiled and this speaks to the moral quality of our inheritance It is pure. It is good. Our inheritance doesn't come from unseemly business practices.There's nothing about it to make us feel sort of dirty in taking it or that there's something evil about it. It is holy. It is good. It is beautiful. It is pure, and it will be eternally beautiful and pure. Unfading. This is very similar to the perishing and the withering. It's, again, the human beauty and fame and everything that seems to be cool now. It's all going downhill. And young people don't realize that, but it is, right? It's all going down. Everything fades. And each one of these words is, it's perishable, defiled, and fading, only it has the negating ah in front of each one of those. It is not imperishable. I'm sorry, it's not perishable. It's not defiling. It is not fading. Our inheritance, you say, well, what is it then exactly? Number one, our inheritance is God himself.The number one thing that we look forward to in going to heaven is not seeing grandma, not seeing, you know, whoever. Number one is God. We go to heaven and we get God and we see God and we have him forever. We are his children. He lavishes blessings on us for all of eternity, eternal life, heaven, new earth, rewards that Jesus will give to us for the quality of our service while here on earth, bliss, beauty, and most importantly, and I include this in the God category, is the seeing and the savoring of Jesus himself, our blessed Lord and Savior, who is our inheritance. Christians talk about, oh, my mansion in heaven and all of that. Forget the mansion. Our mansion truly is Christ.And one day when we see him and we sense from him what eternal, pure, sacrificial, agape love is like, and he looks at us and we feel the love of the divine for us, the thought of a house or something else will just sort of fade away. This will be our greatest moment. It is that beatific vision that theologians talk about. and then to feel and to receive from him the lavishing of his grace and his love in material ways, even in the new earth, in the experience of what all of that is going to be like, and to realize that all of it is according to his mercy, that none of it we deserve, maybe with a vision of hell, and to realize that's what I deserve right there.And I'm getting this, how and why it is the mercy of God and his love for us. This is the inheritance, and Peter says it never goes away. It never diminishes. It never somehow dies. It remains secure in the character and the promises of God, and it's going to be great. And you, my friend, if you are a Christian, you are an heir, an heir to the most wonderful fortune, the fortune of God, the spiritual blessing of being a child of God forever. The verse goes on, kept in heaven for you who by God's power are being guarded through faith. This inheritance that we have is located in heaven. Jesus describes it as a place where moth and rust do not decay and thieves don't break in and steal. That's a pretty good bank vault, isn't it? Anybody's bank here make that kind of guarantee?Probably not. Now notice there's a little shift here in the text because he's describing our inheritance. That is kept in heaven. That's our inheritance. The next word, though, is who. See that? Who. So he moves from our inheritance to us. He moves from keeping our inheritance to God keeping us. So the inheritance is kept in heaven, but we are kept in earth. We are kept in faith on our time on earth. By God's power, our being guarded through faith. And the word there, the Greek word for the word guarded there, it's the word garrisoned, okay? So military people, this is like a word for you. This is the protection. This is the, in the ancient days, they would protect the city gates, the armament of the city gates. We are guarding the city walls, the walls of our faith.It also can refer to keeping us from escaping, okay? So it's both. It is both the attacks from without, and it is me fleeing from within. God is working in our faith, keeping us from both of those dangers. And here we have, and we can do a whole message on this, the doctrine of preservation. The doctrine of preservation, which says that God is the one who keeps us saved. We are preserved in our faith by the power of God. So notice the flow in the text. We are exiles by the choice of God. We are born again by the mercy of God. We are kept in our salvation by the power of God. Our faith is being guarded. And the tense of the verb there is ongoingly, continuously being guarded.It's as if each one of us has a 24-hour, seven days a week security detail. Now, the closest thing that I can think of to illustrate this would be What the President of the United States has, of course, which is the famous Secret Service. And all of us probably are familiar with the Secret Service and what they do 24 hours a day, seven days a week to keep the President alive, to protect him. That is their job. And so for whatever reason, they've decided wearing dark suits and sunglasses helps with that. And so wherever the president is, there's these guys walking around near him and they've got dark suits on and they've got sunglasses. All of them look like they've lifted weights their entire life. You know, they're big, they're bad, they're tough. There's little bulges around in their suit.You know what's in there, right? They can call upon what they need in a moment's notice to take care of business. And so they're there and they're talking into their hands and they got the little wires out of their ears. And you know that there's satellites and there's, you know, who knows all the things that they've got going on wherever the president goes. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, always keeping him safe. But as history shows, they can't even guarantee that, can they? Even the best of the best in the world today can't perfectly protect the life of the president. Notice what Peter says here about us, okay? Kept by the infinite power of God. It's almost like By the power of God, we each have our own spiritual secret service detachment.Everywhere we go, all the time, we are protected spiritually by the power of God. I got thinking about what this might be like. She's about to speak to Miss Gossip. Move in right now. He's leaving on a business trip with Mr. Skeptic and Mrs. Temptation, all units code red. He's in church right now. He's not listening. Taze him. Did anybody just feel something, by the way? No? God's power is always at work protecting our faith, keeping us from running away from our commitment to Christ, keeping us from the wolves, keeping us from doctrine and beliefs and temptations that would ultimately undermine our faith commitment to Christ. And that doesn't mean that we don't sin. It doesn't mean that we don't have seasons and all of that.But it does mean that even through those dark times, God is by his power protecting a faith that he has promised that he will carry on to completion, Philippians 1. And my dear Christian, that is true for you. Think of it just for a moment. Think of it. Right now, God's power is focused upon you and your faith and is ensuring that you are going to make it. That faith will not die. It's the power of God. It's like being born, right? We don't take credit for that. And I don't take credit for my faith continually because naturally I am a sinner and I am human and I am wishy -washy. None of us would make it through this week left to ourselves. But we are not left to ourselves, not by God who loves us. We are kept in this faith.Past, we were born again in the present. We're being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. And the future aspect of this is when our inheritance changes into a possession, okay? An heir is no longer an heir when the inheritance now is something that they own. Think of Prince Charles, like all these years waiting to become king. He's heir to the throne. There's probably a day coming when he will no longer be an heir. When? When he's actually king. And Buckingham Palace and the crown jewels and all the things, all of it is his then. No longer an heir, but a possessor. And our salvation is like that. We are already saved. We are already children of God. But the full experience of our salvation is yet to come.Someday, and the text here says, in the last time, referring to that future consummation of history. Someday, when Jesus returns and final judgment takes place, our ultimate inheritance will be ours. And our ultimate inheritance is Christ himself. And from that point on, we will see and know and worship him. From that point on, we will serve him. fully and faithfully. From that point on, we will be in awe that the Holy Son of God that we see with our own eyes died for us, gave his life for us, and now showers his love upon us for all of eternity. And we will never get over that he did that. We will never get over the mercy of God to us. So that we can say that the Vanderbilts had their fortune by family right, and Prince Charles has his inheritance by birthright.We will have our inheritance forever by new birth and the mercy and the power of God. And so we get to that truth, and what can we say? How about we say what he says in verse 3? “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Amen. Would you pray with me, please? Heavenly Father God, we thank you.This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.

In Joshua 7, Joshua uncovers why Israel lost the battle at Ai when God reveals that rebellion was in the camp. Tune in as we learn how to be Authentically His by dealing with sin swiftly and completely.***Welcome, we are so glad you have joined us for our church online! If you are new here, we would love to connect with you. HARVEST VALLEY CHURCH is a church that believes in Jesus, a church that loves God and people. If you have made a decision to follow Jesus or want to learn more about Him, email us at connect@harvestvalley.org, and we will reach out to you about your decision to follow Jesus.To support the ministry of Harvest Valley Church and invest in the lives of others through giving, click here.For more information about Harvest Valley Church visit https://www.harvestvalley.org Church Office: (925)484-2482#harvestvalleychurch #loveourcity #Pleasantonca #eastbaychurches #Sunday #harvestvalleychurchpleasanton #purposeinlifeSupport the show

In this episode, Sathiya sits down with Ryan Miller, who returns to the Man Within Podcast to dive deep into his new book Meek as a Mustang. Ryan unpacks the misunderstood biblical virtue of meekness, exploring it not as weakness but as God-given strength and the transformative process of becoming like a tamed wild mustang in the hands of the King. The conversation covers personal stories, biblical insights, practical applications for spiritual growth, battling sin (including pornography), and the importance of wilderness seasons in the Christian walk. Ryan also shares testimonies from people he has met who embody meekness, explains how to practically navigate temptation and accountability, and gives a preview of his upcoming projects.   SATHIYA'S RESOURCES: Free Recovery Book (The Last Relapse) Join the brotherhood (DeepClean Inner Circle) Live Training To Quit Porn For Good   RYAN'S RESOURCES: Meek as a Mustang book Website   Timestamps: 01:10 Why Ryan wrote a book about meekness 03:04 Taming wild Mustangs & mentoring troubled boys 06:02 Meekness as God's whisper during anxiety and failure 12:44 Story of Carol Ward – martyrdom through perfect love 18:11 The process of taming a wild Mustang as a metaphor for the spiritual journey 21:38 CIA agent's perspective: meekness as relinquishing ownership 27:10 Practical steps to dealing with temptation and accountability 44:52 The paradox of meekness: becoming fearless by surrendering everything 50:00 The wilderness season: Biblical examples and how to embrace it

How can you walk in God's blessing, resist temptation, and experience true freedom—even when your circumstances are difficult?In this powerful message from Genesis 39, Pastor Nate Clarke looks at the life of Joseph and shows what it means to remain faithful to God through hardship, temptation, injustice, and seasons that don't make sense. Joseph was betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused, and thrown into prison—yet through every season, the Lord was with Joseph.Joseph's story teaches us that God's blessing isn't dependent on perfect circumstances. We can find favor with God by faithfully following His Word and find favor with others through diligent, excellent work. But when we're forced to choose between pleasing God and pleasing people, Joseph's example reminds us to choose God and leave the consequences to Him.We also learn from Joseph how to resist temptation. Instead of minimizing or justifying sin, we must call sin what it is, remember how our choices affect others, recognize that sin is ultimately against God, and when it comes to sexual temptation—run from it.Finally, Joseph's story reveals the difference between looking free and actually being free. Joseph's brothers were physically free but remained trapped by guilt and shame for decades. Joseph was physically imprisoned, yet his soul was free because he continued walking faithfully with God. No circumstance, relationship, achievement, or amount of money can give us that kind of freedom. True freedom is found through Jesus Christ.

Find out how to defend yourself against the Enemy's temptations.Donate: https://store.intouch.org/donate/generalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Temptation always tells the same three lies: that you’re the only one struggling, that it’s too strong to fight, and that giving in is your only option. Today on BOLD STEPS, Mark Jobe closes out a study on facing temptation, showing why God always provides a way out ... even when it doesn’t feel like it. Make plans to listen and learn to depend on God instead of your own strength … listen to Bold Steps with Pastor Mark Jobe. Bold Steps Gift: Goliath Must Fall: Winning the Battle Against Your Giants - Louie Giglio Visit or watch Mark Jobe at New Life Community ChurchBecome a Bold Partner: https://www.moodyradio.org/donateto/boldstepsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this Bible Story, the heavens are opened up as John baptizes Jesus. The signalling of Jesus' earthly ministry has begun, and all of history is about to be shaped forever. Then Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where he is tempted by Satan. This story is inspired by Matthew 3:1-17, Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:9-13, Luke 3:21-22, Luke 4:1-13, John 1:19-34. Go to https://www.BibleinaYear.com and learn the Bible in a Year.Today's Bible verse is Mark 1:11 from the King James Version.Episode 176: “Repent and be baptized for the Kingdom of Heaven is near” yelled John the Baptist as he preached to the people on the banks of the Jordan river. John knew that the day of The Lord was coming soon and he sought to prepare the hearts of the people for His arrival. As John was going about this mission, Jesus made His way through the crowd to be baptized by John. And though he did not fully understand why Jesus would make this request, he obeyed. As Jesus was coming up from the water, the skies opened and the people heard the audible voice of God for the first time in over four hundred years! This marked the beginning of Jesus' ministry…and His temptation.Hear the Bible come to life as Pastor Jack Graham leads you through the official BibleinaYear.com podcast. This Biblical Audio Experience will help you master wisdom from the world's greatest book. In each episode, you will learn to apply Biblical principles to everyday life. Now understanding the Bible is easier than ever before; enjoy a cinematic audio experience full of inspirational storytelling, orchestral music, and profound commentary from world-renowned Pastor Jack Graham.Also, you can download the ⁠Pray.com⁠ app for more Christian content, including, Daily Prayers, Inspirational Testimonies, and Bedtime Bible Stories.Visit JackGraham.org for more resources on how to tap into God's power for successful Christian living.Pray.com is the digital destination of faith. With over 5,000 daily prayers, meditations, bedtime stories, and cinematic stories inspired by the Bible, the Pray.com app has everything you need to keep your focus on the Lord. Make Prayer a priority and download the #1 App for Prayer and Sleep today in the Apple app store or Google Play store.Executive Producers: Steve Gatena & Max BardProducer: Ben GammonHosted by: Pastor Jack GrahamMusic by: Andrew Morgan SmithBible Story narration by: Todd Haberkorn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Trials and temptations are part of life, but the choices we make in those moments can have lasting consequences. Dr. Tony Evans explains where temptation comes from, the price of giving in, and how we can stand strong when the opportunity to compromise comes our way.