Basics with Beth Jones

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Good morning, kicking off a brand new series. As you heard,
Liar Liar pants on fire, and we're going to talk
about how to stop the devil right in the middle
of his tracks, because how many of you know we
live in a bit of a crazy culture these days.
You know, there's a lot of voices out there, there's
a lot of things coming at us. We have access

(00:36):
to so many things at our fingertips, and you know,
you can be encouraged, discouraged, confused, mad. I mean, you
can all of the above in about sixty seconds by
either watching television, going through your phone, just living life,
seeing the covers of the magazines at the checkout counter.
You know, just this world we live in, there's a
lot of voices. And it used to be there were

(00:59):
certain places that was, you know, pretty safe refuge. You know,
there were certain places you could go and you're like,
I'm pretty sure if I go here, I'm going to
get the truth. But you know, these days things are
so fractured. A lot of times you're not even sure
where to get the truth. You used to think in
some families, I could get the truth in my family,
But then families are so fractured, and then you thought

(01:19):
I could get it at school, but then schools are
kind of messed up, and then you thought maybe church.
I could go to church. But even sometimes in church,
you know, the Bible has a lot to say about
the wheat and the tears sitting side by side in
churches around the world. So where in the world do
you go to get the truth? How do you stop

(01:40):
all the noise? How do you stop the enemy just
trying to work you over in your thoughts and in
your mind. Well, that's what we're going to talk about
in this series and kind of hit on different things.
So if you got your bibles, go ahead and pull
them out. We're going to get into it and see
what does God's word have to say. Liar, liar, pants
on fire? John ten ten. You guys know this. If

(02:00):
you've been around here for very long, you've heard this
a few times. But let's look at it, John ten ten.
Jesus said this. He said, the thief does not come
except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I
have come, Jesus said, I have come that they, meaning
you and I, may have life, and that they may

(02:21):
have it more abundantly. So if Jesus said, look, the
reason I came is to give you abundant life to
the full until it overflows. Like It's the reason he
left Heaven's throne seated with his Father to take on,
to humble himself and become a man and take on
a human body. I mean, just that thought alone blows

(02:41):
me away, does it. You? The creator of the ends
of the earth, he was with the Father in creation.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God, and by him
all things were made, and the Word became flesh and
dwelt among us. That's Jesus. He's talking about Jesus, and Jesus,

(03:03):
the creator of the ends of the earth, humbles himself
to become a man, but to be born in the
natural way as a baby in the manger. How amazing
is that? Why did he do it? Why in the
world did he do it? He said, I have come.
Here's the reason I did it. I came to give
you life. And then he just went on to explain it.

(03:25):
A little more goes, not just life, life more abundantly
to the full. That is God's plan for each and
every one of us in here. That is God's plan
for you. Don't let anybody talk you out of that.
That is why Jesus came. That's exactly why he came
to give you an abundant life, spirit, soul, and body.

(03:46):
Of course we're saying about it this morning as well.
But there is somebody who doesn't want you to have that.
There is an enemy. We have an adversary, We have
an enemy who works over time trying to make sure
that you and I don't experience that. Because you might
around in your world, in your sphere of influence, you
might look around at people you know in your family,
co workers, your neighbors, and so on. You might look

(04:07):
around in church and go, what's going on? Why why
aren't more people living this life? Now, there are a
lot of people living that life, but why aren't there more?
Why isn't every Christian living this life? If Jesus paid
such a mighty high price for you and I to
have life well, spiritual life, a relationship with God that's

(04:28):
a vibrant that's real. You talk to him, He talks
to you, He leads you, he guides you, He lives
through you. That's life in your soul, like a mind
that's sound, a mind that's at peace. Emotions, that are
not like crazy Town. A strong will, not a weak will,

(04:51):
but not an overly dominant will, like a will to
do God's will. That's part of the abundant life. Hey,
what about physically to have life, to have energy? I
mean sometimes you know, you can just see it on
people's faces, just exhaustion, exhaustion, tired, no energy. But if

(05:17):
Jesus came to give us life and that more abundantly,
and then really on top of it, he wants because
you can only give what you have, you cannot give
what you do not have. So it's hard for you
and I to impart life into the people around us
if we're if we're not experiencing it. So it's a
double edged it's a double whammy. If the devil can

(05:37):
come in and rob you of life, steal, kill, and
destroy in all those areas I just mentioned in your relationships,
in your finances, in your health, in your spiritual walk
with God, in your attitude, et cetera, et cetera. If
he can destroy your life and not allow you to
experience the abundant life, that's one whammy. But then if
he stops you from impacting anybody else, there's a double whammy.

(06:02):
So Jesus has a remedy. Jesus has an answer for
you and I a it's to recognize we do have
an adversary. And I want to talk to you today
about a particular strategy. I think the enemy is using
overtime right now. And it's something that's been on my
heart for many, many months. And it's and it's really
quite basic, because that's what I do. It's really quite basic.

(06:25):
But it is through lies, that's it. The enemy is
a liar. And in fact, let's look at this. Jesus
said this in John chapter eight, verse forty two. Listen
to what Jesus said to the religious people of the day.
He says, if God were your father, you would love me,
for I have come here from God. I've not come

(06:45):
on my own. God sent me. Why is my language
not clear to you? Because you're unable to hear what
I say. You belong, Jesus said this. Now, talk about bold,
talk about blond, talk about not politically correct. You belong
to your father, the devil, and you want to carry

(07:06):
out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning.
Not holding to the truth, for there is no truth
in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language,
for he is a liar and the father of lies. Well,
we just need to understand there is such a thing

(07:27):
as the devil, an adversary, our enemy, and Jesus gave
us his profile very clearly here he goes, Look, there's
no truth in him. He couldn't even tell the truth
if he wanted to. He doesn't have the ability to
tell the truth. He lies. He's the father of lies.

(07:47):
That's his native language. He just speaks lie. That's just
what he does. Now, And be a little bit encouraging
as we get into this. I think you will be.
But be encouraged if you feel like, man, I just
feel like, you know, the enemy is just trying to
get me in fear and andy about this or that.
I just I don't know. Listen, just know this, whatever
that is, it's a lie. Yeah, but what if you
know maybe no, the devil can't even tell the truth.

(08:10):
So sometimes you can actually be encouraged to go, oh,
that's a complete lie. He can't even tell the truth,
So it must be the exact opposite of the thing
that's been tormenting me is actually the truth. It's just
this thieves trying to rob me from abundant life? Amen?

(08:30):
So what kind of lies? What kind of lies? Is
the enemy propagating? All kinds you guys know it, spiritual
lies about God, about religion, about God's Word, about the Bible,
about Heaven, about Hell. I mean, all kinds of lies
on the spiritual front. What about personally in your own
personal life? What about your worth? What about your value?

(08:54):
What about whether you're accepted rejected? How do you measure up?
How do you compare? How in the world old do
you think he's trying to use social media to devastate
a whole generation coming up that they have no value
Because they put that post up and I got two likes,
I'm a loser. Just a lie. Lies in the culture,

(09:15):
personal lies, spiritual lies. How about lies of your past?
How many times does the enemy just drag up your
past to lie to you about why this isn't happening,
that will never happen. You couldn't How could you if
anybody knew? He just brings up your pass and lies
to you all the time about your past, and then

(09:37):
you just get stuck. How about your future? He lies
about your future? You're never gonna be fulfilled? You're never
gonna get those dreams to come to past. You're never
gonna walk in your vision. It's gonna get worse for you,
not better. Right, just lies and more lies about the past,
about the present. Of course, the enemy is just lying

(09:57):
all the time about all kindsions of things. But see,
here's the good news. Jesus has given us weapons. We
have artillery, we have a recourse. And I want you
to see a couple of verses, and this is what
we're going to talk about. Because that little voice, that
little torment, that little taunt, that little ah, you could
live the abundant life, but not you. Well because of

(10:21):
this well, the abundant life. Yeah, Jesus said, itness for
everybody else, but ah, not you, that little thing. God
wants to help you put a quench to it. He
wants to help you to silence it once and for all.
And he wants you to take a mother. May I
take a giant step into the abundant life. Yes, you may.

(10:42):
He wants you to take a giant step into this
abundant life. So let's look at this. In Sewod Corinthians ten,
verses three through five, it says this, for though we
walk in the flesh, live on earth, walk in the flesh.
We do not war according to the flesh. For the
weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God.
For pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, in every high

(11:06):
thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing
every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. So
there's a progression there. I just want to talk about
it for two seconds. The goal of the enemy is
to steal, killing, to destroy, and we get a little
more of a clue in this passage. The other part
of that is his goal is to rob you and

(11:28):
I from the knowledge of God, all the lies, all
the things that come against you. It's for one purpose.
It's to rob you of the knowledge of God, of
how good God is, of how God loves you, of
what God has for you, what Jesus provided for you.
It's the knowledge of God that he's coming against. Because
if you ever get a hold of the knowledge of God,
and when you do, and many of you have, when

(11:49):
you do, it's the game changer. So he starts, if
you look at the progression from the bottom up, he
starts with thoughts. It starts with a thought. He'll just
plant a thought in your and you'll get wise to it,
and many of you I know are wise to it,
and you'll go, Nope, that's a lie. I recognize that's
a lie. But sometimes if you're not on purpose versed

(12:11):
in doing that, you'll just receive a thought, Oh they
don't like me. Oh well I'm not good enough. Oh well,
whatever the thought is, we're to take it captive in
the thought stage. But if we don't, if you read
from that verse from the bottom up, if you don't
take it into a thought, what happens is it becomes
an argument. It becomes an imagination, it becomes a reasoning.

(12:34):
You start to think of reasons why that thought is true. Well, yeah,
because I emailed them two weeks ago. I posted something
that never answered me, so I know for sure they
hate me. And it becomes an argument, and it becomes
an imagination and it becomes a reasoning. And then if

(12:55):
you don't deal with in the reasoning argument stage, if
we don't use the weapons of warfare, then it goes
into a stronghold. It goes into a stronghold, and then
you don't know it. But then sort of subconsciously, I
guess you could say. You begin to act it out.
You begin to act like no one likes you. But

(13:16):
it was just an email somebody didn't answer originally in
the thought, but it's turned into this whole thing. Now
it's a stronghold. And so now you walk around with
a chip on your shoulder, and now it's become a
stronghold in your life, and you're like, what is going on?
Now everybody hates me? It was just that one person. Y'all.
Following this, you see how this is how the enemy works.

(13:36):
Now that's a small example, but you get it because
it's how he works. So put a thought in there,
and then you argue for it, and you give them all,
you give yourself all the reasons why it's true. And
then over time that becomes a stronghold in essence, it
becomes a part of your personality, and you say, what
in the world I've been I've been like this for years. Well,

(13:57):
good news. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal,
but mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds. Amen,
we can pull them down. So I want you to
see what these weapons look like, some of the weapons,
And that's really the crux of our time today, and
that's an Ephesian six. So going over to Ephesian six,

(14:19):
we're gonna look at this passage Ephesian six, verse ten. Finally,
my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the
power of his might. Be strong in your relationship with
the Lord, strong in his word and all of those
things and the power of his might. What do we
do put on the whole armor of God that you

(14:40):
may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
What are the wiles? Lies? It's the lies. I'll get
to this in a little bit, but let me just
I'll mention it. And now, I guess here's the thing.
The only weapon the devil has is deception. The only
weapon he has our lie. The only thing he can

(15:01):
do is tell you the untruths. Because the Bible does
tell us that Jesus completely defeated the devil, made an
open show of him, triumphed over him, disarmed him. He's
got no arms. I don't mean these kind of arms.
I mean, like you know, he's got no weapons. Think
about that. The only weapon the enemy has is deception

(15:24):
or lies. That's it. If you and I believe the lies,
then that weapon works against us. But if we get
a hold of what we're talking about in this series,
you start to do what the Bible says, you begin
to reign in life through Jesus Christ. So his only
weapon is lies, but we have many weapons. So he

(15:44):
goes on to describe, for you may stand against all
the wiles of the devil, all the lies. For we
do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age,
against spiritual hosts of wickedness and heavenly play. I'm going
to come back to that. Therefore, take up the whole
armor of God, that you may be able to withstand

(16:07):
in the evil day. And having done all to stand,
let's just talk about this half of the passage for
a minute, and then we'll get to the armor a
couple things. There. He says, you'll be able to withstand
in the evil day. What's the evil day? It's the
day of the lie. It's the day he tries to
come against you with the lie. You can withstand in

(16:29):
that evil day by doing what we're talking about here.
But it gives us a little bit of a description
up above this about how the enemy works, and I
just think it's important to understand it just a little bit,
because for some people they just think the enemy is
just you know, a little cartoon character or something. No,
the enemy is completely one hundred percent, fully defeated by

(16:50):
Jesus one hundred percent. Our job isn't to fight the devil.
Jesus already won the battle. Our job is to enforce
Satan's defeat. So he was defeated, he is defeated, and
our job is to understand what we're talking about in
the serious and enforce it. You don't have to get

(17:12):
into a wrestling match with the enemy. You don't have
to try to outsmart him mental gymnastics with your adversary.
You'll lose every time if you try to outsmart him.
That's not even our job. Our job is simply to
enforce the victory that Jesus won for you, and I amen.
So then he describes the kingdom of the Enemy, and

(17:34):
he says, here it has powers, rulers, principalities, and spiritual
hosts of wickedness and high places. So it's just interesting,
I think, to understand it. And again, you're never to
be afraid of the devil. God's not given us a
spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind.
And you're on the victory side, and you've got all

(17:55):
the weapons, and he's been disarmed, so you're in a
position of strength. Sometimes people are on the run from
the enemy, it's like, no, the opposite put him on
the run. Amen. So principalities powers the rulers of the
darkness of this age? What do you think the rulers

(18:16):
of the darkness of this age? Do they rule the
darkness of this age? Light bulb? Spiritual wickedness and high
places that you sort of see four levels, and if
you want to put it that way, four levels of
an organizational chart here for the enemy's kingdom, spiritual wickedness

(18:39):
and high places. You ever wonder, like in parts of
the world, like man, why in certain parts of the
world or certain cities is there such an evil stronghold?
Because likely there are wicked spirits in high places trying
to dominate territory, which of course is what the devil's
been always wanting to do. Then a lesser degree you'd

(19:01):
have a ruler of the darkness of this world that
would be in fact. In Ephesians two It talks about
how the God of this world tries to blind people's
minds and hearts cause deception, deceit that there is a melody.
You have to understand this, and the only way you
can really understand it. Let me just tell you this.

(19:22):
The only way you can even see what I'm talking
about is if you're born again. Jesus said, unless a
man is born again, he will never see the Kingdom
of God. Well, that's true, and nor will you ever
see that there are two kingdoms. But I believe a
lot of you, and here are born again. Jesus is
your lord. If you are not born again, today's your day.

(19:43):
Today's your day to get your eyes open and have
a transfer. Today's your day to get a transfer out
of the kingdom of darkness and in two the kingdom
of his dear Son. But anyways, my point is sometimes
you don't see any of this stuff. But then if
you have spiritualized, you're like, no, I can see that

(20:03):
the world has a melody. They are singing off the
same music sheet. They don't know it, but they're singing
off the same music sheet. Because the rulers of the
darkness of this world are doing their best to make
it so. And if he says too, it's because he's
called the Prince of the power of the air I
sometimes say the Prince of the power of the air waves.

(20:28):
He's trying to get the world to sing off that
same sheet to rule darkness in this world. When you
look around, you're like, yeah, I'd see a lot of
that happening, And then you see these other levels, lesser levels.
Somebody has described it that way. Of the powers and principalities.
You know, let me just give you a couple more
little rabbit trails here. But the devil, just you know,
is a real spiritual being, completely defeated. But he's not omnipresent.

(20:53):
He can't be everywhere at all times. He's a created being.
His name was Lucifer at the beginning, and he was
one of God's chief angels, but through rebellion and pride
he fell, And so now he's going after God's highest creation,
you and I with lies and deception. But he's not omnipresent.
He can't be everywhere at all times, and he's not omniscient.
He doesn't know everything, and he's not omnipotent. He doesn't

(21:17):
have all power. So just be advised that it's not like, Oh,
Jesus and the devil are kind of equals, and Jesus won.
They had a wrestling match, they had an arm wrestling match,
and no, it was like bam bam, it wasn't even

(21:38):
a match. Jesus hands down defeated this enemy. But nonetheless
there is an enemy, and we're to stand strong in
all the armor God's given us. Thanks for watching today's show.
We hope this message helped you to get the basics,
live the life, and do the stuff. Be sure to
set your DVRs so that you never miss an episode.

(21:58):
For more of the Basics with Beth Joel, or to
watch programs on demand, visit The Basis with Beth dot tv.