Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Play around with the devil. You don't know what you're
playing with. When you play with the devil, you're playing
with a loaded gun with a tricky trigger. That means, say,
if he's shaking, the gun go off, you pick it up,
the gun go off. And so you want to play, well,
I know I can play with us without the gun
going off. Just try. There's a reason why he's attacking you.
He's not attacking you to play with you. He's not
(00:21):
coming to you in order to make you feel good
or to make you happy and to give you pleasure.
You may think he is, but he isn't. We are.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
It's time for Sunday Supper and time to feast on
God's words. Sunday Supper is a ministry of christ Church
for the End Times. Christ Church for the End Times
is a non denominational teaching church ministry. Our mission is
to help prepare God's people for life and ministry during
the times in which we live. Join us on Wednesdays
at six thirty pm for a dynamic, practical, engaging, and
(01:11):
life changing Bible study and on Sunday mornings at ten
thirty am for a weekly church service. But for now,
let's feast at the Lord's table. Here's today's message, already
in progress, what he.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Said on your last Well, I guess now. A couple
of weeks ago, we started a series titled battle Line Drawn.
Now intentionally we did not use the term battle lines,
but we use battle line and the singler as opposed
to the plural. And we'll get into that maybe a
(01:48):
little bit later. But the thing that we ask people
of God has to come to understand is that God
desires his best for us. God has always desired his
best for us. What we failed to see, however, is
that in order for us to move into God's best
for our lives, in order for us to inhabit His
(02:10):
best for our lives, we have to make the choices
that will help us to move into His best for
our lives. And today that's what we are going to
be talking about. We're going to be talking about the
battle that we face. We want us to understand that
the choices that we make is going to determine the
(02:31):
outcome of that battle as it relates to us. You see,
it's a foregone conclusion as to the ultimate outcome of
this battle between good and evil, right and wrong, light
and darkness. That which is for God, and that which
is against God. But we're going to get some insights
into what this battle is so that we can begin
(02:54):
to understand that we are in a battle and that
we must begin to fight this battle. We've approached our
relationship with the Lord and a religious from religious bent
and religious direction. We're going to have to kind of
move beyond religion to relationship. But even when it comes
to understanding that God wants to have a relationship with
(03:17):
us and that we must have a relationship with him,
the type and quality of that relationship is important. Nowadays
we're hearing people say, well, you know, you got to
have a relationship with the Lord, and we have come
to the point of acknowledgement that we should have a
(03:40):
relationship with the Lord. What we try to do is
mail religion into that relationship. But again, maybe as time
goes on, we'll get into some of the particulars of that.
I want to start with sharing a few scriptures with you,
just to give you a little context to what we're
going to be talking about. My first scripture is gonna
(04:01):
be John seventeen and five, and then we're gonna look
at Matthew six, verse nine and ten, and then I
want to read for you John ten and ten. I
just want to kind of for the time being, just
kind of put those in your hearing. John seventeen. Saint
John seventeen and fifteen says, I pray not that thou
(04:22):
should hast take them out of the world, but that
thou shouldst keep them from the evil. Now you've heard
me quote the scripture several times, and I've shared with
you that Jesus prayed for us. And this is one
of the things I like about Saint John's seven and
seventeen and fifteen because well, actually the seventeenth chapter of John,
(04:47):
it really illustrates the heart of the Lord for us
as well as it also give us some insights into
his expectation for us. It also does something that I
really really am odd about that Jesus Christ, before I
was born, before you was born, Christ prayed for you
(05:09):
in that awesome and you'll see that prayer that Christ
prayed for you in John seventeen, and you'll see his
heart in that prayer. You will see unfold his expectations
for our lives. People say we was created to worship,
not really and not in the religious sense that we
(05:30):
have a tendency to use when it comes to worship.
When we understand what Jesus was talking about about the
truth worshiper worshiping him in spirit and truth, that put
things in a little slightly different context. But in reality,
what he wanted he wanted someone that not only that
he can love. Keeping in mind everything that God's God creates,
(05:53):
he loved. Always remember that. And so if you've been
created by God, in regardless to what you do or
don't do, he loves you. So he loves all of us.
And that's when you look at love, you're talking about
something that's always relational, but for God, it really goes
far beyond that. He loves us. And God created someone
(06:16):
not just that he could love, but someone that could
experience his love, appreciate his love, and choose whether or
not they would love. You know, in order for love
really to to how would I put this? In order
for love to really be codified, it has to be reciprocated.
(06:38):
In essence, if I love you and you don't love me,
it's just a one way street that love has to
be returned. It has to be reciprocated. And so, and
you will know when love is reciprocated. You will know
when someone loves you because they're gonna make choices. They're
going to do things that's gonna re reflect their love
(07:00):
for you, and you're gonna do things that reflect your
love for them. And so with God, God had to create.
If God wanted someone that could love him back, he
had to He had to create something with the capacity
to do so. And this is why he created man.
(07:21):
Out of all of his creation. He created man in
his image and after his likeness, which means man is
the only one that really have the capacity to choose
to love God. That's an awesome thing. That's something that
the angels can't do, believe it or not, not in
the way that we can. Mankind was the only on is.
(07:45):
And think about this also, God has never ever created
anything that we are aware of. With the capacities that
man has, we have to we have the capacity to
love God back and to love him in the same
way that He loves us. There's no other aspect of
his creation that could even come close. Guess what else.
(08:09):
We also have the ability to say no, I don't
love you. You see, if you did not have the capacity
to say I don't love you then then it would
literally mess the whole equation up, because then that would
mean if you couldn't help but love him, that means
He just created another automaton. He just created another robot.
(08:32):
He just created something without the ability to say no
to him. And this is why I tell people that
God created someone that can argue with him. You know,
God created someone can say now I don't like that.
Think about it. We God has created us with that capacity.
But that's not really what we're gonna talk about today,
(08:54):
kind of sort of is because in order to do that,
you have to make a choice. You have to choose
to are not to love God. And when we're talking
about battle lines drawn battle line drawn, where we have
a subtopic here titled choices, you have to choose a side,
(09:16):
not choose sides. Because the reason why I'm not saying
battle lines because there is but one battle. This is
a spiritual fight that we're in. And you fight the
things of the spirit differently than you fight the things
of the flesh. Are those things in the natural again,
we'll maybe get into that. We'll get into that later.
(09:36):
But the Lord prayed that we would be in the world,
but that God, the Father will keep us from the evil,
which means that in order for this prayer to be answered,
we have to have the capacity to deal with the evil.
When he's saying keep us from the evil, he's not
talking about hotness from it, because we're here to confronted.
(10:01):
We just have to have the capacity to deal with it.
We have to have the capability to keep from being
overcome by the evil. And you got to understand, all
of us have to understand in God, God doesn't We
are not cowards. And God has never created a coward
in the sense of cowardice and us being cowards. God
(10:25):
has not only created us with dominion and to have dominion.
He has given us the capacity to exercise the dominion
the authority that we have. And this is why he
shared with us that he gives us power over all
of the powers of the enemy, which means he has
given us jurisdictional authority. And he has given us enormous
(10:49):
capability to be able to act with impunity against all
of the abilities of the enemy. And this is why
you never listen to some one that says the devil
is more powerful than you are. The only way that
the devil is more powerful than you are is that
you see your power to him or you do not resist.
(11:11):
In the Bible says you resist him, and he may
free from flee from you. He might flee from you.
He'll think about fleeing from you. Know he say you
shall You know why? Because you have power over him.
You have power. You have not only physical power and
spiritual power, you also have jurisdictional authority. Now, the jurisdictional
(11:37):
authority is important because if you move out of jurisdiction,
you don't have the capacity to act if you have,
for example, you have different law enforcement, you have different communities.
We're here in South Georgia and Brunswick, Georgia. Brunswick Georgia
police officers doesn't have authority in Jacksonville, Florida, unless unless
(12:00):
that authority or capability is ceded to them. They don't
have any jurisdiction to Brunswick police. Even though you're a
certified police officer, under normal circumstances, you don't have the
ability to arrest someone in Florida. It doesn't work that way.
Why because it's out of your jurisdiction. Now, that's important
(12:21):
for us. It's because as believers and the things as
it relates to the enemy. We have cat blanche. We
have total jurisdiction. Any place that the enemy goes, we
can go. And any place we meet up with him,
we have authority over him. So never listen to someone
that says, you know, you can't handle the devil. You
(12:42):
can't do this, but the devil and what have you.
It's the Christ that's in you, that's your hope of
glory is through him. We can do all things. Through
him that love us. He has given us the jurisdiction
and the ability are the capability to act. And this
is why we don't see any ground. The Bible say
(13:03):
give no place to the devil, and this is why
we don't give him any place. And so we got
to understand, and we got to keep in mind the
things that the Lord has for us. And he prayed
for you to have the victory. He prayed for us
to stay here in the in the world, and that
the part of the reason for that is so that
(13:24):
the world would have hope, and so that the enemy
would not run roughshod over this over this world. But
again we'll go on and Matthew six and nine, it says,
and this is a familiar Scripture and we and it's
so familiar to us. People quote the Scripture even though
many of them don't go to church. Many of them
(13:44):
probably don't even know where it is in the Bible
because they were just tordt hand me down. If I
can say this, I'm not gonna go through the whole thing.
I'm just gonna share with you two verses of this.
And it's what we call the Lord's Prayer or our
Father's Prayer, or however you may want to call it.
But I want to give you these two verses the
opening to this prayer, and it's what I'm about to
(14:06):
share with you. It's not about the prayer as such,
but we'll go on. It says, after this manner pray.
Then it goes on to say, our Father, who art
in heaven, Hollywood be thy name. And so he's directing
as exactly to who we're going to pray for. Now.
In order to really get this context, you got to
see what was going what was going on in those
eight verses before this one. Jesus was telling them how
(14:29):
to actually is telling them not to do their arms
or do the things that you do that are good
to be seen. You don't fast to be seen. You
don't pray to be seen. He said, when you pray,
you enter into your secret closet, which means he's not
telling you go and find you a closet that nobody
else know about but you, and crawl yourself into it
(14:51):
and pray. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking
about not praying to be seen and not doing all
these long elaborate prayer things. If you want to do
alone elaborate of prayer, you can do that if you're
not doing it to be seen. And if you got
a reason for a long elaborate prayer. There was a
time when they say, well, God, and we take it
from Jesus when he was in the garden of Gsemite,
(15:14):
and he told us disciples to wait and to pray,
and and and when he left they went to sleep.
They said, you can, you can, you can stay awake
for one hour. And then we use that we we
we we have a tendency to wrap some religion around
a religious approach around everything. Then we've got to you
(15:34):
gotta can you pray one hour, pray one hour? You
can pray for ten minutes and accomplish what you pray
In one hour, depend on where your heart is. But
again that's a little aside. Jesus here in the preceding
verses was illustrating to us how and the heart from
which we do the things that we do. We don't
do things to be seen. So he says, after this
(15:57):
manner pray, he says, our Father, who art in heaven.
Now that's key. You look at this next verse and
you see why is important because our father, we're talking about,
our father God, our father in heaven, is who we
direct our prayers to. But then in Matthew six and ten,
(16:18):
he says, Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done in
earth as it is in heaven. And that's what we
want to talk about a little bit today because what
this verse illustrates is the conflict that we're facing today.
We got to understand that your adversary, the devil, don't
(16:40):
care who you are. He doesn't care what Christ has
given you. He doesn't care anything about the order of God,
the ways of God, or anything like that. And here
he says that will be done in heaven as it
is in earth. And let me just tell you this.
When God created heaven and creator earth, he created according
(17:00):
to his will. And so if Jesus is saying, pray
that his will be done in heaven and done in earth,
then why would he pray that if when God created everything,
he created it according to his will. And the reason
is because in heaven one day iniquity was found in
(17:20):
one of the things that he created. God didn't create
the iniquity, but the enemy created the iniquity. God didn't
create a liar. The devil created a liar. He actually
was the first one, and he reproduced after this kind.
So every time you tell a lie, you're you're just
like Jesus said, you of your father, the devil. And
(17:41):
some of us we think we can just do all
kinds of things with no consequence. You don't know what manner.
Sometimes we do things and we don't know what spirit
we are doing them from. But that's a little low
side also. But here there was something that took place
in heaven devil literally and this is important for us
(18:02):
to understand the devil challenge God. Can you imagine that
the God of the universe, the creator of everything. It's
kind of like it's kind of like a child. It's
kind of like a child coming against a parent to
fight the parent Now if the parent, the parent breathe
(18:24):
life into that endto that child. But it is not
a perfect comparison comparison because as a parent get a
little older, a little more feeble then and as a
child get a little more mature and what have you.
Maybe the child may have the physical capacity just through
the sequence of events, through age and things like that.
(18:45):
So the child may grow to the point and the
parent may weaken to the point when the child may
can overcome the parent. But let's take this analogis a
little bit further with us the parent and the child.
When you look at the physical aspect of it, when
the child is an infant, can you imagine the infant
coming up against that child and trying to attack the parent. Now,
(19:09):
that's just the will of the parent to keep from
doing whatever they want with them. But think about this,
and the thing that sometimes I try to share with
people is that God really doesn't have to get up
and fight any battles. And when we say, well, we
want the Lord to fight our battles, let me just
tell you a secret. God isn't coming from wherever he
is to fight your battles. Guess what, God didn't even
(19:32):
fight the battle in heaven, and I'm gonna show you
that a little bit later. God doesn't fight battles in
the context that we are accustomed to, assuming that battles
are fought. God does things differently than our concept of
how things are done. But what did happen? And again,
i'll show it to you a little bit later, just
(19:54):
giving me a little background here, the angels fought the battle.
When God has to get up there and fight the battle,
then there's really an issue. If I was the creator,
I'm going to create everything necessary in order for there
to be perfect order and for that order to be maintained.
And in order for any order to be maintained, there
(20:14):
have to be the means by which that order is maintained.
This is why we have police forces and that sort
of thing. Same thing holds true when it comes to
the things of the spirit. But we're going to go on.
The main thing I want you to understand here is
that there was some conflicts in heaven and guess what else,
(20:35):
There's also a conflict here on earth. And this is
why Jesus is praying is including within this model prayer
the things are outline as to the direction our prayer
lives should take. Many of us. We don't pray the
way that we should pray for things of the spirit
(20:57):
and the things in the spirit, nor or do we
pray the way that we should pray for the things
that's here on earth. Most of our prayers are the
director to what we need ourselves. And it's not that
anything is wrong with that in and of itself, except
for one thing. He has already given you a promise
that he's going to supply some of your knees according
(21:20):
to what's here on earth, right, of course, not his
promise to you that he will supply all of your needs,
not according to what's here on earth, but according to
his what riches in heaven. Amen, let's just go on
to the next scripture, which is John ten and ten
John tenneth in, and this is a familiar scripture. Also,
(21:41):
he said, the thief cometh not but to steal, to kill,
and to destroy. I am come that thou mightst have life,
and that thou mightst have it more abundantly. Now this
is important for us because some of us we don't
realize that we play around with the devil. You don't
know what you're playing with when you play with the devil.
(22:01):
You playing with a loaded gun with a with a
tricky trigger. You know a tricky well pass what you
mean about a tricky trigger. That means say, if he's
shake it, the gun go off, you pick it up,
the gun go off. And so you want to play, well,
I know I can play with us without the gun
going off. Just try it. You know this gun the
devil has is like a gun with a tricky trigger.
(22:24):
You just playing with fire. When you're playing with the devil.
You don't play with the devil. You destroy him. You
put him in this place. You do whatever is necessary.
And when I'm saying destroy him, you get him off
of your case, there's an ultimate place that he's gonna go.
But that's a little side. My main point here is
that you gotta understand that when the devil comes, there's
(22:46):
a reason why he's coming, and there's a reason why
he's attacking you. He's not attacking you to play with you.
He's not attacking you. He's not coming to you in
order to make you feel good or to make you
happy and to give you play. You may think he is,
but he isn't. The devil isn't coming to make your
life better. The devil isn't coming to make your life easy.
(23:08):
The devil comes for one but for these reasons. First,
he cometh to steal. He's gonna take something from you.
If you play with the devil in some way, you
are gonna be diminished. You're gonna be less when he leaves.
You're gonna have less unless you unless you stay his hand,
you're gonna end up with less than you had before
he comes. Because he come to take away something from you.
(23:30):
He comes to steal from you. He will, he will
do it when you And the reason why he says
steal as opposed to not rob and murder, because he's
a he's a slickster. He's a trickster. He's one of
these conniving kind of guys. When he's not gonna he's
not gonna do, he's gonna deceive you into relieving you
(23:51):
of that which is a value, of that which you
have of value. And that's what the thief. The thief
is a is a slick little rascal. He take it
when you're not looking, when you're unaware of And that's
what he did with with Eve. He stole something from
her right there in front of her eyes. And she
was She wasn't even aware of what he was doing.
(24:13):
This is why you give no place to the devil.
You don't go around having no conversation with the devil,
like you're gonna talk him into something. Well, I can
save him. You ain't gonna save the devil. But that's
a little side. So he comes to steal, and then
the next thing he does, he's come to kill. He come,
he will come, and he the devil, will try to
(24:33):
take you out. You never ever play with the devil.
And this again, while the scripture says, you give him
no place, because if, if, if, he will steal from you,
he will kill you. And the next thing he will destroy.
Ultimately he want to take you out. He will diminish
you in any way that he can. He will destroy
(24:54):
everything that you have. He will destroy your relationship, He
will destroy your life, He will destroy your potential. He
will destroy everything and anything that is that is remotely
you know, decent and what have you and that you
would like and anything that's near are close to the
things of God, are that God love. He is your
(25:17):
enemy and if you don't see him as your enemy,
you have a problem. You don't play with the devil,
and now we got it bad in the out there
because we don't we don't believe. We think things are
just fantasy. And some people, and they're really foolish, they
believe that the devil exists, and they think the devil
is the one that's that's that's it, he's the one
that's whatever, and they worship the devil. They do a
(25:38):
whole lot of other things. You don't realize what kind
of spirit you have. You are deceived by the devil.
And when the devil finished using you, he will do
the same thing. Because the only thing he does he
comes to to steal, to kill, and to destroy. And
when he finished, worship and be a be a wicked,
be a Satanic worshiper, be anything that you want. You
(26:00):
have that choice to do, so love him and love
the devil instead of loving God. I can assure you
when it's all said and done, the devil doesn't desire
the best for you. He decided he desired to destroy you.
You want to take you out. Even death isn't enough
for him. He'll take you out. He'll take your family out,
(26:22):
he'll take any and everything that you have out. If
he could do it, he will destroy your generations. So
you don't play with him. But that's our choice. If
you want to choose him, that's fine. I'd rather choose
the next one. Look at this next verse. So the thief,
you're talking when you sing the thief, he's talking about
the devil. He comes but to rob the steel, to
(26:42):
kill and destroy. And then the next pertion said, and
I am come talking with Jesus Christ. And some people say, well,
I don't know where I want to I want to
go to church. I don't know whether I want to
be saved. You just a dummy if you don't. But
that's a little aside. The enemy just blind your mind.
You just don't realize what you're rejecting when you do that.
Because if if you're gonna live your best life, if
(27:06):
you're gonna live a full life, if you're gonna live
the life that God has desired for you to live
when he created you, when you was born into this world,
when you if if if you're gonna be all that
you can be, You're gonna have to do things God's
God's way, because he's the creator. He knows how he
created you. He know how you're supposed to function. And
(27:30):
so you want to function like like someone else tell
you to function as supposed to the way that God
says you should function. It is God's desire for us
to be above only and not beneath the be the
head and not the tail, to be blessed, going in
and coming out, to be full in every area of
our lives. He says, I am come that you may
have what life, and that you might have it more abundantly.
(27:53):
So Jesus didn't come for you just to exist and breathe.
I'm alive. I'm alive. A plant can do that. Yep.
That's not what God has in store for you. That's
not what God desires for you. He came not for
you to just exist. He came for you to have there.
He came for you to have life, fullness of joy,
(28:13):
and to have life in increasing abundance. Your life shouldn't plateau.
You shouldn't get that that place where I'm just I
done been there and I'm gonna retire, retire from what life.
Some of us we don't understand. That's the way of
the world. If you want to leave one job and
go do another job, I'll go and do and see
God's planet and see the earth. I we just want
(28:35):
to travel, that's one thing. Well, when you I just
want to I just don't want to do nothing. You
just don't know. You just don't know what kind of
spirit you you you have. The devil is not gonna
give up and say, well, I don't think I'm upset
her life enough. I think I'd pestered him enough. I
think I could go on to the next one. No,
what did what did? Jesus said? The thief comes? But
what the raw to steal, to kill, and to destroy?
(28:59):
The devil? Thinglet you alone?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Thank you for being with us today. I pray that
today's meal was a blessing to you. If you are
a serious Christian looking for a place to worship, fellowship
and fulfill God's call upon your life, consider christ Church
for the end Times and don't forget to join us
on Wednesday evening at six thirty pm for Bible study
and Sunday mornings at ten thirty am.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
For a weekly church service.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
The church is located at nineteen ten Norwich Street in Brunswick, Georgia.
You can also reach us online at Sunday's Supper Online
dot org. That's Sunday's Supper Online.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Dot org.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
You can also tune us in on your iHeartRadio app.
So until next week, the Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make his face shine upon you, and be
gracious into you. The Lord lift up his continence upon
you and give you peace. And may God's richest blessing
always be upon you.
Play around with the devil. You don't know what you're
playing with. When you play with the devil, you're playing
with a loaded gun with a tricky trigger. That means, say,
if he's shaking, the gun go off, you pick it up,
the gun go off. And so you want to play, well,
I know I can play with us without the gun
going off. Just try. There's a reason why he's attacking you.
He's not attacking you to play with you. He's not
(00:21):
coming to you in order to make you feel good
or to make you happy and to give you pleasure.
You may think he is, but he isn't. We are.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
It's time for Sunday Supper and time to feast on
God's words. Sunday Supper is a ministry of christ Church
for the End Times. Christ Church for the End Times
is a non denominational teaching church ministry. Our mission is
to help prepare God's people for life and ministry during
the times in which we live. Join us on Wednesdays
at six thirty pm for a dynamic, practical, engaging, and
(01:11):
life changing Bible study and on Sunday mornings at ten
thirty am for a weekly church service. But for now,
let's feast at the Lord's table. Here's today's message, already
in progress, what he.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Said on your last Well, I guess now. A couple
of weeks ago, we started a series titled battle Line Drawn.
Now intentionally we did not use the term battle lines,
but we use battle line and the singler as opposed
to the plural. And we'll get into that maybe a
(01:48):
little bit later. But the thing that we ask people
of God has to come to understand is that God
desires his best for us. God has always desired his
best for us. What we failed to see, however, is
that in order for us to move into God's best
for our lives, in order for us to inhabit His
(02:10):
best for our lives, we have to make the choices
that will help us to move into His best for
our lives. And today that's what we are going to
be talking about. We're going to be talking about the
battle that we face. We want us to understand that
the choices that we make is going to determine the
(02:31):
outcome of that battle as it relates to us. You see,
it's a foregone conclusion as to the ultimate outcome of
this battle between good and evil, right and wrong, light
and darkness. That which is for God, and that which
is against God. But we're going to get some insights
into what this battle is so that we can begin
(02:54):
to understand that we are in a battle and that
we must begin to fight this battle. We've approached our
relationship with the Lord and a religious from religious bent
and religious direction. We're going to have to kind of
move beyond religion to relationship. But even when it comes
to understanding that God wants to have a relationship with
(03:17):
us and that we must have a relationship with him,
the type and quality of that relationship is important. Nowadays
we're hearing people say, well, you know, you got to
have a relationship with the Lord, and we have come
to the point of acknowledgement that we should have a
(03:40):
relationship with the Lord. What we try to do is
mail religion into that relationship. But again, maybe as time
goes on, we'll get into some of the particulars of that.
I want to start with sharing a few scriptures with you,
just to give you a little context to what we're
going to be talking about. My first scripture is gonna
(04:01):
be John seventeen and five, and then we're gonna look
at Matthew six, verse nine and ten, and then I
want to read for you John ten and ten. I
just want to kind of for the time being, just
kind of put those in your hearing. John seventeen. Saint
John seventeen and fifteen says, I pray not that thou
(04:22):
should hast take them out of the world, but that
thou shouldst keep them from the evil. Now you've heard
me quote the scripture several times, and I've shared with
you that Jesus prayed for us. And this is one
of the things I like about Saint John's seven and
seventeen and fifteen because well, actually the seventeenth chapter of John,
(04:47):
it really illustrates the heart of the Lord for us
as well as it also give us some insights into
his expectation for us. It also does something that I
really really am odd about that Jesus Christ, before I
was born, before you was born, Christ prayed for you
(05:09):
in that awesome and you'll see that prayer that Christ
prayed for you in John seventeen, and you'll see his
heart in that prayer. You will see unfold his expectations
for our lives. People say we was created to worship,
not really and not in the religious sense that we
(05:30):
have a tendency to use when it comes to worship.
When we understand what Jesus was talking about about the
truth worshiper worshiping him in spirit and truth, that put
things in a little slightly different context. But in reality,
what he wanted he wanted someone that not only that
he can love. Keeping in mind everything that God's God creates,
(05:53):
he loved. Always remember that. And so if you've been
created by God, in regardless to what you do or
don't do, he loves you. So he loves all of us.
And that's when you look at love, you're talking about
something that's always relational, but for God, it really goes
far beyond that. He loves us. And God created someone
(06:16):
not just that he could love, but someone that could
experience his love, appreciate his love, and choose whether or
not they would love. You know, in order for love
really to to how would I put this? In order
for love to really be codified, it has to be reciprocated.
(06:38):
In essence, if I love you and you don't love me,
it's just a one way street that love has to
be returned. It has to be reciprocated. And so, and
you will know when love is reciprocated. You will know
when someone loves you because they're gonna make choices. They're
going to do things that's gonna re reflect their love
(07:00):
for you, and you're gonna do things that reflect your
love for them. And so with God, God had to create.
If God wanted someone that could love him back, he
had to He had to create something with the capacity
to do so. And this is why he created man.
(07:21):
Out of all of his creation. He created man in
his image and after his likeness, which means man is
the only one that really have the capacity to choose
to love God. That's an awesome thing. That's something that
the angels can't do, believe it or not, not in
the way that we can. Mankind was the only on is.
(07:45):
And think about this also, God has never ever created
anything that we are aware of. With the capacities that
man has, we have to we have the capacity to
love God back and to love him in the same
way that He loves us. There's no other aspect of
his creation that could even come close. Guess what else.
(08:09):
We also have the ability to say no, I don't
love you. You see, if you did not have the capacity
to say I don't love you then then it would
literally mess the whole equation up, because then that would
mean if you couldn't help but love him, that means
He just created another automaton. He just created another robot.
(08:32):
He just created something without the ability to say no
to him. And this is why I tell people that
God created someone that can argue with him. You know,
God created someone can say now I don't like that.
Think about it. We God has created us with that capacity.
But that's not really what we're gonna talk about today,
(08:54):
kind of sort of is because in order to do that,
you have to make a choice. You have to choose
to are not to love God. And when we're talking
about battle lines drawn battle line drawn, where we have
a subtopic here titled choices, you have to choose a side,
(09:16):
not choose sides. Because the reason why I'm not saying
battle lines because there is but one battle. This is
a spiritual fight that we're in. And you fight the
things of the spirit differently than you fight the things
of the flesh. Are those things in the natural again,
we'll maybe get into that. We'll get into that later.
(09:36):
But the Lord prayed that we would be in the world,
but that God, the Father will keep us from the evil,
which means that in order for this prayer to be answered,
we have to have the capacity to deal with the evil.
When he's saying keep us from the evil, he's not
talking about hotness from it, because we're here to confronted.
(10:01):
We just have to have the capacity to deal with it.
We have to have the capability to keep from being
overcome by the evil. And you got to understand, all
of us have to understand in God, God doesn't We
are not cowards. And God has never created a coward
in the sense of cowardice and us being cowards. God
(10:25):
has not only created us with dominion and to have dominion.
He has given us the capacity to exercise the dominion
the authority that we have. And this is why he
shared with us that he gives us power over all
of the powers of the enemy, which means he has
given us jurisdictional authority. And he has given us enormous
(10:49):
capability to be able to act with impunity against all
of the abilities of the enemy. And this is why
you never listen to some one that says the devil
is more powerful than you are. The only way that
the devil is more powerful than you are is that
you see your power to him or you do not resist.
(11:11):
In the Bible says you resist him, and he may
free from flee from you. He might flee from you.
He'll think about fleeing from you. Know he say you
shall You know why? Because you have power over him.
You have power. You have not only physical power and
spiritual power, you also have jurisdictional authority. Now, the jurisdictional
(11:37):
authority is important because if you move out of jurisdiction,
you don't have the capacity to act if you have,
for example, you have different law enforcement, you have different communities.
We're here in South Georgia and Brunswick, Georgia. Brunswick Georgia
police officers doesn't have authority in Jacksonville, Florida, unless unless
(12:00):
that authority or capability is ceded to them. They don't
have any jurisdiction to Brunswick police. Even though you're a
certified police officer, under normal circumstances, you don't have the
ability to arrest someone in Florida. It doesn't work that way.
Why because it's out of your jurisdiction. Now, that's important
(12:21):
for us. It's because as believers and the things as
it relates to the enemy. We have cat blanche. We
have total jurisdiction. Any place that the enemy goes, we
can go. And any place we meet up with him,
we have authority over him. So never listen to someone
that says, you know, you can't handle the devil. You
(12:42):
can't do this, but the devil and what have you.
It's the Christ that's in you, that's your hope of
glory is through him. We can do all things. Through
him that love us. He has given us the jurisdiction
and the ability are the capability to act. And this
is why we don't see any ground. The Bible say
(13:03):
give no place to the devil, and this is why
we don't give him any place. And so we got
to understand, and we got to keep in mind the
things that the Lord has for us. And he prayed
for you to have the victory. He prayed for us
to stay here in the in the world, and that
the part of the reason for that is so that
(13:24):
the world would have hope, and so that the enemy
would not run roughshod over this over this world. But
again we'll go on and Matthew six and nine, it says,
and this is a familiar Scripture and we and it's
so familiar to us. People quote the Scripture even though
many of them don't go to church. Many of them
(13:44):
probably don't even know where it is in the Bible
because they were just tordt hand me down. If I
can say this, I'm not gonna go through the whole thing.
I'm just gonna share with you two verses of this.
And it's what we call the Lord's Prayer or our
Father's Prayer, or however you may want to call it.
But I want to give you these two verses the
opening to this prayer, and it's what I'm about to
(14:06):
share with you. It's not about the prayer as such,
but we'll go on. It says, after this manner pray.
Then it goes on to say, our Father, who art
in heaven, Hollywood be thy name. And so he's directing
as exactly to who we're going to pray for. Now.
In order to really get this context, you got to
see what was going what was going on in those
eight verses before this one. Jesus was telling them how
(14:29):
to actually is telling them not to do their arms
or do the things that you do that are good
to be seen. You don't fast to be seen. You
don't pray to be seen. He said, when you pray,
you enter into your secret closet, which means he's not
telling you go and find you a closet that nobody
else know about but you, and crawl yourself into it
(14:51):
and pray. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking
about not praying to be seen and not doing all
these long elaborate prayer things. If you want to do
alone elaborate of prayer, you can do that if you're
not doing it to be seen. And if you got
a reason for a long elaborate prayer. There was a
time when they say, well, God, and we take it
from Jesus when he was in the garden of Gsemite,
(15:14):
and he told us disciples to wait and to pray,
and and and when he left they went to sleep.
They said, you can, you can, you can stay awake
for one hour. And then we use that we we
we we have a tendency to wrap some religion around
a religious approach around everything. Then we've got to you
(15:34):
gotta can you pray one hour, pray one hour? You
can pray for ten minutes and accomplish what you pray
In one hour, depend on where your heart is. But
again that's a little aside. Jesus here in the preceding
verses was illustrating to us how and the heart from
which we do the things that we do. We don't
do things to be seen. So he says, after this
(15:57):
manner pray, he says, our Father, who art in heaven.
Now that's key. You look at this next verse and
you see why is important because our father, we're talking about,
our father God, our father in heaven, is who we
direct our prayers to. But then in Matthew six and ten,
(16:18):
he says, Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done in
earth as it is in heaven. And that's what we
want to talk about a little bit today because what
this verse illustrates is the conflict that we're facing today.
We got to understand that your adversary, the devil, don't
(16:40):
care who you are. He doesn't care what Christ has
given you. He doesn't care anything about the order of God,
the ways of God, or anything like that. And here
he says that will be done in heaven as it
is in earth. And let me just tell you this.
When God created heaven and creator earth, he created according
(17:00):
to his will. And so if Jesus is saying, pray
that his will be done in heaven and done in earth,
then why would he pray that if when God created everything,
he created it according to his will. And the reason
is because in heaven one day iniquity was found in
(17:20):
one of the things that he created. God didn't create
the iniquity, but the enemy created the iniquity. God didn't
create a liar. The devil created a liar. He actually
was the first one, and he reproduced after this kind.
So every time you tell a lie, you're you're just
like Jesus said, you of your father, the devil. And
(17:41):
some of us we think we can just do all
kinds of things with no consequence. You don't know what manner.
Sometimes we do things and we don't know what spirit
we are doing them from. But that's a little low
side also. But here there was something that took place
in heaven devil literally and this is important for us
(18:02):
to understand the devil challenge God. Can you imagine that
the God of the universe, the creator of everything. It's
kind of like it's kind of like a child. It's
kind of like a child coming against a parent to
fight the parent Now if the parent, the parent breathe
(18:24):
life into that endto that child. But it is not
a perfect comparison comparison because as a parent get a
little older, a little more feeble then and as a
child get a little more mature and what have you.
Maybe the child may have the physical capacity just through
the sequence of events, through age and things like that.
(18:45):
So the child may grow to the point and the
parent may weaken to the point when the child may
can overcome the parent. But let's take this analogis a
little bit further with us the parent and the child.
When you look at the physical aspect of it, when
the child is an infant, can you imagine the infant
coming up against that child and trying to attack the parent. Now,
(19:09):
that's just the will of the parent to keep from
doing whatever they want with them. But think about this,
and the thing that sometimes I try to share with
people is that God really doesn't have to get up
and fight any battles. And when we say, well, we
want the Lord to fight our battles, let me just
tell you a secret. God isn't coming from wherever he
is to fight your battles. Guess what, God didn't even
(19:32):
fight the battle in heaven, and I'm gonna show you
that a little bit later. God doesn't fight battles in
the context that we are accustomed to, assuming that battles
are fought. God does things differently than our concept of
how things are done. But what did happen? And again,
i'll show it to you a little bit later, just
(19:54):
giving me a little background here, the angels fought the battle.
When God has to get up there and fight the battle,
then there's really an issue. If I was the creator,
I'm going to create everything necessary in order for there
to be perfect order and for that order to be maintained.
And in order for any order to be maintained, there
(20:14):
have to be the means by which that order is maintained.
This is why we have police forces and that sort
of thing. Same thing holds true when it comes to
the things of the spirit. But we're going to go on.
The main thing I want you to understand here is
that there was some conflicts in heaven and guess what else,
(20:35):
There's also a conflict here on earth. And this is
why Jesus is praying is including within this model prayer
the things are outline as to the direction our prayer
lives should take. Many of us. We don't pray the
way that we should pray for things of the spirit
(20:57):
and the things in the spirit, nor or do we
pray the way that we should pray for the things
that's here on earth. Most of our prayers are the
director to what we need ourselves. And it's not that
anything is wrong with that in and of itself, except
for one thing. He has already given you a promise
that he's going to supply some of your knees according
(21:20):
to what's here on earth, right, of course, not his
promise to you that he will supply all of your needs,
not according to what's here on earth, but according to
his what riches in heaven. Amen, let's just go on
to the next scripture, which is John ten and ten
John tenneth in, and this is a familiar scripture. Also,
(21:41):
he said, the thief cometh not but to steal, to kill,
and to destroy. I am come that thou mightst have life,
and that thou mightst have it more abundantly. Now this
is important for us because some of us we don't
realize that we play around with the devil. You don't
know what you're playing with when you play with the devil.
(22:01):
You playing with a loaded gun with a with a
tricky trigger. You know a tricky well pass what you
mean about a tricky trigger. That means say, if he's
shake it, the gun go off, you pick it up,
the gun go off. And so you want to play, well,
I know I can play with us without the gun
going off. Just try it. You know this gun the
devil has is like a gun with a tricky trigger.
(22:24):
You just playing with fire. When you're playing with the devil.
You don't play with the devil. You destroy him. You
put him in this place. You do whatever is necessary.
And when I'm saying destroy him, you get him off
of your case, there's an ultimate place that he's gonna go.
But that's a little side. My main point here is
that you gotta understand that when the devil comes, there's
(22:46):
a reason why he's coming, and there's a reason why
he's attacking you. He's not attacking you to play with you.
He's not attacking you. He's not coming to you in
order to make you feel good or to make you
happy and to give you play. You may think he is,
but he isn't. The devil isn't coming to make your
life better. The devil isn't coming to make your life easy.
(23:08):
The devil comes for one but for these reasons. First,
he cometh to steal. He's gonna take something from you.
If you play with the devil in some way, you
are gonna be diminished. You're gonna be less when he leaves.
You're gonna have less unless you unless you stay his hand,
you're gonna end up with less than you had before
he comes. Because he come to take away something from you.
(23:30):
He comes to steal from you. He will, he will
do it when you And the reason why he says
steal as opposed to not rob and murder, because he's
a he's a slickster. He's a trickster. He's one of
these conniving kind of guys. When he's not gonna he's
not gonna do, he's gonna deceive you into relieving you
(23:51):
of that which is a value, of that which you
have of value. And that's what the thief. The thief
is a is a slick little rascal. He take it
when you're not looking, when you're unaware of And that's
what he did with with Eve. He stole something from
her right there in front of her eyes. And she
was She wasn't even aware of what he was doing.
(24:13):
This is why you give no place to the devil.
You don't go around having no conversation with the devil,
like you're gonna talk him into something. Well, I can
save him. You ain't gonna save the devil. But that's
a little side. So he comes to steal, and then
the next thing he does, he's come to kill. He come,
he will come, and he the devil, will try to
(24:33):
take you out. You never ever play with the devil.
And this again, while the scripture says, you give him
no place, because if, if, if, he will steal from you,
he will kill you. And the next thing he will destroy.
Ultimately he want to take you out. He will diminish
you in any way that he can. He will destroy
(24:54):
everything that you have. He will destroy your relationship, He
will destroy your life, He will destroy your potential. He
will destroy everything and anything that is that is remotely
you know, decent and what have you and that you
would like and anything that's near are close to the
things of God, are that God love. He is your
(25:17):
enemy and if you don't see him as your enemy,
you have a problem. You don't play with the devil,
and now we got it bad in the out there
because we don't we don't believe. We think things are
just fantasy. And some people, and they're really foolish, they
believe that the devil exists, and they think the devil
is the one that's that's that's it, he's the one
that's whatever, and they worship the devil. They do a
(25:38):
whole lot of other things. You don't realize what kind
of spirit you have. You are deceived by the devil.
And when the devil finished using you, he will do
the same thing. Because the only thing he does he
comes to to steal, to kill, and to destroy. And
when he finished, worship and be a be a wicked,
be a Satanic worshiper, be anything that you want. You
(26:00):
have that choice to do, so love him and love
the devil instead of loving God. I can assure you
when it's all said and done, the devil doesn't desire
the best for you. He decided he desired to destroy you.
You want to take you out. Even death isn't enough
for him. He'll take you out. He'll take your family out,
(26:22):
he'll take any and everything that you have out. If
he could do it, he will destroy your generations. So
you don't play with him. But that's our choice. If
you want to choose him, that's fine. I'd rather choose
the next one. Look at this next verse. So the thief,
you're talking when you sing the thief, he's talking about
the devil. He comes but to rob the steel, to
(26:42):
kill and destroy. And then the next pertion said, and
I am come talking with Jesus Christ. And some people say, well,
I don't know where I want to I want to
go to church. I don't know whether I want to
be saved. You just a dummy if you don't. But
that's a little aside. The enemy just blind your mind.
You just don't realize what you're rejecting when you do that.
Because if if you're gonna live your best life, if
(27:06):
you're gonna live a full life, if you're gonna live
the life that God has desired for you to live
when he created you, when you was born into this world,
when you if if if you're gonna be all that
you can be, You're gonna have to do things God's
God's way, because he's the creator. He knows how he
created you. He know how you're supposed to function. And
(27:30):
so you want to function like like someone else tell
you to function as supposed to the way that God
says you should function. It is God's desire for us
to be above only and not beneath the be the
head and not the tail, to be blessed, going in
and coming out, to be full in every area of
our lives. He says, I am come that you may
have what life, and that you might have it more abundantly.
(27:53):
So Jesus didn't come for you just to exist and breathe.
I'm alive. I'm alive. A plant can do that. Yep.
That's not what God has in store for you. That's
not what God desires for you. He came not for
you to just exist. He came for you to have there.
He came for you to have life, fullness of joy,
(28:13):
and to have life in increasing abundance. Your life shouldn't plateau.
You shouldn't get that that place where I'm just I
done been there and I'm gonna retire, retire from what life.
Some of us we don't understand. That's the way of
the world. If you want to leave one job and
go do another job, I'll go and do and see
God's planet and see the earth. I we just want
(28:35):
to travel, that's one thing. Well, when you I just
want to I just don't want to do nothing. You
just don't know. You just don't know what kind of
spirit you you you have. The devil is not gonna
give up and say, well, I don't think I'm upset
her life enough. I think I'd pestered him enough. I
think I could go on to the next one. No,
what did what did? Jesus said? The thief comes? But
what the raw to steal, to kill, and to destroy?
(28:59):
The devil? Thinglet you alone?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Thank you for being with us today. I pray that
today's meal was a blessing to you. If you are
a serious Christian looking for a place to worship, fellowship
and fulfill God's call upon your life, consider christ Church
for the end Times and don't forget to join us
on Wednesday evening at six thirty pm for Bible study
and Sunday mornings at ten thirty am.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
For a weekly church service.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
The church is located at nineteen ten Norwich Street in Brunswick, Georgia.
You can also reach us online at Sunday's Supper Online
dot org. That's Sunday's Supper Online.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Dot org.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
You can also tune us in on your iHeartRadio app.
So until next week, the Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make his face shine upon you, and be
gracious into you. The Lord lift up his continence upon
you and give you peace. And may God's richest blessing
always be upon you.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Intentionally Disturbing
Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.