October 13, 2025 • 42 mins
The flesh can betray and open the door to sin, but with Christ and His Spirit, you can rule over it and live in true freedom.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Hungry Gen Podcast, and I just want to
thank you for joining.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Us today here at HG.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Our vision is to see thousands say locally and millions globally.
We hope you enjoyed this week's message.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Today, I we'd like to speak a message that I
will title the Trader Within. Last Sunday, I talked about
how Satan's goal is to get inside of people because
he's a copycat. And when Satan gets inside of people,
he wants to do with what God wants to do.
When he gets inside of us through his spirit, God
wants to change us, and then God wants to change
(00:34):
the world through us. Demons get inside of people for
that very reason to vandalize God's image inside of people
and secondly to set up an operations for touching ruining
the world. Today, we're going to make a connection between
the flesh that lives within us, that's what the Trader
Within title comes from, and the demons, the enemy the
(00:54):
temptation that's outside of us, and how they collaborate. I'll
start with the story there was one family that went
hunting and while hunting, they saw a cub lion and
they brought this cub lion to their family, and the
children fell in love with this little baby lion. The
chief of the village came to the family and said,
(01:15):
this lion is dangerous. This lion has a wild impulses,
and sooner or later they will not be like your
dog or your cat. They will attack. The family. Of course,
loved what this little cub lion did to the children.
They fell in love with it. It's like a little pet.
And they told the chief of the village, get out.
(01:37):
You're trying to take away your fun. This cub lion
started to grow, It was fed, it was taking care
of by the children, until he became a big sized lion.
But he was still really nice until one day he
smelled blood and something just switched, something flipped, and he
went from this beautiful pet to someone that attacked the children,
(01:57):
attacked the adults and killed people in that house and
eight people in that house, and what started to happen
as a pet became a tragedy.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
And I want to encourage.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Each and every one of you today that everybody here
has a pet lion within their life. And that pet
lion is called the flesh, and it loves to cuddle
with you. And if you are developing a good relationship
with that little pet.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I want to tell you it's not a pet.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
It's a lion, and lions kill and lions attack. And
that is where the title comes from, the trader within.
If you have your Bible with you, I'm going to
read Genesis chapter four, verse seven in an nav translation.
Sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you,
but you must rule over it. Temptation is universal experience
(02:51):
of every human being, including Christians. Jesus face temptation and
he was sinless, perfect son of God. Being tempted does
not mean you have a demon. It just means you're
a human being who's experiencing a spiritual warfare. Being tempted
also doesn't mean you've committed sin. It simply means there
is a wrestling going on and the enemy has a
(03:12):
plan and agenda. I want to show you today a
different view on temptation. Most of us think of temptation
as something that is just idle and moral struggle between
evil and good. But one of the first insights into
what temptation does reveals to us in the Book of Genesis,
where Adam and Eve had two sons, Abel and Cain,
(03:34):
and when God accepted the offering from Abel, we know
that his brother Cain became jealous. He started to develop
anger and frustration with God against his brother. So the
Lord comes to him and God reveals the behind these
scenes in the spiritual world of something that you and
I experience every day. Have you felt angry at somebody?
(03:55):
Have you felt jealous with somebody? Have you felt lust
maybe towards someone or something you know? We call these feelings, Oh,
this is just moral struggle. But God comes to Canaan says,
this sin is crouching at your door. He's not saying, oh,
you're just experiencing a moral conflict between darkness inside and evil.
He's saying, behind the curtains, behind those feelings you're experiencing
(04:20):
is a spiritual world, and that this sin is not
just a moral struggle.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
It's a person. It's an entity.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
It's something outside that's crouching. See, the devil is not
just knocking on your door. He is crouching at your door.
He wants to get inside. This is not just impersonal.
This is strategic and very personal.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Sin is crouching.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
The Hebrew word for that word crouching is really a
word that refers to a predator lying in wait, waiting
for the prey. Sin is not just this vague. It's
a predator. It is lying in wait seeking for an
opportunity to get in. Sin is personified not as an
(05:10):
idle temptation, but as an or mortal struggle. It means
there's a demonic force that is eager to launch at Cain,
at you and at I, so to speak. But what
I love about this is God doesn't just tell Cain
that he has an almost like an entity seeking to
attack him on the outside. He says, Cain, this is
(05:33):
before the New Testament, before the Blood, before the Holy Spirit,
before the holy Scriptures, before the local church, before all
of the support system we have, and God tells Cain
you must rule over it. So I want to make
a statement here today, is that no matter how powerful
sin is, it is not more powerful than you in Christ.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
You can overcome sin.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
And God invites you to overcome, saying, in fact, he
commends you to rule over that and not give room
to it. We must understand is that sin thrives and
compromise through grows through neglect, and sin thrives on compromise
(06:22):
grows through neglect and devours those who underestimate its power.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Say this with me.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Sin thrives on compromise. Come on, say like you had
your coffee. Say Sin thrives on compromise, grows through neglect
and devours those who underestimate its power.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And God still gives us that warning. You must rule
over it.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Now, I want to share something with you from the
story of Jesus when he was tempted by Satan. A
little bit of strategy of temptation. And this will be
very helpful, and it will come from the word hit.
When you are hit by temptation, H will stand for hungry,
I will stand for isolated, and then T will stand
(07:11):
for tired. This is what the enemy will use when
he will tempt you. He will use similar recipe that
he did on Jesus when Jesus was hungry.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
That's when he was tempted.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
When you are hungry, and I don't necessarily mean that
you didn't have your talk or enchilada, or you haven't
had your even had your burger, or you haven't had
your meal, but when you are hungry emotionally, when your
needs are not being met, the enemy starts creating a temptation.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Second one is isolation.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
It's when you are not connected, you are alone in
the room, or you are feel alone in the room.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Of people, and there is an isolation.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Isolation magnifies the devil's lies, or it will magnify God's truth.
Isolation is a magnifying glass. That's why God tells us
not to be alone. We must be in the community
of other people. But there's a third thing that's there
when you are hit with temptation, and that is tea.
And that is when you're tired after forty days of fasting.
Jesus was tired. When you are tired, you are prone.
(08:12):
When you are tired, you are vulnerable. Many people who
fall into pornography, they fall into pornography in the evening
when they are tired alone, certain needs, are not feeling mad,
and guess what happens. They start entertaining the lust of
the flesh and then they fall into sin. And I
want you to be weary of I want you to
be aware of that. Satan does not have new tactics
(08:35):
to attack you with. He will attack you when you're hungry,
he will attack you when you're isolated, and he will
attack you when you are tired, and therefore, do not
seek to satisfy your needs by turning stones into bread,
by trying to satisfy your needs through means other than
God's provision. Therefore, as a Christian, be intentional to be
(08:59):
in community as a man, as a woman, do not
spend a lot of time alone with your phone, alone
with your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Be in a community of other people.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
And Thirdly, when you're tired, go to sleep, not on
your phone. When you're tired, do something productive. Because you
have to understand, when you're tired, your defenses are down.
When you're tired, your convictions begin to struggle to get air.
When you're tired, it's when you're most going to be tempted.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
So the question I will ask you today which doors
of your life your life are currently left unchecked? The
question I'm going to ask you today and that is this,
which windows in your life are currently left open? Before
we go to sleep, my wife always sends me on
the errand in our own house to check all the doors.
She said, could you go check the door downstairs? And
(09:54):
I said, honey, I'm pretty sure I feel in.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
My spirit it is closed. She's like, that's not enough.
You need to know that it's closed and so.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
And I was like, but I'm already I want to
go to sleep. She's like, no, you gotta go downstairs
and check it. And then you gotta go check that
window as well. I was like, we have the alarm
system already. She's like, you still need to go make
sure that it's checked. Then I can have more peace.
And we have to do that every single night. What
would happen before you go to sleep? Every day you
will double check the doors and the windows of your
soul and in your life?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Are they closed? Are they locked?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Is there an alarm system the blood of Jesus that
is applied to your life? Are there some unconfessed sins?
Do not go to sleep in your anger? Meaning you
gotta get rid of the stuff. You gotta close those doors,
you gotta close those all portals, you gotta close those
windows so that your life is holy and righteous.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Somebody is saying amen.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
The second thing that I want to highlight is not
only there's an enemy outside trying to get in the
crouching sin, but there's a trader within who collaborates with
the devil on the outside. So there's a crouching sin,
But there's a collaborating flesh. What makes tempatient challenging, and
you will learn today how to overcome is the fact
(11:01):
that it's not only we're dealing with the devil on
the outside who wants to take advantage of our tiredness,
isolation and hunger, but we got a flesh on the
inside who is in the league, who is collaborating with
demons on the outside. The Babble uses the word flesh
(11:22):
to describe either our body, a humanity, or In the
New Testament, the word flesh is usually used to describe
a sinful nature or an old adamic tendencies that reside
within every human being and even within Christians. I like
what one preacher said. He said, flesh is the devil's birthday.
On your birthday, the devil let me perfect. Flesh is
(11:46):
the devil's gift on your birthday. So when you were born,
the devil sends you a gift, and it's called the flesh.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
You already opened.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
That gift, You already been using that gift, and that
gift is stayed with you.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
And when you get.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Born again, God gives you a gift called holy Spirit.
So the question today is not do you have the
flesh or the Holy Spirit. The question is who you
surrender to as a Christian every single day. You're not
gonna live a sinful life because you have a flesh,
and you will not live a holy life because you
have the Holy Spirit. The question is who do you
choose to surrender to every single day. But what I
want you to understand today is the connection between the
(12:19):
flesh inside of you and the demons on the outside.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Flesh is not a demon. If you keep yielding to.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
It, it will open a door to a demon. The
flesh inside of you has a relationship with the demons
on the outside. Demons cannot accomplish their purpose. Satan cannot
accomplish his agenda without the help and the collaboration of
(12:50):
a trader within, and that is our flesh. One preacher
said this following statement, a twentieth century Baptist teacher W.
Graham Scorgy explains like this, The flesh is the evil
principle in the men's nature. The trader within, who is
in the league with the attackers without. The flesh provides
(13:12):
the tinder on which the devil's temptation can kindle. I
want you to see the connection between the flesh on
the inside and the temptation which is set hunger, isolation,
and tiredness, and then the demons satanic kingdom that wants
to get inside. What makes their job easier is they
(13:36):
got help on the inside. Peter the Cruel when he
was attacking Spain, and I think it was a thousand,
three hundredth year and the.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
City was locked inside.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
People were scared for their life because Peter the Cruel
was very vicious in how he treated their captors. A
judge and inside of the city, wanting to spare his
life when the city gets captured, decided during the night
to open the gate to the attackers and allow them in.
When they came inside attacked the city so he the judge,
(14:11):
could have a good standing with the future.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Occupant of that city.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
If you go to Spain, in this city, you will
still see this gate, and you will see the worst
that will say, the trader's gate. Now, my friend, the
enemy is the Peter the Cruel. The devil is the
Peter the Cruel. He walks around like a roaring lion,
seeking whom he made devour. The Bible tells us submit
to God and resist the devil and he will flee.
(14:38):
On the inside, you have a trader who is willing
to sell your soul for less than thirty shekels. On
the inside, you have a Judas, you know, Judas pretending
to be with Jesus, walking around to Jesus, I'm your friend,
I'm a friend of God. I'm a friend of God.
And then during the night, Judas goes in and trade
(14:59):
betrays Jesus. The Judas lives inside of you. It's called flesh.
The flesh to a Christian is what Delilah.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Is to Samson.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Delilah's over there, lulling him to sleep and speaking all
these kind words with him, and Samson is getting and
slowly sucked into that world. He's allowing her to bind
his hands, buying his feet, and then it starts with
the hair, and next thing you know, he's really in
love with her. But Delilah had Phillistines behind the couch
(15:29):
who were really sponsoring her. And these Philistines used Delilah
to get to Samson. Demons got help. You know what
that help is, the flesh. The flesh you have. My
friend is a trader. It's not interested in you, it
doesn't care about you. Now some of you have had
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friends in your life who were traders, who were betrayers,
and you found out they talked bad about you behind
your back. It changed your relationship with them, right you
met with them. Now, some of you you went all brutal.
You're like, how dare you do? I'm block you restraining order,
You're gone. Others of you, you were smart and sneaky
(16:11):
when you started to have a relationship with this person. Now,
when you found out that they were not really for you,
but they were against you, and they were spilling secrets,
they were saying bad things about you behind your back,
but in your face they were all nice and stuff.
You changed your tactic and you became very reserved. You
became protective, and you stopped letting them inside of your
(16:33):
personal life. And you say, you know what, I can't
trust you anymore, and you put some walls up with
those people.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
And that is a wise thing to do.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I want to tell you something, is that you have
that trader within you. You can't get rid of and
get a restraining order against your flesh. But you're gonna
have to set up some boundaries. And I'm gonna teach
you how to do that. In just a moment, because
that trader will will sell you when that trader will
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have a chance to do so. If you feed it,
it will enslave you. If you feed it, it will
become stronger, and it will demoralize your spiritual life.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Are you with me?
Speaker 3 (17:15):
The devil doesn't need to break in when the flesh
opens the door. Don't flirt with Delilah and then cry
when the demons attack. You cannot expect deliverance from demons.
If you're busy having a romantic relationship with your flesh,
what you're feeding will eventually control you. You can have
(17:38):
the Holy Spirit speak three hundred miles per hour and
come to church and run to the altar. But if
during the week the flesh is being spoon fed, my friend,
you will not live a spiritually strong life. So the
question you have to ask yourself today is what charming
my attention? Killing my convictions? Is what I'm giving my
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attention to reducing crippling my convictions. And in the conclusion,
I want to share with you and how to effectively, practically,
starting today, tomorrow and the day after overcome the flesh.
And we will call this the concording Spirit, the manual
(18:20):
transmission mindset. Have you ever driven a manual car stick shift?
Anybody here knows how to drive a stick shift? Everybody
from Forst's former Soviet Union have to have their hand up. Okay,
everybody else? How many of you do not know how
to drive a stick shift? Raise your hand?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
All right? How many of you?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
No matter what question I will ask you never raise
your hand?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
So I don't really like driving a stick shift. When
I was twelve years of age, my father started to
teach me how to drive. Now, you may say that
was not legal. It was in Ukraine. A lot of
things were different there. We were taking care of cows
every single week. A different family on the street was
in charge of taking care of pastoring, taking cows on the.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Pastoring green pastures.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
And so my dad took her little car, Nissan two
door Nissan and started to teach me I was twelve
years of age to drive. Now, driving a stick shift,
or they call them a manual transmission, is not easy.
For those of you who enjoyed two pedals in your car,
it is very easy. One is break, the other one
is gased. It's very difficult to get that confused. One
helps you to stop the other one helps you to
(19:30):
go manual or stick shift. Is very complicated. It looks
something like this. It has three pedals. One is clutch,
the other one is break, and then the other one
is accelerator. And then you have to press clutch and break,
press clutch and then guess and then God forbid. You
are learning, and you were on the hill and by
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the time you figured out which pedal to hit, your
car is rolling down and you're over there pleating the blood,
binding the principalities, speaking the word of God so that
you by do not hit the car below you or
that's right behind you. And I remember in the United States,
I had to drive a few cars around town and
it always works like that. And I'm praying up I'm
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coming up to the hill that i'm and it was
praying with your father, God, please let there be no
car behind me, and give me the grace to release
the clutch just in time so that I can press
the accelerator, but not too fast because then a car
will just stop. And you're praying into all of that,
and you're wishing for God to do a miracle. Now
I want to share with you something today. Overcoming the
flesh is not like automatic driving. Means you do not
(20:38):
overcome the flesh automatically. When you get delivered from demons,
you do not overcome the flesh automatically. When you become
a Christian, you do not overcome the flesh automatically.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
When you join the.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Church, you do not overcome the flesh automatically. Because you're
filled with the Holy Spirit and you have the gifts
of the Holy Spirit. Overcoming the flesh requires this manual
transmission mindset.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Now it's gonna get complicated, meaning it doesn't come automatically.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
So if you became a Christian and you say, but
I am wrestling and I am struggling, that means the
Bible is true. You do not overcome the flesh automatically.
It takes intentionality, and it takes manual transmission mindset.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
It's a stick shift.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Three pedals you have to become expert at to overcome
the flesh. The first one is clutch. It's called consider
yourself dead to the flesh.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
In the Bible. In Romans, it.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Says this for the death he died, he died to
sin once for all, but the life that he lives
he lives to God. In the same way count yourself
dead to sin, but alife to God in Christ Jesus.
What does this mean? The clutch means this. You do
not overcome the flesh by fighting the flesh. You overcome
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the flesh biblically, by first believing that Jesus took the
old man and killed him two thousand years ago on
the cross. That means your victory against the flesh does
not start with your current or last night's battle, or
your loss. It starts with Jesus's victory on the cross
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that you already have. And you have to believe you
already have a victory.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
You fight the flesh by coming in agreement in your
mind and in your heart that God already has overcome
the flesh. These are not mental gymnastics. If I believe it, it
is so.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
No, it is so. Therefore I believe it.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
It is a fact Jesus on the cross took your
old man and nailed it to the cross. So we
don't start fighting the flesh by removing apps, canceling subscriptions,
getting rid of toxic relationships. We don't start fighting the
flesh by putting restrictions on our phone, canceling certain things.
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We don't start fighting the flesh by adding discipline. We
start with clutch, We start with belief. That's why many
of you you come to church, you feel convicted. You
go home, you said, that's it. I'm gonna remove this.
I'm gonna remove that. I'm gonna cancel this. I'm gonna
cancel that. I'm gonna block them, get them out of
I'm gonna start, and you start with breaks. That's why
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it doesn't work. The Gospel tells us it starts with clutch.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
It's not automatic.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
It starts with it's a stick shift. This is a
manual transmission mindset. And it does not start with your struggle.
It starts with the victory at the cavalry. It starts
with the triumph Jesus on the cross defeated sin. He's
stripped flesh of its power on the cross, but the
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presence and the influence of the flesh is still here.
So I don't go fighting my flesh. I first believe
the cross, the blood, the power of what Jesus been
on the cross. That starts with a clutch. Somebody shall clutch.
Victory on the cross is what I start. You're battling
(24:28):
with pornography. Your first step is not. I want to
have more discipline. Your first step is I'm going back
to the cross in my mind, and I come in agreement.
Through the cross, the flesh's power has been broken. There
only then you have a chance of having that victory.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
May I submit to you.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Most of us fight the flesh with an American automatic
or Western automatic view. We only see two things, break
and gas. We said, yeah, I just need to stop
doing this. I just need to stop watching. I just
need to stop talking about this. I need to stop
stop stuff. And that is the problem. And I'm gonna
be here today to tell you stop stopping. It's about
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first the cross, not your last defeat. It's about the blood,
not your struggle. It's not even about your flesh. It's
about his flesh dying on the cross. For you, that
is where your power is. It's about the clutch. My
old man died. Then comes the second pedal, and that
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is crucify the cravings of the flesh.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
I don't understand. I thought you said it's all over already. Yes,
I also.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Don't understand how the clutch, the breaks and the gas works.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
I'm just sharing with you how to use.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Him on the cross. The old man is dead. This
doesn't mean you don't have any battles. It simply means
you start the battle from the position of victory, and
then you go into a battle, which is the second pedal,
is where you crucify the cravings.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Of the flesh.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Relationship five verse twenty four says the following and those
who are Christs have crucified the flesh with its passions
and desires. The Christian life is not about following a
list of regulations that forbid you to enjoy your life,
but it's instead realizing that these restrictions create protection and
a healthy limitation in our lives. Christian life is not
(26:29):
just about crucifying the flesh, but it's about disciplining ourselves,
because without discipline, there could be no Christian life. The
Christian life without the Cross is car without breaks. You
cannot crucify the flesh if you still cuddle your cravings.
The car without breaks is a disaster waiting to happen.
(26:50):
So is the Christian who lives their life without any discipline,
any restrictions, and any stops. So how do I overcome
the fl Let's start from the beginning. I believe on
the Cross, Jesus has done the heavy lifting by crushing
the flesh and killing it. But why do I still
have the cravings? Comes pedal number two. I have to
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develop then breaks in my life stops in my life.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Now, imagine a Christian.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Who says, simply, I believe Jesus did everything.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
On the cross.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
I have to do nothing because anytime you say I
need to say no to this. It's all legalism. It's
all legalism. We don't want legalism. We want greasy grace,
meaning you just do whatever you want. Everything is done.
You absolutely do nothing. My friend, For those of you
who have this kind of a mindset, I will give
you one challenge to do today.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Do not do it with nobody else in your car.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Except you drive from our parking lot back to your
home without ever hitting breaks. You will meet your maker
in about fifteen minutes. Your car will be totaled, your
car will be hit, You will hit body. Why because
just because your car is good, you still need breaks.
(28:05):
You'll need breaks on the way of coming out of
our parking lot. You need to slam the break. You'll
need break right on Silvester. You'll need break when you
will be turning into a highway, just because you have
a good car, you still need breaks. Jesus died for you.
Your flesh old man was killed on the cross, and
(28:25):
then Paul tells us, now crucify the flesh, meaning put
some breaks in your life.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Hit breaks in your life.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
That means when the time comes for you to go
to sleep and the flesh says you're tired, why don't
you watch something? Hit the brakes. When you're scrolling through
social media and you know you should be doing something
more with your time, you have to hit some brakes.
People who come to God and say, Lord, deliver me
from sin, sometimes God will tell you get some breaks
in your life, get some discipline in your life.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Do you fast?
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Are you doing some physical exercise to keep your body
in shape as well?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Well?
Speaker 3 (29:05):
I want to overcome being overweight. Do you have breaks
when you eat? Did I just say that yesay? Did
that fifth croissant?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Break? Fifth meal?
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Or snacking at nine pm?
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Break? Man?
Speaker 3 (29:30):
I just struggle with lustful feelings New Taylor Swift album Break.
You have no business listening to that garbage. You have
no business listening literally pouring in lust into your soulent
and wondering, why do I desire to watch pornography. Well,
because you're allowing all of this stuff to come in,
it's feeding your flesh. It's feeding your flesh. You need
(29:52):
to identify with Jesus's death. And then you got to
have some breaks. It's not legalism, it is protection. Every
one of you drove to this church with breaks in
your car, and if your brakes wouldn't work, it will
be a catastrophe. I remember one time I was driving
out of the church and I had a car that
(30:12):
I bought from somebody who bought it from the auction
and they fixed it, half fixed it. They sold it
to me. It was a nice Audi, and I'm driving
from morning prayer and it had a turbo in it,
and I'm going around the church right here, and as
I click on brakes, day don't work and the car accelerates.
It's like car had like a some personality disort or
something just mixed the two pedals. And I remember I yelled,
(30:36):
I screamed, and I said, God, Jesus, Holy Goes, anybody
take control of the wheel. And thank God, I slammed
somehow pulled the e brake and smoke came out of
the tires and everywhere, and I stopped driving. The car
went straight to the mechanics. I didn't simply say, oh,
the car just had a bad day. I understand it
(30:57):
will get its act together. Without breaks, there is no
way I can be saved. You cannot be as sanctified
Christians if you have no discipline and no breaks.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
In your life.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
If you're not fasting, if you're not restricting your desires.
If you get what you want when you want it,
how you want it, and you do that life, and
you sleep as much as you want, you do whatever
you want, you eat whatever you want, you will never
live a life you enjoy and a life that is fruitful,
and a life that is holy because your life does
(31:31):
not have breaks, it doesn't have stops. And you can
blame God. You can blame your parents, you can blame
the devil, you can blame the country president, you can
blame your wife, your children for why you're miserable. But
I'm gonna be here today to tell you is this.
If you don't have breaks, you are a disaster waiting
to happen. For some of you, your breaks could look
(31:53):
something like this to actually start physically running.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Why Because you need discipline in your life.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
For some of your breaks could look something like this,
going to sleep early, because nothing happens good after ten
pm anyway. For some of you, the breaks could look
something like this, wake up a little bit earlier and
instead of jumping into the social media that you go
into the world of God. That will look like a
break in your life. For some of you, the breaks
(32:19):
will look something like this. Cut off the sweets at
least five days a week.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Why because you are overweight? Break.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
I can't believe he said that glutton is a sin. Yes,
we love to point fingers against alcoholism, but a lot
of us we will simply have no breaks when it
comes to eating. And then the sickness comes in. Our
bone structure cannot handle all the weight that we are carrying,
and we're stuffing ourselves, stuffing ourselves, and then diseases come
(32:50):
in and all of these things. We'll look, Oh, the
devil is attacking my friend.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Is the muffin, Not the devil. It's the muffins.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
No breaks, just muffin, muff and muff and muffin, No breaks.
Six shots of vanilla in your coffee break.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
No vanilla, yet the.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Coffee will taste like gasoline for the first three weeks,
your taste butts will adjust.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
And your body will thank you. You will be healthy.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Why because you don't just have a good belief system.
You have stops and breaks in your life. I want
to live sexually pure. That means there has to be
breaks with who you gm. There has to be breaks
with how you wear, who you talk to, and how
you interact.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
With your workers. It's not legalism. It's not control.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
When you're pressing breaks on your car, it's not your
car controlling you. It's you protecting you. Discipline is freedom.
Discipline is righteousness. When you live a spiritually disciplined life,
it is a crucified life. It's a good life. When
a Christian takes one day a week too fast, it's
(34:07):
not legalism. It's simply living a discipline life. When the
Christian takes time to tide, When the Christian takes time
to wake up a little bit earlier to spend time
with God, it is not legalism.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
It is liberty. Amen, how do.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
I overcome the flesh? The clutch? I believe right about God?
About my flesh, it's dead on the cross. Number two,
as I put some breaks in my life, And number
three is the accelerator, and the scripture tells us iningalations,
walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the
lust of the flesh. Christians were not called to stand
(34:46):
still like a car with breaks on. We need to
be constantly moving forward. Our relationship with the Holy Spirit
should be constantly growing together and going forward. Now, I
do want to mention the most important thing.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
When you have the.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Clutch, which is you consider yourself dead, which what the
Bible teaches, you have the breaks which you crucify desires
of the flesh. You put disciplines in your life, physical disciplines,
eating disciplines. You put disciplines in what you do because
it's a healthy thing to do. You do it with
your car, you might as well do it with your
spiritual life. But my friend, if all you're doing in
(35:24):
the parking lot after church is slamming the brakes, I'm
gonna tell you won't leave our parking lot. We will
have to call those services to help you get out
of our parking lot. Why because hitting the parking lot
doesn't help you hitting excuse me, hitting the breaks doesn't
help you to get to your destination. Christian life is
(35:46):
not just about the stops it's also about the gas.
It's about the Holy Spirit. That's why, as Christians, we
must be filled with the Holy Spirit. That's why we
must be let by the Holy Spirit. We must be
empowered by the Holy Spirit. That's why we must be
people who feel no sense here and get empowered by
the spirit of God. Holy Spirit wants to speak to you.
(36:08):
Holy Spirit wants to convict you. Holy Spirit wants to
give you ideas. Holy Spirit wants to partner with you
the same way devil relies on the flesh to get inside.
God gave you the Holy Spirit to help you get
to the next level than God. You really want to
see a shift in your life.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Believe the good news on.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
The cross, your flesh was crucified. Put some breaks in
your life because the influence of the flesh is still there,
and you have to put breaks.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
In your life.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
But ultimately all of this is about you. Gotta press
that pedal, you gotta pray in tongues, You gotta talk
to the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Read the Holy scriptures.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Talk to God when you're driving to work, talk to
God alone, make some time with the Holy Spirit. Talk
to the Holy Spirit, and when he says something to
it because that's what the movement, that's what the momentum,
that's what the revival. That's where breakthrough happens. That's where
miracles happen. Christian life is boring, my someone might say,
So is your phone if you don't turn it on.
(37:07):
So is your television if you don't turn it on.
So is just living in a parked life. If you
don't simply, if you the simple as say and confess
the scriptures, but you never apply them, consider yourself dead
to your old life. Put some breaks in your life
because God calls us to crucify our flesh and then
walk in the Holy Spirit. Talk to the Holy Spirit.
(37:30):
Make Holy Spirit your partner in life, your best friend.
Relye on the Holy Spirit. Let him take you from
point A to point B, take you to the next season,
to the next level in life.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
In Jesus' name, would you rise to your feet.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
I want to give you eleven declarations for this week,
and we're gonna repeat them right now altogether. Say this
with me. Stay today. I close every door to sin,
to shame and satan, and it has no entry. I
fully belong to Jesus. Say I renounce every secret sin,
(38:10):
every hidden habit, every unholy desire.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
What once controlled me will control me no more.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
My body is not a playground for demons. It's a
temple of the Holy Spirit. I welcome your presence, Oh
Holy Spirit, not my past, say the trader within. Will
no longer betray me. I crucify my flesh, and I
(38:44):
surrender my will. Say I refuse to flirt with Delilah.
I will flee like Joseph and fight like Jesus. Say
I break every agree with every lie of the enemy.
(39:04):
I come in agreement with the truth of God's word.
Say I'm not fighting for victory, I'm fighting from victory.
Say Sin is defeated, Satan is dethroned, and Jesus is lord. Say,
Holy Spirit, take the wheel of my life, lead me,
(39:29):
fill me, and shift me into your presence. I choose
purity over pleasure, holiness over hype, obedience over opportunity. I
will walk in the spirit and not fulfill the lust
of the flesh. From this day forward, I rule over sin.
(39:55):
Sin doesn't rule over me. The door is shut, the
blood is applied, and the victory is mine in Jesus' name.
Say you Sin, you have no place in me, You
devil my door is closed. Oh Holy Spirit, you are
(40:15):
welcome in my house. Come on, if you believe that declaration,
give the Lord a shout of praise. The traitor within
is defeated, the Holy Spirit within is empowered, is released.
In Jesus' name, Lord, I pray that this week will
(40:37):
be a week of holiness. This week will be a
week of righteousness. This week will be a week where
they will walk overcoming the flesh. They will start with victory.
And I declare over each one of us in this room,
not only we will start with victory on the cross,
but we will have breaks in our life. We will
have discipline in our life. We will live a life
(40:59):
that cares. There is an emblem of the cross, not
just pleasure. And I pray that this will be the
week marked by the Holy Spirit, a week where we
will hear the Holy Spirit, where we will feed the
things that Holy Spirit loves, that we will invest in
a relationship with the Holy Spirit. This is going to
be a holy week, a good week and honoring to
(41:19):
God week, a pleasing to God week where we will
triumph over the flesh and Satan will fail and the
Holy Spirit will succeed through us by leading us into
righteousness and peace and holiness over every temptation, every creating,
and every urge and every bad habit in Jesus' name.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
And if you believe in that, say amen.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Thanks for listening to today's podcast. If you are blessed
by this message, be sure to subscribe and send it
to someone, and don't forget you can always share it
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and other resources, go to hungrygen dot com.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Remember better is not good enough. The best is yet
to come.
This is Hungry Gen Podcast, and I just want to
thank you for joining.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Us today here at HG.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Our vision is to see thousands say locally and millions globally.
We hope you enjoyed this week's message.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Today, I we'd like to speak a message that I
will title the Trader Within. Last Sunday, I talked about
how Satan's goal is to get inside of people because
he's a copycat. And when Satan gets inside of people,
he wants to do with what God wants to do.
When he gets inside of us through his spirit, God
wants to change us, and then God wants to change
(00:34):
the world through us. Demons get inside of people for
that very reason to vandalize God's image inside of people
and secondly to set up an operations for touching ruining
the world. Today, we're going to make a connection between
the flesh that lives within us, that's what the Trader
Within title comes from, and the demons, the enemy the
(00:54):
temptation that's outside of us, and how they collaborate. I'll
start with the story there was one family that went
hunting and while hunting, they saw a cub lion and
they brought this cub lion to their family, and the
children fell in love with this little baby lion. The
chief of the village came to the family and said,
(01:15):
this lion is dangerous. This lion has a wild impulses,
and sooner or later they will not be like your
dog or your cat. They will attack. The family. Of course,
loved what this little cub lion did to the children.
They fell in love with it. It's like a little pet.
And they told the chief of the village, get out.
(01:37):
You're trying to take away your fun. This cub lion
started to grow, It was fed, it was taking care
of by the children, until he became a big sized lion.
But he was still really nice until one day he
smelled blood and something just switched, something flipped, and he
went from this beautiful pet to someone that attacked the children,
(01:57):
attacked the adults and killed people in that house and
eight people in that house, and what started to happen
as a pet became a tragedy.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
And I want to encourage.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Each and every one of you today that everybody here
has a pet lion within their life. And that pet
lion is called the flesh, and it loves to cuddle
with you. And if you are developing a good relationship
with that little pet.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I want to tell you it's not a pet.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
It's a lion, and lions kill and lions attack. And
that is where the title comes from, the trader within.
If you have your Bible with you, I'm going to
read Genesis chapter four, verse seven in an nav translation.
Sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you,
but you must rule over it. Temptation is universal experience
(02:51):
of every human being, including Christians. Jesus face temptation and
he was sinless, perfect son of God. Being tempted does
not mean you have a demon. It just means you're
a human being who's experiencing a spiritual warfare. Being tempted
also doesn't mean you've committed sin. It simply means there
is a wrestling going on and the enemy has a
(03:12):
plan and agenda. I want to show you today a
different view on temptation. Most of us think of temptation
as something that is just idle and moral struggle between
evil and good. But one of the first insights into
what temptation does reveals to us in the Book of Genesis,
where Adam and Eve had two sons, Abel and Cain,
(03:34):
and when God accepted the offering from Abel, we know
that his brother Cain became jealous. He started to develop
anger and frustration with God against his brother. So the
Lord comes to him and God reveals the behind these
scenes in the spiritual world of something that you and
I experience every day. Have you felt angry at somebody?
(03:55):
Have you felt jealous with somebody? Have you felt lust
maybe towards someone or something you know? We call these feelings, Oh,
this is just moral struggle. But God comes to Canaan says,
this sin is crouching at your door. He's not saying, oh,
you're just experiencing a moral conflict between darkness inside and evil.
He's saying, behind the curtains, behind those feelings you're experiencing
(04:20):
is a spiritual world, and that this sin is not
just a moral struggle.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
It's a person. It's an entity.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
It's something outside that's crouching. See, the devil is not
just knocking on your door. He is crouching at your door.
He wants to get inside. This is not just impersonal.
This is strategic and very personal.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Sin is crouching.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
The Hebrew word for that word crouching is really a
word that refers to a predator lying in wait, waiting
for the prey. Sin is not just this vague. It's
a predator. It is lying in wait seeking for an
opportunity to get in. Sin is personified not as an
(05:10):
idle temptation, but as an or mortal struggle. It means
there's a demonic force that is eager to launch at Cain,
at you and at I, so to speak. But what
I love about this is God doesn't just tell Cain
that he has an almost like an entity seeking to
attack him on the outside. He says, Cain, this is
(05:33):
before the New Testament, before the Blood, before the Holy Spirit,
before the holy Scriptures, before the local church, before all
of the support system we have, and God tells Cain
you must rule over it. So I want to make
a statement here today, is that no matter how powerful
sin is, it is not more powerful than you in Christ.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
You can overcome sin.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
And God invites you to overcome, saying, in fact, he
commends you to rule over that and not give room
to it. We must understand is that sin thrives and
compromise through grows through neglect, and sin thrives on compromise
(06:22):
grows through neglect and devours those who underestimate its power.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Say this with me.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Sin thrives on compromise. Come on, say like you had
your coffee. Say Sin thrives on compromise, grows through neglect
and devours those who underestimate its power.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And God still gives us that warning. You must rule
over it.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Now, I want to share something with you from the
story of Jesus when he was tempted by Satan. A
little bit of strategy of temptation. And this will be
very helpful, and it will come from the word hit.
When you are hit by temptation, H will stand for hungry,
I will stand for isolated, and then T will stand
(07:11):
for tired. This is what the enemy will use when
he will tempt you. He will use similar recipe that
he did on Jesus when Jesus was hungry.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
That's when he was tempted.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
When you are hungry, and I don't necessarily mean that
you didn't have your talk or enchilada, or you haven't
had your even had your burger, or you haven't had
your meal, but when you are hungry emotionally, when your
needs are not being met, the enemy starts creating a temptation.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Second one is isolation.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
It's when you are not connected, you are alone in
the room, or you are feel alone in the room.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Of people, and there is an isolation.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Isolation magnifies the devil's lies, or it will magnify God's truth.
Isolation is a magnifying glass. That's why God tells us
not to be alone. We must be in the community
of other people. But there's a third thing that's there
when you are hit with temptation, and that is tea.
And that is when you're tired after forty days of fasting.
Jesus was tired. When you are tired, you are prone.
(08:12):
When you are tired, you are vulnerable. Many people who
fall into pornography, they fall into pornography in the evening
when they are tired alone, certain needs, are not feeling mad,
and guess what happens. They start entertaining the lust of
the flesh and then they fall into sin. And I
want you to be weary of I want you to
be aware of that. Satan does not have new tactics
(08:35):
to attack you with. He will attack you when you're hungry,
he will attack you when you're isolated, and he will
attack you when you are tired, and therefore, do not
seek to satisfy your needs by turning stones into bread,
by trying to satisfy your needs through means other than
God's provision. Therefore, as a Christian, be intentional to be
(08:59):
in community as a man, as a woman, do not
spend a lot of time alone with your phone, alone
with your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Be in a community of other people.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
And Thirdly, when you're tired, go to sleep, not on
your phone. When you're tired, do something productive. Because you
have to understand, when you're tired, your defenses are down.
When you're tired, your convictions begin to struggle to get air.
When you're tired, it's when you're most going to be tempted.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
So the question I will ask you today which doors
of your life your life are currently left unchecked? The
question I'm going to ask you today and that is this,
which windows in your life are currently left open? Before
we go to sleep, my wife always sends me on
the errand in our own house to check all the doors.
She said, could you go check the door downstairs? And
(09:54):
I said, honey, I'm pretty sure I feel in.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
My spirit it is closed. She's like, that's not enough.
You need to know that it's closed and so.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
And I was like, but I'm already I want to
go to sleep. She's like, no, you gotta go downstairs
and check it. And then you gotta go check that
window as well. I was like, we have the alarm
system already. She's like, you still need to go make
sure that it's checked. Then I can have more peace.
And we have to do that every single night. What
would happen before you go to sleep? Every day you
will double check the doors and the windows of your
soul and in your life?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Are they closed? Are they locked?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Is there an alarm system the blood of Jesus that
is applied to your life? Are there some unconfessed sins?
Do not go to sleep in your anger? Meaning you
gotta get rid of the stuff. You gotta close those doors,
you gotta close those all portals, you gotta close those
windows so that your life is holy and righteous.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Somebody is saying amen.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
The second thing that I want to highlight is not
only there's an enemy outside trying to get in the
crouching sin, but there's a trader within who collaborates with
the devil on the outside. So there's a crouching sin,
But there's a collaborating flesh. What makes tempatient challenging, and
you will learn today how to overcome is the fact
(11:01):
that it's not only we're dealing with the devil on
the outside who wants to take advantage of our tiredness,
isolation and hunger, but we got a flesh on the
inside who is in the league, who is collaborating with
demons on the outside. The Babble uses the word flesh
(11:22):
to describe either our body, a humanity, or In the
New Testament, the word flesh is usually used to describe
a sinful nature or an old adamic tendencies that reside
within every human being and even within Christians. I like
what one preacher said. He said, flesh is the devil's birthday.
On your birthday, the devil let me perfect. Flesh is
(11:46):
the devil's gift on your birthday. So when you were born,
the devil sends you a gift, and it's called the flesh.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
You already opened.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
That gift, You already been using that gift, and that
gift is stayed with you.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
And when you get.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Born again, God gives you a gift called holy Spirit.
So the question today is not do you have the
flesh or the Holy Spirit. The question is who you
surrender to as a Christian every single day. You're not
gonna live a sinful life because you have a flesh,
and you will not live a holy life because you
have the Holy Spirit. The question is who do you
choose to surrender to every single day. But what I
want you to understand today is the connection between the
(12:19):
flesh inside of you and the demons on the outside.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Flesh is not a demon. If you keep yielding to.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
It, it will open a door to a demon. The
flesh inside of you has a relationship with the demons
on the outside. Demons cannot accomplish their purpose. Satan cannot
accomplish his agenda without the help and the collaboration of
(12:50):
a trader within, and that is our flesh. One preacher
said this following statement, a twentieth century Baptist teacher W.
Graham Scorgy explains like this, The flesh is the evil
principle in the men's nature. The trader within, who is
in the league with the attackers without. The flesh provides
(13:12):
the tinder on which the devil's temptation can kindle. I
want you to see the connection between the flesh on
the inside and the temptation which is set hunger, isolation,
and tiredness, and then the demons satanic kingdom that wants
to get inside. What makes their job easier is they
(13:36):
got help on the inside. Peter the Cruel when he
was attacking Spain, and I think it was a thousand,
three hundredth year and the.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
City was locked inside.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
People were scared for their life because Peter the Cruel
was very vicious in how he treated their captors. A
judge and inside of the city, wanting to spare his
life when the city gets captured, decided during the night
to open the gate to the attackers and allow them in.
When they came inside attacked the city so he the judge,
(14:11):
could have a good standing with the future.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Occupant of that city.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
If you go to Spain, in this city, you will
still see this gate, and you will see the worst
that will say, the trader's gate. Now, my friend, the
enemy is the Peter the Cruel. The devil is the
Peter the Cruel. He walks around like a roaring lion,
seeking whom he made devour. The Bible tells us submit
to God and resist the devil and he will flee.
(14:38):
On the inside, you have a trader who is willing
to sell your soul for less than thirty shekels. On
the inside, you have a Judas, you know, Judas pretending
to be with Jesus, walking around to Jesus, I'm your friend,
I'm a friend of God. I'm a friend of God.
And then during the night, Judas goes in and trade
(14:59):
betrays Jesus. The Judas lives inside of you. It's called flesh.
The flesh to a Christian is what Delilah.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Is to Samson.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Delilah's over there, lulling him to sleep and speaking all
these kind words with him, and Samson is getting and
slowly sucked into that world. He's allowing her to bind
his hands, buying his feet, and then it starts with
the hair, and next thing you know, he's really in
love with her. But Delilah had Phillistines behind the couch
(15:29):
who were really sponsoring her. And these Philistines used Delilah
to get to Samson. Demons got help. You know what
that help is, the flesh. The flesh you have. My
friend is a trader. It's not interested in you, it
doesn't care about you. Now some of you have had
(15:49):
friends in your life who were traders, who were betrayers,
and you found out they talked bad about you behind
your back. It changed your relationship with them, right you
met with them. Now, some of you you went all brutal.
You're like, how dare you do? I'm block you restraining order,
You're gone. Others of you, you were smart and sneaky
(16:11):
when you started to have a relationship with this person. Now,
when you found out that they were not really for you,
but they were against you, and they were spilling secrets,
they were saying bad things about you behind your back,
but in your face they were all nice and stuff.
You changed your tactic and you became very reserved. You
became protective, and you stopped letting them inside of your
(16:33):
personal life. And you say, you know what, I can't
trust you anymore, and you put some walls up with
those people.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
And that is a wise thing to do.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I want to tell you something, is that you have
that trader within you. You can't get rid of and
get a restraining order against your flesh. But you're gonna
have to set up some boundaries. And I'm gonna teach
you how to do that. In just a moment, because
that trader will will sell you when that trader will
(17:02):
have a chance to do so. If you feed it,
it will enslave you. If you feed it, it will
become stronger, and it will demoralize your spiritual life.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Are you with me?
Speaker 3 (17:15):
The devil doesn't need to break in when the flesh
opens the door. Don't flirt with Delilah and then cry
when the demons attack. You cannot expect deliverance from demons.
If you're busy having a romantic relationship with your flesh,
what you're feeding will eventually control you. You can have
(17:38):
the Holy Spirit speak three hundred miles per hour and
come to church and run to the altar. But if
during the week the flesh is being spoon fed, my friend,
you will not live a spiritually strong life. So the
question you have to ask yourself today is what charming
my attention? Killing my convictions? Is what I'm giving my
(17:59):
attention to reducing crippling my convictions. And in the conclusion,
I want to share with you and how to effectively, practically,
starting today, tomorrow and the day after overcome the flesh.
And we will call this the concording Spirit, the manual
(18:20):
transmission mindset. Have you ever driven a manual car stick shift?
Anybody here knows how to drive a stick shift? Everybody
from Forst's former Soviet Union have to have their hand up. Okay,
everybody else? How many of you do not know how
to drive a stick shift? Raise your hand?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
All right? How many of you?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
No matter what question I will ask you never raise
your hand?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
So I don't really like driving a stick shift. When
I was twelve years of age, my father started to
teach me how to drive. Now, you may say that
was not legal. It was in Ukraine. A lot of
things were different there. We were taking care of cows
every single week. A different family on the street was
in charge of taking care of pastoring, taking cows on the.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Pastoring green pastures.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
And so my dad took her little car, Nissan two
door Nissan and started to teach me I was twelve
years of age to drive. Now, driving a stick shift,
or they call them a manual transmission, is not easy.
For those of you who enjoyed two pedals in your car,
it is very easy. One is break, the other one
is gased. It's very difficult to get that confused. One
helps you to stop the other one helps you to
(19:30):
go manual or stick shift. Is very complicated. It looks
something like this. It has three pedals. One is clutch,
the other one is break, and then the other one
is accelerator. And then you have to press clutch and break,
press clutch and then guess and then God forbid. You
are learning, and you were on the hill and by
(19:52):
the time you figured out which pedal to hit, your
car is rolling down and you're over there pleating the blood,
binding the principalities, speaking the word of God so that
you by do not hit the car below you or
that's right behind you. And I remember in the United States,
I had to drive a few cars around town and
it always works like that. And I'm praying up I'm
(20:13):
coming up to the hill that i'm and it was
praying with your father, God, please let there be no
car behind me, and give me the grace to release
the clutch just in time so that I can press
the accelerator, but not too fast because then a car
will just stop. And you're praying into all of that,
and you're wishing for God to do a miracle. Now
I want to share with you something today. Overcoming the
flesh is not like automatic driving. Means you do not
(20:38):
overcome the flesh automatically. When you get delivered from demons,
you do not overcome the flesh automatically. When you become
a Christian, you do not overcome the flesh automatically.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
When you join the.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Church, you do not overcome the flesh automatically. Because you're
filled with the Holy Spirit and you have the gifts
of the Holy Spirit. Overcoming the flesh requires this manual
transmission mindset.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Now it's gonna get complicated, meaning it doesn't come automatically.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
So if you became a Christian and you say, but
I am wrestling and I am struggling, that means the
Bible is true. You do not overcome the flesh automatically.
It takes intentionality, and it takes manual transmission mindset.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
It's a stick shift.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Three pedals you have to become expert at to overcome
the flesh. The first one is clutch. It's called consider
yourself dead to the flesh.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
In the Bible. In Romans, it.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Says this for the death he died, he died to
sin once for all, but the life that he lives
he lives to God. In the same way count yourself
dead to sin, but alife to God in Christ Jesus.
What does this mean? The clutch means this. You do
not overcome the flesh by fighting the flesh. You overcome
(22:05):
the flesh biblically, by first believing that Jesus took the
old man and killed him two thousand years ago on
the cross. That means your victory against the flesh does
not start with your current or last night's battle, or
your loss. It starts with Jesus's victory on the cross
(22:28):
that you already have. And you have to believe you
already have a victory.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
You fight the flesh by coming in agreement in your
mind and in your heart that God already has overcome
the flesh. These are not mental gymnastics. If I believe it, it
is so.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
No, it is so. Therefore I believe it.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
It is a fact Jesus on the cross took your
old man and nailed it to the cross. So we
don't start fighting the flesh by removing apps, canceling subscriptions,
getting rid of toxic relationships. We don't start fighting the
flesh by putting restrictions on our phone, canceling certain things.
(23:15):
We don't start fighting the flesh by adding discipline. We
start with clutch, We start with belief. That's why many
of you you come to church, you feel convicted. You
go home, you said, that's it. I'm gonna remove this.
I'm gonna remove that. I'm gonna cancel this. I'm gonna
cancel that. I'm gonna block them, get them out of
I'm gonna start, and you start with breaks. That's why
(23:36):
it doesn't work. The Gospel tells us it starts with clutch.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
It's not automatic.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
It starts with it's a stick shift. This is a
manual transmission mindset. And it does not start with your struggle.
It starts with the victory at the cavalry. It starts
with the triumph Jesus on the cross defeated sin. He's
stripped flesh of its power on the cross, but the
(24:06):
presence and the influence of the flesh is still here.
So I don't go fighting my flesh. I first believe
the cross, the blood, the power of what Jesus been
on the cross. That starts with a clutch. Somebody shall clutch.
Victory on the cross is what I start. You're battling
(24:28):
with pornography. Your first step is not. I want to
have more discipline. Your first step is I'm going back
to the cross in my mind, and I come in agreement.
Through the cross, the flesh's power has been broken. There
only then you have a chance of having that victory.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
May I submit to you.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Most of us fight the flesh with an American automatic
or Western automatic view. We only see two things, break
and gas. We said, yeah, I just need to stop
doing this. I just need to stop watching. I just
need to stop talking about this. I need to stop
stop stuff. And that is the problem. And I'm gonna
be here today to tell you stop stopping. It's about
(25:13):
first the cross, not your last defeat. It's about the blood,
not your struggle. It's not even about your flesh. It's
about his flesh dying on the cross. For you, that
is where your power is. It's about the clutch. My
old man died. Then comes the second pedal, and that
(25:34):
is crucify the cravings of the flesh.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
I don't understand. I thought you said it's all over already. Yes,
I also.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Don't understand how the clutch, the breaks and the gas works.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
I'm just sharing with you how to use.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Him on the cross. The old man is dead. This
doesn't mean you don't have any battles. It simply means
you start the battle from the position of victory, and
then you go into a battle, which is the second pedal,
is where you crucify the cravings.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Of the flesh.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Relationship five verse twenty four says the following and those
who are Christs have crucified the flesh with its passions
and desires. The Christian life is not about following a
list of regulations that forbid you to enjoy your life,
but it's instead realizing that these restrictions create protection and
a healthy limitation in our lives. Christian life is not
(26:29):
just about crucifying the flesh, but it's about disciplining ourselves,
because without discipline, there could be no Christian life. The
Christian life without the Cross is car without breaks. You
cannot crucify the flesh if you still cuddle your cravings.
The car without breaks is a disaster waiting to happen.
(26:50):
So is the Christian who lives their life without any discipline,
any restrictions, and any stops. So how do I overcome
the fl Let's start from the beginning. I believe on
the Cross, Jesus has done the heavy lifting by crushing
the flesh and killing it. But why do I still
have the cravings? Comes pedal number two. I have to
(27:11):
develop then breaks in my life stops in my life.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Now, imagine a Christian.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Who says, simply, I believe Jesus did everything.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
On the cross.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
I have to do nothing because anytime you say I
need to say no to this. It's all legalism. It's
all legalism. We don't want legalism. We want greasy grace,
meaning you just do whatever you want. Everything is done.
You absolutely do nothing. My friend, For those of you
who have this kind of a mindset, I will give
you one challenge to do today.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Do not do it with nobody else in your car.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Except you drive from our parking lot back to your
home without ever hitting breaks. You will meet your maker
in about fifteen minutes. Your car will be totaled, your
car will be hit, You will hit body. Why because
just because your car is good, you still need breaks.
(28:05):
You'll need breaks on the way of coming out of
our parking lot. You need to slam the break. You'll
need break right on Silvester. You'll need break when you
will be turning into a highway, just because you have
a good car, you still need breaks. Jesus died for you.
Your flesh old man was killed on the cross, and
(28:25):
then Paul tells us, now crucify the flesh, meaning put
some breaks in your life.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Hit breaks in your life.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
That means when the time comes for you to go
to sleep and the flesh says you're tired, why don't
you watch something? Hit the brakes. When you're scrolling through
social media and you know you should be doing something
more with your time, you have to hit some brakes.
People who come to God and say, Lord, deliver me
from sin, sometimes God will tell you get some breaks
in your life, get some discipline in your life.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Do you fast?
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Are you doing some physical exercise to keep your body
in shape as well?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Well?
Speaker 3 (29:05):
I want to overcome being overweight. Do you have breaks
when you eat? Did I just say that yesay? Did
that fifth croissant?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Break? Fifth meal?
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Or snacking at nine pm?
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Break? Man?
Speaker 3 (29:30):
I just struggle with lustful feelings New Taylor Swift album Break.
You have no business listening to that garbage. You have
no business listening literally pouring in lust into your soulent
and wondering, why do I desire to watch pornography. Well,
because you're allowing all of this stuff to come in,
it's feeding your flesh. It's feeding your flesh. You need
(29:52):
to identify with Jesus's death. And then you got to
have some breaks. It's not legalism, it is protection. Every
one of you drove to this church with breaks in
your car, and if your brakes wouldn't work, it will
be a catastrophe. I remember one time I was driving
out of the church and I had a car that
(30:12):
I bought from somebody who bought it from the auction
and they fixed it, half fixed it. They sold it
to me. It was a nice Audi, and I'm driving
from morning prayer and it had a turbo in it,
and I'm going around the church right here, and as
I click on brakes, day don't work and the car accelerates.
It's like car had like a some personality disort or
something just mixed the two pedals. And I remember I yelled,
(30:36):
I screamed, and I said, God, Jesus, Holy Goes, anybody
take control of the wheel. And thank God, I slammed
somehow pulled the e brake and smoke came out of
the tires and everywhere, and I stopped driving. The car
went straight to the mechanics. I didn't simply say, oh,
the car just had a bad day. I understand it
(30:57):
will get its act together. Without breaks, there is no
way I can be saved. You cannot be as sanctified
Christians if you have no discipline and no breaks.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
In your life.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
If you're not fasting, if you're not restricting your desires.
If you get what you want when you want it,
how you want it, and you do that life, and
you sleep as much as you want, you do whatever
you want, you eat whatever you want, you will never
live a life you enjoy and a life that is fruitful,
and a life that is holy because your life does
(31:31):
not have breaks, it doesn't have stops. And you can
blame God. You can blame your parents, you can blame
the devil, you can blame the country president, you can
blame your wife, your children for why you're miserable. But
I'm gonna be here today to tell you is this.
If you don't have breaks, you are a disaster waiting
to happen. For some of you, your breaks could look
(31:53):
something like this to actually start physically running.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Why Because you need discipline in your life.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
For some of your breaks could look something like this,
going to sleep early, because nothing happens good after ten
pm anyway. For some of you, the breaks could look
something like this, wake up a little bit earlier and
instead of jumping into the social media that you go
into the world of God. That will look like a
break in your life. For some of you, the breaks
(32:19):
will look something like this. Cut off the sweets at
least five days a week.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Why because you are overweight? Break.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
I can't believe he said that glutton is a sin. Yes,
we love to point fingers against alcoholism, but a lot
of us we will simply have no breaks when it
comes to eating. And then the sickness comes in. Our
bone structure cannot handle all the weight that we are carrying,
and we're stuffing ourselves, stuffing ourselves, and then diseases come
(32:50):
in and all of these things. We'll look, Oh, the
devil is attacking my friend.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Is the muffin, Not the devil. It's the muffins.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
No breaks, just muffin, muff and muff and muffin, No breaks.
Six shots of vanilla in your coffee break.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
No vanilla, yet the.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Coffee will taste like gasoline for the first three weeks,
your taste butts will adjust.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
And your body will thank you. You will be healthy.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Why because you don't just have a good belief system.
You have stops and breaks in your life. I want
to live sexually pure. That means there has to be
breaks with who you gm. There has to be breaks
with how you wear, who you talk to, and how
you interact.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
With your workers. It's not legalism. It's not control.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
When you're pressing breaks on your car, it's not your
car controlling you. It's you protecting you. Discipline is freedom.
Discipline is righteousness. When you live a spiritually disciplined life,
it is a crucified life. It's a good life. When
a Christian takes one day a week too fast, it's
(34:07):
not legalism. It's simply living a discipline life. When the
Christian takes time to tide, When the Christian takes time
to wake up a little bit earlier to spend time
with God, it is not legalism.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
It is liberty. Amen, how do.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
I overcome the flesh? The clutch? I believe right about God?
About my flesh, it's dead on the cross. Number two,
as I put some breaks in my life, And number
three is the accelerator, and the scripture tells us iningalations,
walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the
lust of the flesh. Christians were not called to stand
(34:46):
still like a car with breaks on. We need to
be constantly moving forward. Our relationship with the Holy Spirit
should be constantly growing together and going forward. Now, I
do want to mention the most important thing.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
When you have the.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Clutch, which is you consider yourself dead, which what the
Bible teaches, you have the breaks which you crucify desires
of the flesh. You put disciplines in your life, physical disciplines,
eating disciplines. You put disciplines in what you do because
it's a healthy thing to do. You do it with
your car, you might as well do it with your
spiritual life. But my friend, if all you're doing in
(35:24):
the parking lot after church is slamming the brakes, I'm
gonna tell you won't leave our parking lot. We will
have to call those services to help you get out
of our parking lot. Why because hitting the parking lot
doesn't help you hitting excuse me, hitting the breaks doesn't
help you to get to your destination. Christian life is
(35:46):
not just about the stops it's also about the gas.
It's about the Holy Spirit. That's why, as Christians, we
must be filled with the Holy Spirit. That's why we
must be let by the Holy Spirit. We must be
empowered by the Holy Spirit. That's why we must be
people who feel no sense here and get empowered by
the spirit of God. Holy Spirit wants to speak to you.
(36:08):
Holy Spirit wants to convict you. Holy Spirit wants to
give you ideas. Holy Spirit wants to partner with you
the same way devil relies on the flesh to get inside.
God gave you the Holy Spirit to help you get
to the next level than God. You really want to
see a shift in your life.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Believe the good news on.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
The cross, your flesh was crucified. Put some breaks in
your life because the influence of the flesh is still there,
and you have to put breaks.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
In your life.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
But ultimately all of this is about you. Gotta press
that pedal, you gotta pray in tongues, You gotta talk
to the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Read the Holy scriptures.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Talk to God when you're driving to work, talk to
God alone, make some time with the Holy Spirit. Talk
to the Holy Spirit, and when he says something to
it because that's what the movement, that's what the momentum,
that's what the revival. That's where breakthrough happens. That's where
miracles happen. Christian life is boring, my someone might say,
So is your phone if you don't turn it on.
(37:07):
So is your television if you don't turn it on.
So is just living in a parked life. If you
don't simply, if you the simple as say and confess
the scriptures, but you never apply them, consider yourself dead
to your old life. Put some breaks in your life
because God calls us to crucify our flesh and then
walk in the Holy Spirit. Talk to the Holy Spirit.
(37:30):
Make Holy Spirit your partner in life, your best friend.
Relye on the Holy Spirit. Let him take you from
point A to point B, take you to the next season,
to the next level in life.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
In Jesus' name, would you rise to your feet.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
I want to give you eleven declarations for this week,
and we're gonna repeat them right now altogether. Say this
with me. Stay today. I close every door to sin,
to shame and satan, and it has no entry. I
fully belong to Jesus. Say I renounce every secret sin,
(38:10):
every hidden habit, every unholy desire.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
What once controlled me will control me no more.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
My body is not a playground for demons. It's a
temple of the Holy Spirit. I welcome your presence, Oh
Holy Spirit, not my past, say the trader within. Will
no longer betray me. I crucify my flesh, and I
(38:44):
surrender my will. Say I refuse to flirt with Delilah.
I will flee like Joseph and fight like Jesus. Say
I break every agree with every lie of the enemy.
(39:04):
I come in agreement with the truth of God's word.
Say I'm not fighting for victory, I'm fighting from victory.
Say Sin is defeated, Satan is dethroned, and Jesus is lord. Say,
Holy Spirit, take the wheel of my life, lead me,
(39:29):
fill me, and shift me into your presence. I choose
purity over pleasure, holiness over hype, obedience over opportunity. I
will walk in the spirit and not fulfill the lust
of the flesh. From this day forward, I rule over sin.
(39:55):
Sin doesn't rule over me. The door is shut, the
blood is applied, and the victory is mine in Jesus' name.
Say you Sin, you have no place in me, You
devil my door is closed. Oh Holy Spirit, you are
(40:15):
welcome in my house. Come on, if you believe that declaration,
give the Lord a shout of praise. The traitor within
is defeated, the Holy Spirit within is empowered, is released.
In Jesus' name, Lord, I pray that this week will
(40:37):
be a week of holiness. This week will be a
week of righteousness. This week will be a week where
they will walk overcoming the flesh. They will start with victory.
And I declare over each one of us in this room,
not only we will start with victory on the cross,
but we will have breaks in our life. We will
have discipline in our life. We will live a life
(40:59):
that cares. There is an emblem of the cross, not
just pleasure. And I pray that this will be the
week marked by the Holy Spirit, a week where we
will hear the Holy Spirit, where we will feed the
things that Holy Spirit loves, that we will invest in
a relationship with the Holy Spirit. This is going to
be a holy week, a good week and honoring to
(41:19):
God week, a pleasing to God week where we will
triumph over the flesh and Satan will fail and the
Holy Spirit will succeed through us by leading us into
righteousness and peace and holiness over every temptation, every creating,
and every urge and every bad habit in Jesus' name.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
And if you believe in that, say amen.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Thanks for listening to today's podcast. If you are blessed
by this message, be sure to subscribe and send it
to someone, and don't forget you can always share it
on your social stories. Stay connected with us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook,
and Twitter. For more information on internship, prayer line conferences,
and other resources, go to hungrygen dot com.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Remember better is not good enough. The best is yet
to come.
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