Does Satan Feel Safe in Your Home? | Kingsmen

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Welcome to the Kingsmen podcast, where we are reclaiming biblical manhood.

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Still working on that one. We'll see how that goes today. And the emphasis of the kingdom, and how important the kingdom is in our life, and how we should be equipping to do the work of the kingdom every single day.

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I'm your host, John Moffitt. I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church, and one of the hosts of Theocast. Last week,

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I talked a little bit about priorities, and we've kind of been building this whole series. I think we're like 12 or 13 episodes in.

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And today is definitely gonna be one of those days that I think I'm gonna be shot at. So I'm gonna say that right now.

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Before you make a comment, which is so funny, because some of these are screenshots and sent to me.

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People are like four minutes into a video, and they're already commenting, and like, you may address this later, and then they comment below. Okay, you addressed it later.

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So hear me out, let me finish the video. We, I don't think we understand how powerful the influence of Satan is.

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And we walk around like there's no danger for our children, for ourselves, and for our spouses.

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As if Satan, yeah, Satan's out there, and he can cause some damage, but you know, he's not gonna bother me.

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He's not gonna bother my family. And that's exactly where he wants to have you. That's exactly where he wants you.

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I've wrestled with this for a long time, whether I was gonna say something or not. I don't wanna sound legalistic, but at the same time, if I always am worried about sounding legalistic, then

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Satan wins again, right? He has me afraid of him and afraid of other people, rather than standing up for the truth and liberating people from his traps and from his snares.

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So I'm gonna stand up, and I am not here. What I'm about to tell you, this is not how you earn God's favor.

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This is not how you earn God's blessing. This is not how you earn your sanctification or salvation. So what

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I'm about to tell you has nothing to do with that. I'm just gonna say this up front, because I know people are gonna try and basically tag me to be teaching neo -nomadism or new law, which is not true.

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If you've ever listened to Theocast, we are a proclaimer of the gospel. My biggest concern is that we should be resting in the sufficiency of Christ, and from that, finding our energy and our joy to help others.

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But instead, we are being slowly drawn in to slavery of sin.

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And we then justify it, and we even are blind to it, because it's the whole adage, how do you cook a frog, a live frog?

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You don't throw it into boiling water, right? You let it sit there until it gets to the point where it doesn't even know it's being cooked alive.

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And that's exactly how this works. A little bit at a time, it goes a long way. Well, we do have a lot of freedom in Christ, and Paul warns us about this freedom in Christ, that we aren't to utilize it for the sake of sin.

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One day we will be able to enjoy everything this world has to offer, and we'll never worry if it's going to cause us to trip up and fall into sin.

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We'll enjoy everything, but that's not the case now. We have to use discernment. We have to be ready and watching.

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So I'll just, I'll jump into this. Our brains are not as good at filtering information as we think they are.

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If you are constantly receiving a diet of information of the world's ideology, and you just assume that you're gonna be able to filter through that, and it's not going to affect you, you've already proven how unwise you are, and how foolish you are.

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Last week, I talked a little bit about taking captive our thoughts and prioritizing, but I want to get more specific in that.

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Guys, I think we enjoy entertainment. I'll be the first to raise my hand.

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I like entertainment. I utilize it, it's fun. But we like it so much, we become lazy.

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And I don't mean watching nine hours of Netflix. I mean, we become lazy with what we allow to influence us via entertainment.

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See, how many of you are gonna go Google how to become a Satanist, because you're really attracted to Satanism?

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That's just not how it works, right? How many of you have this amazing affectionate relationship with your spouse, and all of a sudden, you wake up and go,

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I think I'm gonna cheat on my spouse today. So you go and Google how to cheat on your spouse, right? How many of you have a good reputation at work, and everybody trusts you, and then all of a sudden, you wake up and go,

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I think I'm gonna embezzle from my company. So you go, that's not how it works, right? It's a slow drip.

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It's a slow shift over time, where we begin to allow the influence of the world to pull our hearts and our minds, and all of a sudden, we start moving.

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We start moving the line of what is acceptable and honoring and representing of our God, right?

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Our God says, this is who I am. I gave this illustration to my daughter. I was trying to explain to her how

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God looks at His creation and what He intended for us to enjoy

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Him and reflect His glory. My daughter likes to paint, and so she recently had painted this beautiful picture.

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I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was really pretty, and she brought it to me, and I held it, and I was like, I enjoyed it, and I took it in, and I told her how wonderful it was, but I said, what if I change that scenario where we're gonna have a bonfire that night?

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We're outside, we got the fire pit there, and you bring that fire, you bring it out to me, and I'm like, wow, this is awesome, and I start ripping it up, saying, hey,

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I really needed, thanks for bringing this to me. I needed to start it for the wood. That, I said, how would that make you feel?

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First of all, I really didn't, my words didn't matter. I didn't value what you won.

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I didn't value your time. I didn't value what you had spent. You can't, one, you can't redeem the time.

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You can't redeem the art. We can't remake that. I can buy you another canvas, but what you presented to me as a gift, and what you presented to me of something of value and beauty, what

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I did with that beauty is I destroyed it, and what does that do, right?

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It's horrible. That's exactly what we're doing when we look at,

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God presents himself to us, and he says, this is what's wholesome. This is what's beautiful. This is what's glorious.

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This is what represents me, and we take it, and we absolutely use it for the wrong reasons, and we can do this.

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Sexuality can be used for the wrong reasons. Relationships, money, I mean, there's so much that can be used.

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We take it, and we destroy it, but you don't do that. Satan knows that if he walks up and says, all right,

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I want you to burn that, we all go, that's ridiculous. Why would we do that? He doesn't cause us to make that big step from just one.

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It's slowly over time. It's the influence, so the shows that we watch, the music, the things that we read, the conversations that we have, the places we let our hearts go, it's the slow little movement, and if we don't have the gospel coming back in and reminding us of what we've been set free from, he doesn't throw us into the prison cell and leave us there, right?

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It's a slow fade over to that direction, and it happens through all of this influence and what we begin to find, and it's a little bit of pleasure, right?

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Why is it that drugs are so powerful and people find themselves destroying their life? Because part of the human nature is that once you introduce a little bit of it, you can't have the same effect by the same amount.

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So what do you have to do? Introduce a little bit more and introduce a little bit more. So drug addicts typically don't go from,

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I'm sure there are people out there, but you don't go from a simple drug down to the hard stuff. Same thing with the drunk.

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It's not like all of a sudden someone's a drunk because they never had a drink in their life and all of a sudden they're just sloshed on the street all the time.

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It's because we keep adding to it and we keep adding to it. Man, from my own guilt and shame, there are times

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I sit back and go, I can't believe I'm okay with this because before it would have really convicted my conscience and it should have because it's wrong.

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It's dirty. It's vile. It does not reflect that which is honoring to the

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Lord. And whatever is wholesome or good and pure, those are the things Paul calls us to think about.

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Well, John, now you're telling us what we can and cannot watch. I'm just saying, evaluate what's influencing you and see how it's affecting your heart.

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Does what you're engaging in cause you to be in love with God more? So are you saying we can't listen to secular music?

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I'm not saying that at all. There's not a sense where you can only do

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Christian things because God didn't make a Christian world. God made the world, right?

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It's not a Christian world. God made the world and unfortunately in the world now, there's a cursed fallenness to it with an adversary who wants to take everything that's beautiful and turn it upside down and take that which liberates us and gives us the freedom of worshiping our

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God and enslave us to where now we're a prison to that sin. Drug addicts, alcoholics, porn addicts, right?

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People who struggle with anger, all of these are things that would have been good that got turned into prisons and now they can't get out of it because they allowed themselves to dabble in it.

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So my encouragement to you is this, be the guardians of your heart and your home.

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Your children, this is why it calls parents to raise your children in the fear and admonition of the

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Lord. Well, just stop and think about that. Fear doesn't mean that you're afraid of him as if he's gonna send you into the pits of hell.

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That's not what it means. It means a healthy respect and honor, right? One who is honoring of the

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Lord. Well, if this is what God has intended, this beauty and glory, and we're supposed to train our children to acknowledge that and see that, you're gonna have to keep the influence of the world out.

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The world does not want to honor the Lord. What does Romans say? Romans one, they suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

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So if you're assuming you can just let your kids just kind of go and, now,

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Johnny, you're saying that we should homeschool them and that they should never go outside of the world at all. Okay.

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I just want you to hear me out. No. I am training and equipping my children so that they can endure the world, so they understand the differences between holiness and that which is vile, right?

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So I am not, I can't keep the world away from them. I can't. It's impossible.

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They are going to be in the world. I'm going to teach them how the difference between of being in it versus of it, right?

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And being able to have a healthy diet where we're praising that which is holy and we are not praising that which is unholy.

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There are times, guys, where we give acknowledgement or we laugh at things where you just stop and say, that's not laughable, right?

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That's a mockery to God. That's not a reflection of what God intended women to be and men to be.

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That's not what God intended sex to be. That's not what God intended money to be used for. So how do we do that?

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Well, we have to allow God's word to be that which shapes our hearts and shapes our minds. And we have to be able to say that might be fun and entertaining, but what is the end result of where that's going to lead?

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Is that really what I need to be filling my mind with? Because, well, remember,

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Satan just wants you to give up a half a percent, a quarter of a percent, and then he's going to ask for more, and then he's going to ask for more.

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And before you know it, you're evaluate, I'll just say it this way. I have had friends who are no longer in their marriages and they have destroyed their lives.

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It did not start by one mistake or one decision. It started by multiple decisions that led into that enslavement.

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And this is where I love the concept. Go back to a couple of weeks ago where we talked about confession.

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When we give in and we allow Satan that we can confess our sins, run back to our fathers, have our conscience cleansed and realize, let's fill our minds with that which is holy and pure and just.

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So, no, I don't have rules for you of what you should and shouldn't watch. I don't have rules and regulation because the

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Bible doesn't do that. It says, look for that which is holy and wholesome. Look for that which is encouraging and will uplift us.

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And not only that, it's hard because the writer of Hebrews says, consider daily how to build one another up.

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Why? Because we're going to need it. This world is beating us down. We need something that's going to encourage us. So here we go.

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We're in the last few minutes. And this is where, again, I was hoping you heard everything

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I had to say and then I'll end with this. We're not here to entertain ourselves, guys.

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We're not here to pleasure ourselves. I think we really need to step back and ask ourselves why we're okay with a lot of the filth and the junk that we just fill our hearts and our minds with.

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I said this in probably the first or second episode. The reason why we entertain ourselves is because we don't have a purpose.

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You have a purpose to love and care for your wife, to love and care for your children, to build them up, to encourage them, to strengthen them, to be there for them, to sacrifice and lay your life down for them, to guide them.

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And hear this, hear this, hear this, to guard your home, make your home a safe place.

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The world doesn't get to decide when your child gets a phone or what they're okay to watch or what you do.

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You make those decisions. Stop letting the world pressure you. I'm just telling you this right now.

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You're gonna start hearing some things out of me. I am tired of the world telling me what my relationship with my wife would look like.

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They don't get to tell me that. I'm tired of the world telling me what my relationship with my children should look like or how

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I spend my time and how I spend my money. God in his graciousness came down and saved me.

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He brought me out of my sin, brought me out of my slavery, promised everything to me, promised me joy, hope, and happiness.

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And then says, John, I actually, for everything you need for life and godliness, I have it for you. Now how to fix your car?

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Go to the world. How to fix the toilet? Go to the world. All that kind of stuff. How to deal with whatever, technology issues?

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Go to the world. But when it comes to how to love and honor and care for me and each other, come to me.

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Stop letting the world influence us, guys. And let's confront each other.

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Let's encourage each other with gentleness and meekness. How does it say in Romans chapter six, right? It says to go to each other with a spirit of meekness and gentleness, lest we too fall into temptation, right?

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We too fall into the same sin that is there. Why does this all matter? Because what's happening is that we are finding ourselves distracted, depressed, irritated, and fighting with each other because sin is what's governing us instead of the joy of the gospel, all right?

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So that's it for this week. I just wanted to give you some things to think about. If you're feeling a little guilty and shame, or like, oh yeah, man,

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John's really got some points, I don't want you to walk out here and say you're gonna try harder. I want you to think about what caused you to go that direction.

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It's not a lack of discipline sometimes, guys. It's a lack of focus. Our focus is on being pleased with our flesh.

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And we have to realize our flesh can't be satisfied here. Not fully. We can eat, we can enjoy things, but not full satisfaction.

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So this is why we look to Christ and the hope of Christ, and we prioritize our lives there. And stop believing the lie that this world's gonna give us something it can't.