Book of Esther - Part 2

Park Meadows Church

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All right, good to have everyone today. So we're, let's take a look here at Esther chapter three.

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All right, and all the king's servants that were in the king's gate bowed down and reverenced

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Haman. Now we've already studied who Haman is a little bit. He is the great, great, great, great, great grandson of Esau who is a picture of the flesh.

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So here he is and somehow he's found the favor of the king. And this king, by the way, is the same as the historic king,

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Artaxerxes, powerful king of the Medes and the Persians. And he raises this

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Haman up to the highest level and even passes a law that everyone in the nation has to worship him when they see him.

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And so it says here that all the people do bow down in reverence Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him, but Mordecai bowed not nor did him reverence.

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And a few Sundays ago, I asked the question, why? Why did the Jew not bow down?

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Now we went into one portion in the scripture where we see the 10 commandments, the one in Deuteronomy.

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You don't need to turn there, still reviewing a little bit here, but chapter five, verses seven and eight, we see the first two commandments of the 10 commandments.

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And remember that while God himself was writing these with his finger in the stone, down at the bottom of the mount, the people of Israel had been missing

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Moses, thinking maybe he's not coming back and they decide we're gonna go back to the world. And so they melted down their gold, built a calf and began to worship it and to dance naked, that's

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Texan, dance. That's how we say it. And you know, the King James Bible is written in Texan.

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If you notice many times it has Texas words in it. So they began to dance.

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And the way you say it in Texan, naked. Not naked, but naked. And the irony of that is magnificent in itself or disgusting, whichever way you wanna put it.

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It's large, let's put it that way. And you're familiar with that story. But now look at the first two commandments.

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First one says, have no other gods before me. And the second one says, don't make graven images.

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And the two key words, if you remember, we studied were have and make. And that's what makes the two commandments rather than one, because it almost sounds like one commandment, doesn't it?

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But it's not, it's two different things. And so what we see is that mankind tends to make

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God's first with his own hands and begin to worship the work of his own hands. And that can lead to the deeper sin of worshiping all the gods of the world, the other nations of the world.

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And so we sort of took a look at that in pretty good detail last time.

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We went into Deuteronomy chapter four last time, and we're gonna move to a little different place.

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So you don't really need to turn there either. But in that passage, in Deuteronomy chapter four, verse 15, it starts out this way.

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Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves, for you saw no manner of similitude on the day that the

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Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire. God was very purposeful in speaking out of fire because he knew there was a tendency of man to worship things that he could see a figure of, a physical figure.

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And a similitude is, when we worship a similitude, it maybe perhaps is the precursor of worshiping the real thing that God has made.

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We make something that is similar to something that God made and we worship that.

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And then we can easily move from that to worshiping the things God made, instead of worshiping

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God. And this is the mistake of the ancient Hebrew even. And he would tend to go back to that after he left

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Egypt. Now we see here that there were three things we talked about in that little passage.

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One was the error itself. And it began by making a

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God and then worshiping the gods such as Moloch, the one who required infants to be sacrificed, children to be sacrificed to him.

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So they went from worshiping a golden calf to worshiping a God like that. And there's a lot to be learned about this as we study what the

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New Testament says about idolatry as well. And so why is it that Mordecai wouldn't bow down to this man while others might think, well, there's no harm in it.

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There's no harm in it. The king said to do it. Mordecai being a

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Jew had had it grilled into his mind and heart from the time he was a little child that there is one

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God and God is a jealous God. Now that little passage in Deuteronomy 4 talks about a lot of things.

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It talked about the error, but it also talked about the process. And you find that in verse six where it says, but if you shall at all turn from following me, you are your children and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which

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I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them. And then it continues and says, then

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I will cut you off from the land. But there's a little process there is they begin by turning from following me.

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Now that word turn is important because it implies that God's children are following him.

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And in order to go down this road that has caused so much anguish and destruction in Israel, the nation of Israel being a picture or an object lesson for the

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Christian is among other things, but that's one of the things that he is, is you watch this process of turning.

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And then as soon as they turn from God, the next step it says, they turn from the one who brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt to be unto him a people of inheritance.

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So first they turn and then they go, they go after the other gods.

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And then once they're there, they begin to serve them and worship them. And there's a little process that takes place.

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And it begins with something that they think is harmless and it ends up worshiping

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Moloch and presumably offering some of their own children to that false

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God. And so we talked a little bit about that process last time.

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And then the next point was that there is a result of it. When we go through those steps, we make something of our own hands, we begin to worship it.

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We put more of our affection on that than we do on the Lord himself. And then we go through this little process of turning and then a little process of coming around and beginning to notice other gods of whatever origin they might be.

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And then before you know it, we've not only gone after them, but we serve them and we worship them.

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And then we become slaves to the world system, which is pictured as they're taken off to Babylon and live as slaves.

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The same thing happens to us spiritually. As we go after the work of our own hands, which is the first step, we make our own gods first, may not be a molten calf, it might be a job, might be a hobby, might be a person, as we'll see a little bit later in this study.

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It might be anything, something that we love so much that it takes us away from God. And we now have made our own little

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God harmless, no one knows about it. But all of a sudden we're prone to spiritual warfare, because we've opened the door to it, and we're led off towards other things that might be more dangerous to ourselves and our families.

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And before you know it, you wake up and you find yourself a slave either to the flesh, some habit that you can't get free from, it absolutely lords over you, or the world system.

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Both are totally unnecessary, because as my mentor said so many times, he said, when

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Jesus Christ is your Lord, He frees you from every lesser Lord, frees you.

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The best word for saved, for salvation in the whole Bible, Old and New Testament, is the word delivered.

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Delivered, it's an ongoing process. We are delivered, no demon, no devil, the world system itself, and not even this own body of flesh we live in has any right to lord it over us in any area.

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The Apostle Paul said this, he said, all things are lawful for me, because the law was nailed to the cross.

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But, he said, not all things are expedient. In other words, they may be lawful, but they may not help me be closer to the

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Lord, so they're not expedient. But then he said this, and it's very fascinating, very powerful, he said, but I will tell you this,

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I'm gonna paraphrase this a little bit. He said, I'm gonna tell you this, it is a doctrinal fact that all things are lawful for me, because God has now written the law in my heart.

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I don't live by a list of rules, is what he's saying. It is also true not everything that I could do is something that I will do, because it's not expedient, it doesn't build me into a stronger

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Christian. But he said, I'm gonna tell you this, all of that is true, but this is true, he said,

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I will not be brought under bondage to any of it, to anything. Now that is a powerful

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Christian right there. He said, you know, there are things I could do, being freed from the law, there are things that I could do, but I won't be a slave to any of it.

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Now think about that. We are free, we are delivered, we stand in a position of having been delivered, and we are being delivered every moment.

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But as we've said so many times through this study, our walk with the Lord is a moment -by -moment thing. You can't get spirit, so many people teach, so many weird doctrines out there today, every wind of everything becomes a doctrine.

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It doesn't mean if Christians believed it for the last 2 ,000 years or not, if we invent it, it's got to be true.

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And this thing that you, well, I'm spirit -filled. Well, great, that sounds so good, I'm spirit -filled.

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What does that mean? Well, that means sometime back, oh, four years ago, I had this event that took place in my life, and since that time,

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I've been spirit -filled. That sounds awfully familiar to the Baptist concept of, well, I got saved.

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I got saved, well, tell me, when and where? Well, I can tell you exactly when and where it was. Was is the key word.

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You see, salvation was, that is true, but it also is, and it also shall be.

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In fact, it's taught in the Bible in all three tenses, and the thing is, the most important one of all of them is the now, because who did

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God say he is? I just gave you a hint, only I said it in bad grammar.

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He said, who is he? I am. God the Father dwells in the present, if you want to say it that way, it's hard to speak of it, but he's outside of time, he's not bound by time, but every moment in our life, we make a decision whether we're gonna hold

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Jesus' hand, in which case I am spirit -filled, in which case I cannot sin during that moment, 1

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John teaches that clearly, or to let go of that hand and revert to the old man and let the brain that is part of the old man, which has been filled with everything good and evil that there is, and let that brain run me.

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I have those two choices every moment, and the Christian walk is a walk of deciding more moments to be connected, to be one with Jesus spiritually, which is pictured, by the way, by the physical union in marriage, and that's why

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God hates it when that type is destroyed. It's a type of the union that we're to have in that moment, every moment, each moment by moment.

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What a great walk, and yet what happens is to God's people, we turn. What does that mean?

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We turn from what? We turn from holding that hand. Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing, so we let go of the hand and we proceed to think we're going to do something, and once we make that turn, there is a vast world of other gods out there, and even our own flesh will lead us towards destruction and the enemies we have, the world, the flesh, and the devil.

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As David said, my enemies are many, and they hate me with cruel hatred, and our enemies are three, but they hate us with cruel hatred, and so here we have this taking place.

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Now, Mordecai refuses to get involved with it, right? And we begin to see why, because he understood this.

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Now, today, let's go down to 1 Kings, if you would turn there, chapter nine, 1 Kings chapter nine.

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I want you to start with about verse seven. Solomon had been promised by the

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Lord already that if he and his people would follow

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God, keep his commandments, that there would never fail a man from his lineage to sit on the throne of David.

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That promise has been made, but then in verse six, it says, but if you shall at all turn, you see that word turn comes into play many times.

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If you turn from following me, you see the predominant desire of the new man is to follow

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God, is it not? It's the only desire of the new man. The new man cannot sin, will not sin.

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So as the new man holds the hand of Jesus Christ and walks filled with his spirit and exhibits the fruits of the spirit, the old man would like to turn a different direction.

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And we see that we're all truly schizophrenics right now, but that'll be alleviated someday.

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We talked about it at Sunday school. When the rapture takes place and we're changed in the air, you're only gonna go one direction, isn't that great?

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You're only gonna go one direction at that point. But now we have to deal with this dual nature that we realize is part of reality in time and space for us.

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Therefore, we have to always be thinking about what we're thinking about. Rocky Freeman used to say the whole battle of spiritual warfare occurs between your ears.

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And so if we will make sure that our new man is in control of that thought process of that brain, we'll stay out of trouble.

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We won't turn from the Lord as long as we monitor that and the new man stays in control and causes this body, even in its fallen state, to serve the living

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God because it's under servitude to my new man. That's the way this body is supposed to be, by the way. It is the temple of the living

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God. It is built to serve God, but it won't do it because of the fall. It won't do it, it's depraved.

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Depraved like you can't get more depraved. You're either depraved or you're not. You know what I'm saying? So it is totally depraved.

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And it will not go in the direction of God ever. Know that and fear that and make sure that your new man monitors that every moment in the moment and that's how we walk as a

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Christian. Now, here's what happens if we don't live that life.

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If we refuse to do that and we experience this turning process. If you shall turn from following me, you are your children and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which

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I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then will I cut off Israel out of the land which

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I have given them. Now we start to see the result of turning after other gods, creating our own gods and worshiping other gods as all of a sudden they're cut off out of the land.

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Now that land picture, it is the promised land, it pictures abundant Christian living. The abundant life that Jesus promised us that we can have, but without me, you can do nothing.

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That life. When we turn the other way and we don't walk filled with the spirit of God, hand in hand with Jesus Christ and we walk our own way in the flesh by having turned another way, we are cut off during those moments.

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We are cut off from victorious Christian living and we are slaves in Babylon or Egypt, whichever type you wanna pick during those moments and we're making bricks without even any straw.

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It is a hard life, it's a burdensome life and the people that live more moments in that life, it shows on their face.

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They're gonna have more wrinkles, they're gonna look older faster and it just shows.

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It's a hard life being a slave and Satan will put you to the task and make you think everything's going great for a while perhaps.

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So he goes on and he says, I will cast them out of my sight and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people, which we know the history there and we know that's how they were up until the time of World War II.

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They were scattered in every nation that was. Every nation hates Jews and because of the catastrophe from the human viewpoint of the eight some odd million

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Jews killed by Hitler, the world system felt sorry for them for a moment, just a long enough moment to allow the creation of the modern nation of Israel, which was of course in fulfillment of prophecy.

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So they now have their nation, but they're still hated. But it shall be astonished and shall hiss and they shall say, why hath the

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Lord done this into this land and to this house? And they shall answer this, because they forsook the

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Lord their God. This answer is still being shouted out in churches around the world with regard to the

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Jew and to the Orthodox Jewish person today. Why is it that they stand there predominantly agnostic today?

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They had two choices they could choose after World War II. And I've had

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Jewish scholars tell me this. These were their two choices. Number one, either

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God was there and he wouldn't help us or number two, he was there, but he couldn't help us.

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They picked number two. Now what kind of God is that?

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A God who couldn't help us. He's a God who like when I was a kid on the front of, what was it?

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Not Time Magazine. Which one? Big magazine it was, by the way, it doesn't exist anymore.

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Life Magazine. It said God is dead. Didn't really mean God is dead. It just meant

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God's up there like this, just doesn't care anymore. He may be there, he may not be there. He just, he doesn't have anything to do with what's going on.

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That's what the predominant Jewish thought and philosophy is today. And it's sad, but it's the way it is.

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And we ask, well, why is that? Why is that? Because they answered, they forsook the

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Lord their God. Now, is that not a warning to us in some fashion? Is that not a warning?

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I understand Israel is a physical people. They had the law for physical people on the earth and we are a spiritual people seated at the right hand with Jesus right now.

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According to the book of Ephesians, it's different in that sense, but it is an object lesson in the physical to teach us spiritual truths.

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When we walk away from God in our heart, and I know that can translate to our feet and hands as well, and it does, but sin starts in the mind and in the heart.

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And when we go there, we are forsaken God and woe be to us if it can ever be said about us as well.

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Here's what happened to them is because they forsook their God who brought them out and their fathers out of the land of Egypt.

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Egypt, that means we all in this room, if you're born again today in a small church like that, you know,

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I have my theories about everybody in the room and I sense that everybody's a brother and a sister.

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I know I can be wrong about that, but I sense that. But here's what's interesting about that is that if that is true,

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God has already delivered us from Egypt. That's the world system. From Pharaoh, that's the devil.

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And from the onions and the locks, that's the flesh. He gave us manna instead. He's already delivered us.

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And yet it says, the one who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and delivered them and yet have taken hold upon other gods and have worshiped them and served them, therefore hath the

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Lord brought upon them all this evil. So the first thing that you find now, all of a sudden we see the result.

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Now the result has about three different parts to it. The first one is they're overwhelmed. God's people will be totally overwhelmed as they make this move away from God and the enemy then enslaves them.

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And for us, it's more subtle sometimes because it's spiritual and it's in the heart and mind. It's not as physical as we see a whole nation in Jerusalem destroyed.

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It's not that vivid sometimes because it's more subtle, but it's the life being destroyed brick at a time, sometimes more than one brick.

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And it's the same process, but it's in the spiritual realm. Turn to Psalm 81 with me.

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So we see now the result of turning from God and following other gods is first, they were overwhelmed.

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All of this evil came upon them. They're overwhelmed by it. And as we go into Psalm 81, we're gonna see some little sub points of this.

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So let's look at it together. Sing aloud unto

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God our strength, make a joyful noise unto God of Jacob. Take a psalm and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery.

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Isn't it interesting how God lists stringed instruments, drums, pipes, all these different instruments that are brought into the worship of God.

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Blow up the trumpet. Now that sounds an interesting way to play an instrument, doesn't it,

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Paul? Blow it up. I'll tell you, man, son, get up there and blow up that guitar. Ben and Matt, blow up those keyboards.

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Blow up the trumpet in the new moon in the time appointed on our solemn feast.

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For this was a statute for Israel and a law of the God of Jacob. This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony when he went out through the land of Egypt where I heard a language that I understood not.

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Did you know that the first mention of what the English says, tongue speaking, is actually found in the

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Old Testament? And it had to do with them hearing, being judged and going into bondage and hearing a language that they couldn't understand was the very first mention of that.

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That's kind of interesting, I think. So tongues in the Bible is always, from the beginning, first mention of it in the

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Bible, it's always other languages. It's not some gibberish. But anyway, I just rabbit -trailed, thought I would mention that.

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Most of you know that anyway. So he goes on and says, this he ordained in Joseph for a testimony when he went through and he heard language that I understood not.

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I removed his shoulder from the burden. His hands were delivered from the pots.

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Now we start to see a description of being freed from slavery, the kind of slavery and bondage that comes when we live in sin.

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When we make that choice to let go of that hand, that hand of Jesus, we decide, well, I'm gonna let go of it and I'm gonna see where this brain and this body can take me.

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I'm just gonna let it free will here. And then all of a sudden,

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God had already delivered us from the bondage of the world, the flesh and the devil, where we were under a burden and we put the shoulder to the burden to build things for the

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Egyptians, for the world system, you see. And he delivered us from the pots, from carrying the water and all the things that the slaves do.

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God delivered us from that. Thou callest in trouble and I delivered thee, he says.

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I answered thee in the secret place of thunder. I proved thee at the waters of Meribah, Siloam.

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Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee, O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me, there shall no strange

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God be in thee, neither shalt thou worship any strange God. Remember that I set you free from Egypt and all of their gods.

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And I am one God and I've looked around and there is no other. And he's saying,

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I have freed you from this. If you get in trouble and you slip back into it, he says, hear me,

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I testify to you that I have delivered you and I will answer you in a secret place if you come back to me.

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Now, there is a place for repentance. In the book of Judges is just a cycle, an endless cycle of that again and again.

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They would go back into slavery. God would raise up a savior, which pictured

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Jesus Christ, a judge. And they would turn back to God on their knees in prayer and get back to the word of God and he would bring them out into freedom again and again.

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There shall no strange God be before thee. Verse 10 says, I am the Lord thy

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God, which brought thee out of the land. Now, I want you to look at these little sub points and we'll be done for today.

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But here's what happens if we turn from God. I hate to say it, but I could almost put it this way.

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When we turn from God, rather than saying if. When we turn from God, but not that I expect us to, but I'm just saying,

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I think I like if better. I'm not gonna assume that you and I will, but if we turn from God.

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And I don't know how many moments it might be. We're going to go back into bondage at that time.

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We're going to carry a burdensome task that Jesus had already freed us from. We're going to have to put the shoulder back to that and start making those bricks again.

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And it's going to show on the life, on the face and the countenance, in the body language, in the works of our hands or lack thereof.

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But if we see ourselves in the midst of that and we cry out to God and say, that is not where I'm supposed to be.

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You have set me free. It is my fault that I'm back here. I want to be free.

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This is not me. This is not my life. And we reach out and we hold that hand again.

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Then we see about four things that happen. Here's the first one. A restoration of freedom.

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Verse 10 says, and I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it.

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We don't need the world system to get the stuff we think we need. If we're holding

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Jesus' hand and we just open our mouth wide and say, Lord, my family is here.

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It's my responsibility to take care of this family. We feel that we need this.

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If we don't redirect my prayer life in another direction, but right now we feel that we need this. Would you provide this?

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He says, open your mouth and I will fill it. But my people would not hearken to my voice and Israel would none of me.

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Why? It's easier to make ourselves a list to follow of things to do and things not to do.

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It's easier to busy ourselves about the work of the world and just to try to build our character and be a good person and work on it.

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You know, I'm gonna work on this and I'm gonna get better and better. All of those things are easier for some of us than just to reach the hand out and say,

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Lord, I'm just gonna walk with you today. I want your life to be my life and my life to be your life.

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I'm one with you as married couple are one, only spiritually. I am one with you. I'm one spirit with your spirit.

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Let's go into the day together. Why is that so hard? It's the last thing mankind wants to do.

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Even God's people don't wanna do it. That's why we have so many churches, Christian churches today, filled with people this morning that have all this stuff, programs, they got lined out for the entire stinking week and they're not even gonna have time with their families because they got all this church stuff they're doing every night of the week.

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And guess what? It won't replace that thing in the heart. It won't replace the one true

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God. It will just detract from him because it's man -made.

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And we see all these lessons, but the thing that God wants us to have is freedom. He wants us to have the freedom to walk hand in hand and then when we need something to say,

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Lord, I need this. And it says, if you open your mouth and speak to him, say, Lord, I need this and he will fill it.

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Now, let me just tell you something. That's how it's going to be in the next age. You understand that?

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You're not gonna need money. You're like, you're not gonna have to go buy something.

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You're gonna say, Lord, we need, our family needs this and it will be provided.

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And God is saying, look, you're seated with me in the heavenlies right now. Look around.

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You're in Christ. You're seated. You're in Christ. Christ is seated at the right hand of the throne of the father.

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You're in Christ. You're seated there. All you have to do is ask. Now, I'm not talking about name it and claim it.

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Now, I think I say that for the benefit of our visitors. Everybody else here knows I'm not saying that. But what is the proper use of prayer?

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What is true prayer? True prayer is knowing what to ask because you're already holding his hand and you're walking with him and you're talking.

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And he places by his Holy Spirit into your spirit, the desire and the need and you ask for it.

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And it came from God anyway. And he will fill it. But no, my people would not hearken to me.

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And I hate this phrase here. Israel would none of me. It doesn't even say the word have.

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My people would none of me. That is just sad.

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It's heartbreaking. And that's exactly where we are in the moment when we let go of that hand.

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It's a moment by moment thing. We will choose to walk with him this moment and the next moment we let go of the hand and we would none of him.

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Because let me tell you a secret. You can't sin if you have him. So we would none of him and then we'll sin.

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Sometimes we sin because we want to sin so we would none of him on purpose. And here it all is laid out already there.

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We just look at this, it's like looking in a mirror. But what does he promise us? Freedom if we'll just grab the hand and hold the hand and walk with Jesus spirit filled.

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Here's the danger though. If we don't, if we have too many moments where we would none of him, look at verse 12.

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So I gave them up to their own heart's lust and they walked in their own counsels.

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All of a sudden the thoughts in their own mind led them the wrong direction. Frightening, isn't it?

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But it's real. This is what we call spiritual warfare and we're in it, we're in the midst of it.

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Oh that my people had hearkened unto me and Israel had walked in my ways.

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Look what he says. First thing was he already offered freedom. Here's the second thing. If they just walk in my ways, look at this.

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I should soon have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversary rather than against them.

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I added the last phrase. Now I got that from the previous scripture by the way. Power is the second thing.

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Freedom is the first thing. Power is the second thing. Why do we need power? Because I'm gonna tell you something.

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The flesh may be the worst enemy we have. May be the most powerful enemy we have because it surrounds us.

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It's with us all the time. If you wanna know when you need power and I don't recommend this to the young people.

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Most of the children are somewhere else but I don't recommend this for them. But if you think you need power, find yourself in the midst of a sinful fleshly habit.

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And you know where most Bible indicates where it starts? In your youth. In your youth, something is open.

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This is why I don't advocate the pagan playground because somewhere on that playground something is gonna be open to your child and they're gonna try it with their flesh.

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They're gonna try it and it's gonna titillate them. I love that old word, don't you? Miss B's the only one who knows what that word even means.

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And she's laughing so it must be a funny word. But that's going to happen and their flesh is gonna like that.

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Their little flesh is gonna like that. Then they're gonna grow up and they're gonna learn about this battle and they're gonna be in the midst of it and when they get old, their flesh is gonna go back to it from time to time.

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Pathetic, isn't it? But you know what? When you have power, you don't have to go back to it.

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Now if you've got freedom, what does that tell you? There's your position. Positionally, you have been freed from every lesser

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Lord. None of them have a right to make you do anything and now you have power, which means you don't have to do it.

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Don't the scriptures say with every temptation there is provided a way of escape? Every, how many is that?

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All of them. So you can't say, well, God gave me this weakness, can you?

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You can't say, well, I just grew up with parents that didn't teach me that, can you? There is an escape for every temptation.

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You never have to sin. And then this power, look at this. Oh, that my people had hearkened unto me and walked in my ways.

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Look, you just grab his hand and you walk spirit -filled. Look what he says, I should.

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Now you gotta remember in the old English, should can mean would. Should usually means would. So you might as well say,

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I would soon have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversary.

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Now notice the word soon. I'm liking this too much, it's past lunchtime, isn't it? But notice the word soon.

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What does that word tell us? Not instantly, but soon.

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That means for a moment, you're going to face the enemy. For a moment, you're gonna be in the midst of battle with the enemy.

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Soon I will, what does he say he'll do? Subdue. In a little bit,

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I will subdue your enemies and turn my hand against your adversary, the world, the flesh, and the devil.

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He will do it. You might have to wait a moment. You might have to endure for a moment because after all, many times we put ourselves in that place anyway, didn't we?

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By turning the other way, letting go of his hand. Now we're in that place. Now the enemy has had a right to come in.

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And there we are. And now we come back to the Lord just like the Jews did. We come back and say, Lord, here

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I am again. I hate this. I hate this is not me. Please forgive me.

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Cleanse me. Give me power. Let me walk with Jesus like a Christian should walk. And you find that enemy is still there.

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You've been taught by the charismatics, everybody else in the world, that oh, you know, you can speak it and God's obligated to make it happen.

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No, he's not. He's sovereign. He is sovereign. We're not. He's not obligated. So you're going to think he's late, but he's always on time.

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So if you just, if you will, if you will resist the devil, he will flee from you.

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If you flee from fleshly temptation, you can escape the sin.

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All of these things are in the scripture for us. And what he says is I will soon subdue those enemies and turn my hand against your adversary, which means this.

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You can be free from a sin habit. Do you understand me? You don't have to do it again.

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You can be free from anything that is not of the Lord here. And this is what's so beautiful because not only does he see, the truth is positionally you're already free.

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That's powerful just to know that. Positionally, you're already free. You're not owned by any lower

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Lord. Satan, however, usurps authority that's not rightfully his, does he not?

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The King Saul was a beautiful picture of that when he was still on the throne, even after God had said, you're not the king anymore,

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David is. But Saul stayed on it for a while. That is a beautiful picture of the enemy hanging around unrightfully.

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And yet God says, but soon, soon he's not gonna be on that throne.

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So many applications there. But in our own lives, this walk that we're trying to develop where we walk with the

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Lord rather than in the old ways of our life, he will subdue the enemy if you just keep holding that hand.

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That is the key because that's where the freedom comes from. That's where the power comes from. Now, I like that too much, but let's see, there's a couple here

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I don't like as much so I can do them really fast. I should soon have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries.

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Verse 15 says, the haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him.

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But their time should have endured forever. Interesting verse, but let's just put it this way.

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You will have a witness when you're walking hand in hand with the Lord. Your life will be a witness. Your voice will be a witness, even to the haters of God.

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Not that they'll all get saved because they never will all get saved. Some will, some won't, but your life will be a witness.

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And then verse 16 says this. He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat and with honey out of the rock, that's a picture of Jesus, should

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I have satisfied thee. So there is prosperity. And you might put it this way, peace.

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So we see freedom, we see power, we see our life becoming a light and salt like it's supposed to be, which it cannot be when we're in the midst of a sin habit.

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It's not salt and light. And then prosperity and peace.

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Isn't it wonderful? It's all right there. It's already happened thousands of years ago to God's people. It's still happening today.

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It's still available today. Let's stand and have prayer together. Father, we thank you for your word.

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It is so delightful. It is sweeter than honey.

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It gives us strength like meat. It gives us encouragement.

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It strengthens our faith. And thank you for the fellowship we have when we come together, which also increases our faith because we have mutual faith together.

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Lord, thank you for ordaining a day that we can meet together and worship you together, study and learn from you.

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We ask you to go with us into this time of fellowship we're about to have. Bless the meal we're gonna have together and our afternoon service as well.