Book of Esther - Part 18

Park Meadows Church

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Let's go into Esther 7 and this is an amazing concept when you understand that the

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Bible says in the New Testament that God gave the Old Testament for types and patterns for those of us who live in the end of the age.

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So when you find an Old Testament story, God himself said in the New Testament that he gave the

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Old Testament as a picture of spiritual stuff going on in your individual life.

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So it's here, it's like a puzzle, God put it together like a puzzle because he wants you to study. He doesn't want you to just come here and listen, he wants you to go home and open that book up yourselves and study it and see what you can find in there.

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I would advise you to do this, find you a friend or a spouse, either one, sometimes your spouse is your friend.

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If not, then do the friend and have coffee once a week for an hour with somebody and just ask questions about the

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Bible and try to answer them together like I did with Brother Otis and I do with my young men now still.

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If you will do that, you'll grow even faster because church has its place,

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God's ordained it and this is ordained of God that we come together and be encouraged but there needs to be personal Bible study going on throughout the week.

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If that happens, you really grow and I don't remember which preacher said it years ago but the old quote that sin will keep you from the

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Bible but the Bible will keep you from sin is so true. The Bible will keep you from sin, the

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Bible itself says that these words will sanctify you. Isn't that something? So we never need to be so prideful that we think last year's doctrinal study works for today because it doesn't.

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It's got to be new every day. It's like the manna in the wilderness.

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God sent the manna, put it all out on the ground, they went out, grabbed it, ate it, it tasted like angel food they said but God told them the thing is don't keep it because tomorrow it's going to rot so you have to go out and get the new bread in the morning.

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Why do you think he did it that way? It is another picture, another type, it is a picture of the word of God and how it works in our lives.

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You got to go get it fresh every day. If you don't, you will be carnal. Does everybody know what carnal means?

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It means you'll walk just like the lost people do and do the same stuff they do and say the same words they do and think the same thoughts they do because you're no different, you're no better.

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Your body deserves one thing and that's death and that's the reason why God had no answer for how to fix us.

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So he just crucified us in Christ, hallelujah. He crucified us because there was no way to fix us.

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So he crucified us and gave birth to a new man inside of each of us and that's called the new man or the spiritual man and 1

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John says he never will sin nor can he sin. So there's your answer but it's moment by moment.

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You decide every moment will I walk in the flesh or the spirit and if you don't decide to walk in the spirit, you just decided de facto by doing nothing to walk in the flesh because that's what's natural.

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So you have to make a willful decision to walk in the spirit and the more moments you do that, then others will see you as a spiritual person or a carnal person and that's just how it is because that's the truth.

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The ones that walk more moments in the spirit are the spiritual people and none of us have the whole package though, do we?

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We all fail and fall short, do we not? As Apostle Paul says, we have not yet attained but we're moving.

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You know what? We're running as fast as we can run towards that finish line and we should not be looking back all that much.

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Brother Otis taught me a lot about that. He said, you know, the stuff you think was mistakes in your past, they weren't mistakes.

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They were instruments in God's hand to make you be a better person, stronger person and be the very person you're going to be when you meet him face to face.

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He said, they're not mistakes. Quit looking at them and beating up on yourself. So we're all in that boat so we got to just put your eyes on that finish line and just move, keep running, keep resisting.

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People that jump out in front of you and try to stop you, just knock them down and go right on past them, keep going.

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Start with verse three because we've already covered some of this. Then Esther, the queen answered and said, if I have found favor in thy sight,

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O king, and if it pleased the king, and she's about to ask for some stuff because for three days he's been saying, what is it you want, woman?

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You came into my presence, I know you want something. I'll give you half my kingdom, just ask. She wouldn't ask.

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Now she's about to ask. Now what I'm going to tell you here, if you weren't here last time, I think everybody was though, is that here we have some types here.

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We have some patterns. What you're going to see here is that the king is going to be, this is odd because he's a pagan king, but the way

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God is using this story, he's going to use that king as a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's going to use

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Haman as a picture of the adversary who is the devil. He's going to use

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Esther and the people, the Jews, as a picture of you, the Christian individual.

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Their whole undertaking is a picture of your life that is full of trouble. Esther wouldn't even have been there if her parents hadn't have both died.

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She wouldn't even have been there if the whole nation had not been destroyed by the Babylonians in war and they were taken captive and drug halfway across the known world to Babylon to serve as slaves.

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She wouldn't even have been here. And yet God raised her up and put her as the queen married to the king, which is like you going through all the stuff you've been through, and yet you get to be married to Jesus.

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You are the bride of Christ. Think about that. All of this is pictured in this little story. And if you see that, all of a sudden the story gets like several other layers.

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And so look at this. She's got this plan because God put it in her mind and she said, well, here's what

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I request. You've been wondering for three days. Here's what I want. I don't want gold. I don't want land. Here's what I want.

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I want my life. I want you to give me my life back. That is my petition.

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And I also ask for the life of my people. That means my family. Now, gentlemen, this is a great sermon for you today.

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You are the spiritual leader of your home. Your wife is way more susceptible to demon activity than you are.

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Your children are far more susceptible to that than you are. You need to be praying for them every day and every night before they go to sleep.

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Lord, we belong to you. Satan has no possession of this house or this household or this family.

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If there are any demons here tonight hovering around here, rebuke them. Bind them and send them away from this house.

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That's how you pray. That is how you pray. And that is what the Lord will do if you ask him to do it.

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And your children and your wife will be protected. Then pray for yourself.

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Maybe even do that first, not necessarily in this order, you know, pray for yourself first, the Lord would protect your mind, your heart, make you be a good man, not a bad man.

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Not a normal man, but a good man, you know what I'm saying? So Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing.

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So none of this works without him. And so here we go. She says, I want you to give me my life and my family.

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Now, that's a picture of someone praying a protective prayer over the whole family.

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Someone has got to be doing that. Moms, by the way, I know your prayers are even more powerful, but the man better be doing it because if he doesn't, you may get weak and quit doing it.

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So but the mom's prayers are very, very extremely powerful. And the prayers together are like.

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Like a rock, they're like a fortress around that family. So I pray for me, but I pray for my life, but I want

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I want life for my family. Who is she thinking can destroy her and her family?

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This one that she's going to call the adversary. He is pictured by a man named

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Haman in this story, but we battle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in spiritual wickedness in high places.

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And it is not Haman that's the problem. It's Satan that's the problem. And he has energized

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Haman's mind to attack God's people because he hates God. He could care less about you. He hates the one you love, which is

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Jesus. He hates him. He hates him. He hates him. My theory is he woke up one day, he had just been created by Jesus, and he woke up and he saw

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Jesus standing there and he figured he had been created, too. And he said, well, I'm better than you. I'm prettier than you. And he just went on from there.

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He's hated him from the day he laid eyes on him. That's what I think about Lucifer. But anyway, so he hates you with, as King David said, cruel hatred.

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He hates you with cruel hatred. And so here she says, if that's true, if my enemy hates me with cruel hatred and hates my whole family and would kill every one of us, then that is my petition.

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My king, give me my life. Give me the life of my family. Think about that.

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If you think you can just walk through life without praying that prayer, you'll be taught differently. And here it goes.

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For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish.

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That's a bad end. That's a triple end. To be destroyed, to be slain, to be perished.

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Who were they sold by? Well, we know in the story, but spiritually, what is this picturing?

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I'm going to tell you what, you got sold out by your own parents and their names were

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Adam and Eve. They sold you out because they made a willful decision of their heart and mind and they did exactly what they wanted to in that garden and they wanted that fruit and they got it.

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And they did not care about you when they did that. The natural affection that they should have had for their future children, they lost it for a lapsed few moments.

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And they took that fruit and they ate it. They didn't give a flip about you. Oh, they may have been sorrowful later, but at the time they were enjoying the fruit, they didn't care.

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So they sold you out. And by right of conquest, Satan became the little

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G God of this world on that moment, he became the Lord of this world. By right of conquest, he began to rule over man at that moment.

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And I'm going to tell you something, he does not need new tricks. All he needs is a new audience. So every time you guys raise up a generation of young people about y 'all's age, you don't even know what

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Satan does, so he doesn't need anything new. He's going to do the same stuff to you that he did to us, us older guys and gals.

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He'll do the same stuff and we're going to tell you he's going to do it and he's still going to do it. Is that frightening or what?

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We can tell you to what to watch out for and you will still succumb to it because he's that good.

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So dads, mom, do you think you might need to be praying this prayer? Lord, I pray for life for me.

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I just ask for my life because I've been sold out. I pray for my life and that of my children and my people, for we were sold,

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I and my people, we were sold to be destroyed, to be slain, to perish. Now, look at this.

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Verse five. Then the king, now he pictured Jesus in this story. He answered and said unto

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Esther, the bride, who is he? If I were

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Haman right now, I'd be shaken. King said, who did this? I'm not aware of this.

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Who did this? Where is he? Who is he and where is he? Now, why don't you think about that a minute?

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I know you're going to go through trouble in your lives and your family, but when you do, rather than giving up, what

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I want you to do is realize that you're one breath away from talking to your king and telling him your problem.

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And he goes back and says, who did this and where are they? Just tell me that. And they just kind of let me take care of it from here.

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Listen, ladies and gentlemen, there is not anything more powerful than that. You can't fix, you can't finagle and beat that.

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You can't plan and work your way around and figure all this stuff out and beat that.

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All you need to do is just tell him, just make the request.

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And Esther said, the adversary, the enemy, that's who did this.

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Listen, Haman is a picture of Satan. That's who you point to when you're telling your king that you're having trouble.

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And you say, he desires my life and that of my family.

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First Peter 5, 8 said, be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walking about seeking whom he may devour.

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That's who we're talking about here. Adversary is an interesting word in the Greek language. It's two little words as so many of them are decay, which means right and justice.

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And the word anti, we say it that way in English, same, it's the same word in Greek, anti, it means the opposite.

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So you put those two words together, it means the opposite of right. That's who the adversary is.

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He's the opposite of everything that's right. And that's who we battle against.

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But the interesting thing is our king wants to know who it is and where he is because it's his battle, really. Verse 7, and the king arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath, that is a picture of God, God has wrath, and the marvelous thing is that when you're standing on his side, his wrath is against your enemy.

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And he went out into the palace garden and Haman stood up and began to shake and he made requests for his life to Esther, the queen, for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king.

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And then the king returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine and Haman had fallen over on the bed where the queen.

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Now, I remember it's a couch where they're eating food. It's not like bedroom. It's that's how they used to eat. He had fallen on the couch and begging for his life.

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And the king comes in and sees that and he said, what are you trying to do, force my wife? And he went like that and the servants came in and put a hood over Haman's head, carried him immediately out and hung him because he had broken the law.

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He had lain with the wife of the king or attempted to.

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All the king had to say, I think that's what he's trying to do. And he didn't have to tell the servants what to do.

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There were no orders issued. They just came. They put a hood over his head. They took him out and they hung him on the same scaffold he had built to hang the

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Jew. Now, tell me that is not a picture of Satan as he's standing there smiling when

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Jesus is nailed to that cross. And he is standing there smiling, saying, I got this one fixed.

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I won this. And Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

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And Satan just rejoicing in his evil, dark heart. And then all of a sudden, Jesus says, it is finished.

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And Satan starts thinking, I wonder what he meant by that. And then all of a sudden he starts trembling and he says, you know what?

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I think I'm in trouble. And the rest is history and the rest is the future as well.

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Now, it's interesting. The last little passage in Esther that we studied, there was a parallel passage in Colossians chapter one.

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This passage we just looked at, there's a parallel passage in Colossians chapter two. So turn with me to verse eight.

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Let's just look at this for a minute or two or three. And this passage in Colossians two, starting with verse eight says, beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit.

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Now, we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about our adversary, the same one that Esther had.

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Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit with the tradition of men after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ.

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That is a great verse for any college student to read and study and any person that's about to go to college to read and study, because this is going to be done to you when you get to college.

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I don't care where you go. You can go to Christian college. You can go to any college. Doesn't matter where you go. They're going to begin to try to spoil you and tell you how stupid your parents are.

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And they're going to do it through these things that are mentioned, and there's about four of them mentioned there, four or five of them mentioned.

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And we could study that at a later time. We might just do that. But let's go on to verse nine. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the

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Godhead bodily. Now that's talking about Jesus. That seems like a quick change in topic, doesn't it?

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First verse, he talks about the world system and the men of the world and how they're going to spoil you.

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And then he quickly changes the topic and talks about Jesus said, but wait a minute. The truth is,

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Jesus is the one that in that body, in his body, the whole God had dwelled in there.

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That's how powerful the one is who's going to protect you. And that's why that verse was put in there. He's the one who will protect you against the philosophy and vain deceit tradition of in the rudiments of the world.

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Jesus Christ will protect you from that. And you are complete in him. Complete doesn't mean you're perfect in the sense of sinless.

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What it means is you have all the equipment, all of the armor, you have everything you need to make it through this life.

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If you're in Christ. You're not lacking in anything you may think you are, but you are not, and that is a positional truth that God says and God can't lie.

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So you are complete. Every man, woman, boy and girl in here has all the equipment to walk a victorious life in this world and not fall to this enemy and not be destroyed by him.

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You have you are complete in Christ, who is the head of all principality and power.

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And who is that referring to? It says he is the head of all principality and power.

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We battle not against flesh and blood, but against what principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places.

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And Jesus is the head of that. Satan is the head of that. Jesus is the head of Satan. You understand what I'm saying?

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He is the head of all that. He is not weaker than that. He is stronger than that. He that is in me is stronger than he that's in the world.

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You are equipped. You are complete in him. You're not complete in the flesh, though. In the flesh, you're as weak as any lost person ever was, maybe weaker because you have an enemy that could care less about the lost person.

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But he really would like to screw up your family and destroy your life and mess everything up in your testimony.

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Am I correct about that? So he is focused on you, not them. He doesn't have to focus on them. By nature, they follow him.

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He is focused on you and your family and wants to rip it apart. Now, here's the thing about it is you are complete in Christ, who is

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Christ. He is all of the fullness of the Godhead in a body. It does not get more powerful than that king.

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And that king is standing there saying, who did that and where is he? Are you listening to me?

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Who did that and where is he? Just tell me. All you have to do is tell me and I will go after him. Do you believe that, ladies and gentlemen?

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Listen, if you believe that, then the next time an unclean thought comes in your mind. Say, Lord Jesus, you know,

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I'm yours. I don't even like that thought. Would you give me the mind of Christ right now?

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And do you know what? If you really believe that that this is true, all you have to do is tell him who is it and where it is. You say it's right here.

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It's Satan and he's right here. And Jesus will run him off. Try it.

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Try it. I guarantee you it works. How do you think a man can get up here and preach?

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Have you ever thought about that? You think about how how any man can come up here and preach the holy word of God.

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He better not, unless he says, dear Jesus, give me the mind of Christ. Where is he?

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Who is he? Satan. And he's been in my mind. Get him out of here. Don't let him stay there. Cover me with the blood of Jesus and anoint me to preach the gospel because I am not worthy.

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You are complete in him, which is the head of everything that is in whom also now look at verse 11.

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You are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.

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Now, do you understand that this is a physical picture? Of a cutting off of the flesh.

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That's what circumcision pictures in the physical world. Spiritually, the

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Bible is telling you de facto just as true as it is that Adam and Eve.

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Sold you out because Satan defeated them. By right of conquest, it is equally true that Jesus on that cross that day, especially three days later, when he came out of that grave, he defeated

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Satan de facto by right of conquest. And Jesus now owns you and Satan has no right to you.

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Do you understand that? It's the same rules of law of war. Jesus went by the same rules of war that Satan did.

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And Jesus is the victim. I mean, that Adam and Eve did and Satan. And now Jesus is the victor. And the truth is, you'll see it here at the end of this passage, how powerful this is.

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But I'm just telling you that right now, what Jesus is telling you is, look, I understand the flesh. I came down and lived in it.

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I was tempted in all points as you and yet without sin, he said, you have you thought about that for a minute?

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He was a man, gentlemen. So you among all the people in the crowd understand what that means. He was a man.

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He had a woman come in and take oil and put it on her hair and kneel down and bathe his feet with that.

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How would you have reacted to that? You want to know how he reacted to it?

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He said, I know the condition of her soul and I'm going to help her. I've already helped her.

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I'm going to help her more. I'm going to help her to be a pure woman. This woman was a prostitute.

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He said, I'm going to make her a saint. I'm going to make her one of the most powerful women that ever walked on this earth.

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I'm going to make her be one of the only women that will follow me all the way to the cross because the spiritual things had nothing to do with the fleshly things about me.

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That's how he was thinking, gentlemen. Can you think that way about the next young girl that walks down the street with the wrong attire this, you know, and you have to look out your car window and see that.

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Can you think that way? You you won't naturally think that way. And I think it was

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Billy Graham that said it's not the first thought that it's the sin, it's what you do after that is that was that him that said something like that.

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So, gentlemen, what you do is you say, Lord, give me the mind of Christ. Let me think about that young woman. I might could even be a help to her.

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Let me think about her like you do right now. And you know what? Just like that.

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It's like he said, who is it? Where is he? And you told him, what's the devil? And he's in my mind.

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Would you please get rid of him? He says, it's my pleasure. And he runs him off and you can be then a good man, you can be a godly man.

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Look at this. You are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh by Christ.

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Jesus Christ has performed an operation on every one of you that's here today that is born again, what he has done is he has made it possible for you to cut the flesh aside where it does not run you.

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And that's what he means by he has already done this doesn't mean he has to do it. He means he's already done it when he was crucified and raised again.

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You were buried with him spiritually and you came out of the grave with him, which means you had that your old man is dead now and you have a resurrected life.

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And that life is a powerful life against sin. It will not even sin. It can't. So as long as it's in control, you can't sin.

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So as long as you put your hand in Jesus's in a moment, you say, I will walk with you for this moment. You just cut the flesh off.

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It won't bother you. Think about that. That's powerful information. I wish we could tell the whole world that.

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Verse 11 is great, but look at verse 12. Buried with him in baptism, that's where your old flesh, that's where the old man is positionally buried with Christ in the grave.

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Wherefore, also, you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God. So who is it that performed the circumcision?

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Is it you? I mean, you say, well, I'm going to turn over a new leaf and just be a good person. No, it does not work that way.

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God is the surgeon and he's the one that performed the operation of circumcision on your heart, and he has already done it.

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It does not have to do it. He has already done it. It is finished. That's why Satan trembled when

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Jesus said it is finished. And so it's been performed and Jesus Christ performed it, and it's called the operation of God, and it is applied to your heart through faith.

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And the same one that raised Jesus from the dead is the one that performed this operation on our hearts.

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Verse 13, and you being dead in your sins and uncircumcision, this is how you came to Christ.

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You were dead. You were blind. You were deaf. You couldn't walk. You were lame. Your hands were worthless. They were withered away. You were useless to God.

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And so God chose you and me to show the entire created universe, including all the angelic beings, including

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Satan and all the demons that fell. He chose you and me to show them this thing about himself that he wanted them to see that he could not demonstrate on them.

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He couldn't demonstrate it on the angels because they were perfect, very easy to love. He couldn't demonstrate it on the demons because they were imperfect, very easy to hate.

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So he picked you and me and he said, I'm going to demonstrate to all of this created beings of mine this thing that's part of me that they don't know about yet called grace.

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And that means unmerited love. It means I can love something that does not deserve my love. I can love something that hates me.

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I can love something that's running from me as fast as it can go the wrong direction and really does not want to even be around me.

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And I can only love that person. I could be married to that person. I could become one with that person forever.

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Watch this. And then he saved you and then he saved me. And he performed an operation in your heart the moment he did it and created a new man, gave birth to a new man who has the genes of God, the

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Bible says, who cannot sin and put that in your heart and made that be the real you. And that other one that comes up and pops up and wants to sin, that's not even you.

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That's the dead you. But if you don't feed the new one this word of God like manna every day fresh, it rots.

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And you can't live off of that and you will go the way of Cain if you're not careful. So you cannot let that stay in control.

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So look at this. The Bible tells us when we came to him, we were dead in our sins and uncircumcision of our flesh.

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But the same you that was that way, look at this, and you hath he quickened. Now, that's an old

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English word that means brought to life, resurrected. You were dead, he made you be alive from the dead.

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Imagine if you saw that right here, somebody just falls over dead and all of a sudden we all pray and all of a sudden he gets up and walks around again.

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That is exactly the miracle that took place in your life when you got born again. Spiritually, we were all dead in sins and now he quickened us.

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He brought us to life, but he didn't just bring us to life on our own. Look at this. Look at every word's important in this passage.

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In every passage, it says together with him. So nobody in here just gets quickened and then they have their life.

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It does not work that way. It is not your life. It's not even your body. It's been paid for with a price and the price with the blood of Jesus.

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And he owns your mind. He owns your body. He owns your hands. He owns your feet and every part of your body and your heart.

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He owns it. He already bought it. He paid for it. Just like, just like Adam and Eve sold you out and Satan owned you,

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Jesus, by right of conquest, when he died on that cross and he gave his life as the ransom for you, he bought it back and he set you free from every lower

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Lord. And when he did that, he quickened you and he forgave you all trespasses, every sin you've ever done, every sin you ever will do.

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He forgave you. Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against you. That's the law, which was contrary to you.

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That's the law that's in the Bible contrary to you. And he took it out of the way. Look at this, nailing it to the cross and look at verse 15.

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Here's what he did to Haman. He took Haman and he stuck him on that same cross that he had built for Jesus.

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The same gallows, Satan thought he was destroying Jesus Christ when really all he was doing was destroying, he was building the edifice that would destroy himself because it says having spoiled principalities and powers,

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Jesus made a show of them openly triumphing over them in it.

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He nailed the law to the cross. He slew Satan and all the principalities and powers and he embarrassed them.

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It's made a show of them. He embarrassed them in front of the whole world, for the whole universe openly when he triumphed over them in it.

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What is it? The cross, the death of the cross. Wherefore, if you be dead in Christ from the rudiments of the world, if it's true that you were in him and you were nailed to that cross and now you're dead to all that stuff, then why do you still live for the world?

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Why are you still subject to the ordinances and the way the world says you're supposed to live? Verse 20, wherefore, if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why as though living in the world are you subject to it?

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So the world comes out and says, it's okay to have a social drink. And you just fall right into that and say, that's okay. Because that's a rudiment.

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That's a teaching that the world has taught forever. And now the church is saying, well, the Bible doesn't teach you can't drink alcohol.

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Well, no, it doesn't teach that. If you're on the battlefield dying, you can drink it. It teaches that you can drink it.

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Well, Jesus drank wine. Well, he drank grape juice, ladies and gentlemen, that's what he drank.

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And I understand they didn't have refrigerators, but he did not drink grape juice to the extent that it made him drunk.

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In fact, he saved drunkards from that sin. Told him, go and sin no more. That's a foolish argument.

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It's child's play to argue like that. What you're arguing for is you're arguing on the side of Satan to help him destroy lives with alcohol.

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And that is so stupid for the church to do that. So why is it that we're subject to this if we're dead to it?

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Why is it we're subject to this if we're dead to it? That's the question. Now, look, there's other things though. Why are you subject to this?

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You got religious people that come and say, oh, you can't touch that. You can't taste that. Now you're thinking, well, that's what you just said.

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No, I didn't. I just said that I don't, I really don't want to be a fundamental independent badness and say, you just can't do anything.

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You can't listen to that. You can't dress that way. You can't drink that. I want the Holy Spirit to tell you what you can listen to and how you can dress and what you can drink.

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Is that okay? But the problem is in this last days, we don't walk in the spirit enough.

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We walk in the flesh all the time. And so then we say, well, it's okay to take a drink. You know what? That's going to kill you.

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So are we mature enough to walk just by the spirit and not have these rules? Or do we need the rules?

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Maybe we should switch. If we're babies, we need the rules. Babies need, do you agree with me that little children need rules?

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All right. So we got rules. Okay. You can't taste this. You can't touch that. Don't handle that. Isn't it appropriate to tell your babies that you, they need to be told the law.

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Don't you think God puts the law in a Bible so we can learn the law. We need to be told the law. It's just that then when we get born again, we have a higher law and it's the law of Christ.

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And it's like, if you love me enough, you won't do that stuff. And I don't have to keep telling you, don't touch it. You won't do it because you love me.

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That's a higher law, isn't it? So then why do we fall back to the rudiments of the world? Hey, you can't do this.

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You can't do that. You got all these churches teaching that stuff and you don't need it. You need to just learn to walk moment by moment, hand in hand with Jesus.

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Takes care of all that. Now look at chapter three, because there's no chapters in the original Greek and there's no verses.

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So this is still part of the same thought. So I would rather you mark out the big three there. It ain't there because this is not a new idea.

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This is the same idea we're talking about. If you then be risen with Christ, he said, look, let me tell you, let's let's rehearse what we just discussed.

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You were crucified with Christ. You were in Christ when he was buried.

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You were in Christ when he rose from the dead. You are now risen, you have victory.

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Listen, you put a dead man down there and and parade anything you want by him. And it's not going to titillate him.

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You can you can tempt him with gluttony is not going to affect him. He's going to stay skinny. He's going to be all bones pretty soon.

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None of that's going to affect a dead man. You are dead. So how does that stuff affect you? See, that's what he's saying.

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You say, look, you're dead. Why do I have to say touch not taste? I don't have to say that you're dead. You're dead in Christ, but you are risen.

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Now, look what he says in verse chapter three, verse one. It's not really there. He says this, if you then be risen with Christ.

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Seek those things which are above where he is, where Christ sit on the right hand of God, set your affection.

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What is that? What is your affection? Stuff you like to do, stuff you want to be doing with your time all the time, that favorite stuff you like to do.

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Set it, what does set mean? Set means to take something from one direction, turn it another direction, point it in that way and set it that way so it keeps going that direction.

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That's what set means in the Greek. And so you set it. You set that affection in a different direction and you put it on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth, for you are what?

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Dead, the old man is dead. Those old affections of the flesh, they're dead. Count them that way.

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You are dead in your life, your true life, the real you. The new man is hid with Christ in God, seated in the heavenlies.

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Look around and smell the air. That's where you really are. Look around heaven and smell the air and look who your company is.

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It's the saints of God. It's the angels of God. It's it's not Lucifer. It's Michael.

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The archangel, it's not Lucifer anymore, it's Jesus, the lamb. You look in his eyes and you see the seven spirits.

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You see the spirit of God. You're in the presence of the throne of God where the she kind of glory is.

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It's not all of the father, but it's the presence of it shows a little bit of his presence there with us and the spirit of God is there and you're attached to all that.

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You're powerful this morning. You are powerful this morning.

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All you got to do is realize he's standing there saying, who did that? Where is he?

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And you'll be just fine. Let's stand and have prayer together. Lord, we thank you for your word and the depths of colors of meanings and thoughts that are embedded within it enough for us to study.

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If we wanted to study every minute of every day, the rest of our lives, we would learn new things, even in the old passages, because it's a living book and these words are spirit and they are life.

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You told us. Thank you, Lord, that you have given us the word of God, your son, who came into this world and manifested you to creatures who were too finite to understand.

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Thank you that you had a plan and a way to communicate your love, your power, your desires, the life you want us to live to us.

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And thank you that you gave us times like this to come together and have our faith to grow and Lord bless us, protect us, watch over each family here.

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May you bind Satan and his demons. May you rebuke him and them and send them away in the name of Jesus Christ.

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And Lord, we pray for our fellowship time today and the service we're about to have after that, we ask you to bless the meal, we ask these things in Jesus name.