Works of the DEVIL | 1 John 3:4-10

The Apologetic Dog

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Okay, where are we at? First John chapter three.

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Oh yes, first John chapter three. Alright, I'm going to ask a question.

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It's been a while. So, someone help me out. What does the word context mean?

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Liberty. The verse is that... The verse that surrounds...

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A verse that tells us more of what we're looking at. So, in school, have y 'all heard of the phrase context clues?

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What does that mean, Aaron? It means that it's the clues around a certain passage, text, or just certain reading.

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Absolutely. So, when we're asking about the context, it's the same thing. What is the flow that the author is trying to communicate to help inform us of any particular word, phrase, or verse that we're looking at?

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What we want to avoid is taking any one verse out of context and then just building off that by itself.

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Because if you do that, you can essentially make the Scripture say whatever you want. But you can't do that if you look at verses within their context.

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So, with that, what are a few themes that we've been talking about in first John that's really important for the context?

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One of my favorite ones we've talked about in chapter one, verse five, it says that God is light and in Him there is no darkness.

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So, this is telling us that God is holy, that He is the bar of perfection of all that is good, right, and holy.

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First John's going to continue to talk about how God is light, God is love. All these things are wrapped into one.

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God cannot sin. There's no darkness. He can't change His mind. God is the

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God of truth. So, that's so important for us to understand as Christian children of God because when

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He makes a promise to us, then we're like, hey, I can rest in that. That's going to change how

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I live to glorify Him because I have the promise of eternal life. So, what's something else that we talk about in first John?

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There is a love that God does not hold. There is a love that God hates, which is kind of weird to think about.

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But God hates sin. God hates evil. He has a purpose for it existing, but it does not please

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Him. The world does not please Him. All that's in the world is the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.

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Ultimately, that is ran by Satan, the God of this world. The whole world lies in the power of the evil one, first John later brings out.

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So, that's a really good point. We are to be children of God, and that automatically puts us in opposition to the world.

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James 4 says you can be a friend of the world and be an enemy of God, but you can't be both. Now, we live in the world, but we're not of the world.

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We love on people. We share the gospel with them. We share with them God's truth. We pray for them.

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We're super kind. But we don't make unbelievers our closest friends.

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You can't. Scripture tells us bad company corrupts good morals. And I've lived it.

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I've seen it. You try to be the one to impact them. I'm hanging out with them just to help change them.

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It's going to have the reverse effect. You want to limit your time. You pray for those opportunities to rub shoulders and do fun things.

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But this right here, fellowship, is another key theme. You want your closest friends to be those that you have deep spiritual fellowship with.

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That spiritual bond in the gospel. What about Jesus being our advocate?

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A lot of times we talk about Jesus as kind of the middleman. He's our intercessor. He comes to our defense.

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When the enemy accuses us in spiritual warfare, or when our own hearts and flesh condemn us, we're in Christ.

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Nothing can take that away. But that's something you have to look inwardly and determine. Am I trusting in Jesus?

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Do I love him perfectly? No. Do I love him at all? If the answer is yes, then you can rest assured in your salvation.

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Now, the problem is we don't always do that because sin enters into our life. And when sin enters in, our joy will be taken away.

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Our peace will be taken away. But oh, when we go to the Father in prayer and we confess our sins and we repent, that joy and that peace is restored.

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That koinonia is restored. So some more context. Y 'all remember we talked about two spirits of Antichrist that rival the gospel of grace.

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Avery? Licentiousness. Licentiousness. Do you remember what it means? So it's licentiousness.

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Yeah. It's basically saying, oh, it's all of grace. All the time I can go live however I want. Because if your heart has been changed by God's grace, then you don't want to live in the flesh.

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You don't want to go back to living like you were before Christ saved you. You want to live your life to the glory of God.

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So licentiousness or antinomianism, same thing. Anti -law. What's the other extreme,

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Josiah? Legalism. Legalism. What is that? The opposite. It's the opposite?

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So someone else explain what the opposite of licentiousness is, Lauren. It's kind of like your works save you.

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Your works are what's going to get you to heaven. In order to go to heaven.

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In order to earn favor with God. They may not use the word earn, but these are the people that say, well, you see,

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Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. But the balance is saying, look at the first part.

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If you love me, if you know me, well then, yeah, there's going to be an evidence of a changed life.

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But legalism is works righteousness and tries to earn favor with God, whether they say that's what they're doing or not.

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Okay, so those are two opposites. And the balance, the gospel of grace, is trusting in Jesus Christ alone for salvation.

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That's why you hear us, 12 -5, talk about faith alone, not faith plus your works.

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But once you're saved, once you're justified by faith, then it's all about works. Right? All of us had to get up and come here this evening.

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But the motivation and perspective is different. We want to come here in light of what

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Christ has done. Now, some of you might be like, well, I'm forced to come here by my parents. Hopefully that's not the case.

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But, yeah, that's something that we've been talking about, is the spirit of Antichrist comes in many different shapes and forms.

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The biggest one in the context of 1 John and the first century was Gnosticism, saying that, oh, we believe in Jesus, but he didn't really take on flesh.

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He was just kind of here spiritually. This kind of dualistic Gnosticism said everything spiritual, good, everything physical, matter, evil.

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And the problem with that mentality is you can have no incarnation. Someone help me.

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What does the term incarnation mean? Aaron? Taking form. Taking on,

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I guess, the form of? Flesh. Yes, you're exactly right. To take on flesh. So probably one of the best verses is,

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I think it's John 1, 14. It says, the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

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Who's the word? Christ. Christ, who is the second person of the

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Trinity. Eternal face -to -face relationship in the Father and also relationship with the

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Spirit. And eternity passed before the foundation of the world, and it is Jesus, the eternal

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Son, took on flesh and dwelt among us. Philippians 2 also talks about that. And John, 1

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John here, is talking about that that is a crucial doctrine. If someone rejects that Jesus came in the flesh, they're antichrist, and they don't have the

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Son, and they don't have the Father. So the doctrine of the Trinity is so important. That's why we sing the doxology every

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Sunday, and I love it. Okay, as we're talking more about the context, does anybody else remember anything that we've talked about?

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Why is the Holy Spirit indwelling us so important? Y 'all remember talking about that anointing that's been given to the children of God?

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So look with me back in chapter 2 at verse 20. But you have been anointed by the

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Holy One, and you all have knowledge. Now look down at verse 27. But the anointing that you receive from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you.

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But as His anointing teaches you about everything, and is true and is no lie, just as it has been taught to you, abide in Him.

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So this is telling us that the Holy Spirit is the anointing in us, given to us by the

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Holy One, Jesus. And that Holy Spirit guides us into all truth, guides us into the

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Word of God, and protects us from error, protects us from the teaching of antichrist.

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We don't need the teachers of the world to tell us what truth is, why we're here, what's the purpose in life.

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The world doesn't get to tell us that. It's all cloaked within Satan, right, which we're going to get into spiritual warfare today.

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But the Holy Spirit teaches us through the Word, through other teachers within the church that have the

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Holy Spirit. So that's really important. If you look at verse 28, tell me if you all remember anything about this from last week.

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But John encourages his audience, which are children of God, Christians. He says,

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So what does that mean, when Jesus appears at His coming? What's that referring to? Definitely.

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This is the second coming of Christ when He's going to restore all things, when He's going to resurrect us, give us new bodies fit for eternity.

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And look at 3 verse 2. This is such a beautiful verse. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared.

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But we know that when He appears, like Delaney said at the second coming, we shall be like Him, because we shall see

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Him as He is. We're going to be resurrected, fit for eternity, like Christ.

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So John is reminding his audience, look forward to these things. The end times, have your hearts encouraged.

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Remember I told you one of the biggest no -no's in school is you don't pick up a book and read the last page, read the ending before you get started.

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It's not true for Christians. We flip to the back of the book, which the book of Revelation, I think in many ways, gives us a picture of the last days, the end times.

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And you know what? Jesus wins. And we are more than conquerors if we're in Christ. And so we get to be encouraged by these truths.

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Our faith is here and now, but it's also looking forward to our blessed hope.

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So with that, look with me at verse 4. We're going to cover some ground today.

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Let's look at verses 4 through verse 10, where we read, Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.

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Sin is lawlessness. You know that He appeared in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin.

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No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen

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Him or known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as He is righteous.

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Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

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The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

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No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in Him, and He cannot keep on sinning because He has been born of God.

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By this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

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That's a lot there. Was there anything that caught anyone's attention as we briefly looked at that?

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Kennedy? Sin is lawlessness. I'm really glad you brought that out because we've already been alluding to this a lot, building up, because it's so important, right?

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In God, in Jesus, is light, and in Him there is no darkness. So we've already been talking about how

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God is holy, holy, holy, and He cannot sin. Christians are walking in the light.

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Unbelievers are walking in the darkness. So we've already been kind of laying this foundation. So look back with me at verse 4.

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Let's go ahead and tackle this. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.

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Sin is lawlessness. So someone help me out with the word practice. We've talked about this a lot, too.

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What does it mean for someone to practice sin? J .D.?

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To repetitively—is that the right word? To repetitively do something. Yes. Another good word is habitual, right?

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To do it over and over and over again. And remember I've asked you all before, who all play sports?

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Does anybody play instruments? So at this point, everyone, do you all practice, whether it's instruments or sports?

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So someone help me out. What's a good understanding of the word practice? J .D.'s already said you do it repetitively.

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Aaron? To continue in it. You continue in it. And something that I want to pry deeper into is you want to do it.

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You diligently plan for it. I remember Lauren said a while back, I really like that. You diligently plan for it.

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You want to do it. And sometimes we talk about we even do it and we don't want to do it sometimes, right?

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For soccer practice and things like that. For music? Oh, okay. Well, you know,

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I grew up playing basketball, and some days I didn't want to shoot, but I knew I needed to for practice. So here's the idea.

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As someone who is a rebel against God, an unbeliever, they habitually, continually practice sin, but there's a deeper issue.

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They want to. They habitually want to do things that are not pleasing to God.

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Now, the reverse is true for Christians, right? We habitually want to be obedient to God, to know

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Him. His commandments are not burdensome, 1 John will later say. Now, we're not going to be perfect at it, but we want to practice it.

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We long for it, right? So you see kind of the repetitive nature, the repetitive side of things, this habitual continually.

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The pattern of your life is evidence of where your heart is. Remember the Sermon on the

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Mount? We can't serve two masters. So your heart can't be divided. It's either going to love the world. Remember earlier there's three things in the world, lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, pride of life, or it'll long to please

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God. And so over time, where your heart is truly trusting and resting, your life is going to give evidence of that.

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So that's what John is bringing out here is we see a pattern of the world, unbelievers, and then we see a pattern of the children of God and how they live their lives to the glory of God.

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So verse 4 again, Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.

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Someone help me out with the word lawlessness. What is that talking about? I like the word lawbreaker.

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A little bit of rake comfort. Because a lawbreaker is just simply saying, what?

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You disobeyed the law. You've transgressed the law. And we don't say, you know, so -and -so is lawless.

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Maybe we don't say it, but we'll talk about someone breaking the law, which they are worthy of just punishment.

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That's what lawlessness means. That means to break the law. And everyone has broken

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God's law. And I want you to think about this principle. We all are sinners not because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners.

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Does that make sense? Literally, we are born into this world children of wrath, children of the devil, longing to sin, rebels against God.

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That's all we're sinners. So it follows that as you grow, you will break God's law. I'm of the opinion, even infants are not able to love the

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Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. I don't think that's just for people that can cognitively piece that together.

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I think it's for all image bearers. The point is we are born not capable of filling

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God's law. And so what does this mean? We need a Savior that kept the law perfectly.

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So sin is lawlessness. When we start talking about sin, just think sin means you're a lawbreaker. You've broken

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God's law at some part, and it's not just the actions. It's the heart.

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Remember Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount? It's not just the act of committing adultery. It's not just the act of murder, but it's the intention of the heart.

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If you've been angry at someone, all of us, then we're murderers of the heart, and we've broken

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God's law. And so the point of the law is to show us our need for a perfect Savior, something that only

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God can do. So the miracle of the incarnation is the only ticket for God to be just and merciful, that God fulfill his own law perfectly that reflects his character.

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But he also must take on flesh humanity to represent mankind.

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And so you can have your choice. You can either be represented by Adam, who fell and sinned against God, or you can be represented by Christ, who is a perfect Savior, by faith alone.

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It's easy for me. I want to be represented by Christ. You know what I mean? So we have a personal responsibility in our rebellion against God.

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Even though we're all born in our sins and trespasses, we are culpable for what we want to do.

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We're not born robots. We're not born kind of in this neutral zone. We're definitely not born perfect.

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There's a lot of people that push that, and I would just say no. The doctrine of original sin is that there's none righteous, there's none good, no one seeks after God.

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And people try to make exceptions for that, and I'm like, nope. In light of the fall, everyone stands condemned already.

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And that's John 3. So that's the state that all men are in, all mankind, and we bear a personal responsibility in that.

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But then there's also spiritual warfare. So spiritual warfare, think of the spiritual realm, things you can't necessarily see.

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So there's a war of spirits that we can't necessarily see. So what does that first start making you think about?

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Spirits that are at war that we can't see. It makes me think of demons.

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It makes me think of holy angels. It makes me think of the kingdom of darkness. It makes me think of the devil.

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So what I want you to think about is we are responsible for our sin, but there's also other agents out there, angelic beings, that are also at work.

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And it's kind of outside our comprehension. We can know some truths about it, but for the most part we are physical beings.

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We're also spiritual. But we can't see the spiritual warfare all around us. We know it's true because God's Word informs us, and we see a lot of its effects.

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You know what I mean? So I do want us to start thinking in that term because Jesus came already, and he's going to come again.

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The first coming, when he was a suffering servant, lived a perfect sinless life, died on the cross, satisfying the wrath of God.

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He died, was buried, resurrected three days later, defeating the power of death, defeating the work of the devil.

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He ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and he will return again. So look with me at verse 5.

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You know that he appeared, Jesus' first coming, in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.

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I'm going to spare you. I mean we could talk about this so much, but I want you to look at the last phrase.

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In him there is no sin. Remember, God, he is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.

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So when John says that in verse 5, this is the message that we have heard and we proclaim to you, the gospel, it's talking about the perfection of Christ that the

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Old Testament prophesied to. They witnessed it. They got to see, they got to touch, they got to be there, and they are telling us about who

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King Jesus is. And here's the key, no sin. He was tempted in every way, like we are, categorically, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, all those temptations came at him.

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Remember in the wilderness, Satan tempted him in all those three ways? But guess what? Internally, that temptation had no foothold.

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Morally, it could not actually find a place to set in. Why? Because Jesus is

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God in the flesh. He is without sin. He perfectly is obedient to the Father. So I'm saying,

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I love this. Some people get really hung up on the fact and say, well, Jesus potentially could have sinned.

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I'm like, that is the most absurd thing I've ever heard in my life. Jesus is God the last time

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I checked, and God can't even be tempted with evil. And yet Jesus is truly human.

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Temptation truly came at him, but it wasn't going to find a foothold on him in any way.

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Jesus is our perfect high priest, so when we pray to him in our hurts and pains, he knows what that's like even better than we are because he actually never fell.

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We fall all the time. So this is so important that Jesus was without sin.

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He who became sin knew no sin so that we might become the righteousness of God.

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That's the whole point of the gospel. But look at that phrase. Actually, look at verse 5 just in total again.

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You know that he appeared, his first coming, in order to take away sins.

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Someone help me out. What does that mean in this context? Any thoughts? Jesus, at his appearing, his first coming, he came to take away sins.

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Delaney? So, before we had talked about, I think it was

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Sunday, about how he knew who he was going to save before everything began.

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So when he came to, what was the verse? To take away our sins, essentially.

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He was coming down for us to die on the cross because he lived a perfect life.

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He could take all of our sins. And so, it's taken us in a positive way. Another sinner can't account for the sin of another sinner.

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You need someone who is sinless. You need God, and then you need God for that, right? That's a really good point.

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Look back at chapter 2. Let's just look at 1 and 2 together because I love reading about how

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Jesus is our advocate. And remember, he is righteous in the absolute sense. He is without sin.

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He is light, and in him there is no darkness. My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin, but if anyone sins, is that going to happen?

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Yeah. Definitely going to happen. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, the one who is without sin.

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He is the propitiation of our sins, and not only for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

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And so, we've talked about the context there, about the whole world. He's talking about the whole world of believers, whether it's

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Jew or Gentile. We've got to always be sensitive to the immediate audience, but he's our propitiation.

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He took away the penalty of our sins on Calvary. Because I want you to explain something.

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You hear us all the time talk at 12 .5 about justification, sanctification, and glorification. Justification happens because of what

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Jesus did on the cross, and he forgave us from the penalty of our sins.

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So we're never going to be condemned for our sin when we're in Christ. But during our sanctification, we are at war with the power of sin.

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We know it's defeated. The power of sin is ultimately defeated by Christ, but we're still warring against it now in our flesh in this world, right?

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So we still see the power and presence of sin in this world as we grow in sanctification, but when we're glorified at his appearing where we become like him, receive bodies fit for eternity, then we are going to be saved from the presence of sin for eternity.

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Okay, Dylane. So when you die and go to heaven, does he already give you that?

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Great question. Many theologians believe that to be absent with the body is present with the

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Lord. That's what Paul says. And we truly go to heaven now, which is called the intermediate state.

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So we leave this earth. Don't know how time works, but we are more than likely just a spirit, not an angel like all the

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Hallmark movies try to tell us. It's not true. We don't get wings. We might can fly. I'm still looking forward to that.

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But we go to heaven. He goes to prepare a place for us. We go to be with him. But that's not our final destination.

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We don't receive our resurrected bodies yet, to your question, because he's going to return to the earth to conquer the last enemy, death, and then he's going to restore all things.

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In that time period, that's when we receive resurrected bodies, when heaven comes to earth and it's a new order.

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So that's the thing. Look forward to heaven and know that there is still yet a new heavens and earth that will even happen.

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Isn't that cool? Great question. So when he says take away sins here, he's talking about,

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I think, primarily the penalty of sin that happens in our justification by faith, because he's talking about the purpose of Jesus' first coming, which he died on Calvary, and accounted for all of the penalty of sin for those that will be saved.

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And in our context, we're not afraid to talk about the elect, those who will receive Jesus by faith.

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That's appealing to God's sovereignty. He knows. He not only knows, but he has purpose in those things.

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And so we rightly should say, well, how do I know if I'm one of the elect? You have to look at your heart. Do you love

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Jesus perfectly? No. Do I love him at all? And if the answer is yes, then you know that he who began that good work in you, he's going to bring it to completion.

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That's awesome. That's how you can be confident and know that you have everlasting life.

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So look with me at verse six. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning.

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No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.

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Okay. This is where we have to do some interpreting. Because interpretation is good.

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Interpretation is simply teaching, rightly understanding what's being said and applying it to our life. Because if what

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John is saying here is the one who keeps on sinning, do you think he says that we will never commit a sinful action again while we're here on earth?

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What do y 'all think? Avery, what do you think? Yeah, because for one, context, everything that he's been saying in 1

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John. Remember, if we sin, because we're going to, we have an advocate. And remember earlier in chapter one, the person that says they have no sin?

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You're a liar. You're trying to deceive yourself and you're trying to deceive us, but we know better.

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So he's not going to contradict what he said earlier. He has a different idea. I think it's kind of like what

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JD was saying earlier. The one who wants to keep on sinning, loves it, plans for it, practices it, that person is not born from above.

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They've not been born again. They're walking in darkness. They are a child of who? The devil.

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Verse 10. You're either a child of God or you're a child of the devil. So I just want us to say this is not talking about some sinless perfectionism of the one who doesn't keep on sinning because they somehow arrived at perfection.

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No. It's talking about the disposition of one's heart, what they plan to do, what they want to do, what they practice to do.

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Because in the life of a Christian, are we going to sin? Yes. But it breaks our hearts when we do.

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If we have the seed of God abiding in us, meaning that we've been born again, we're going to repent.

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We're going to confess that to the Father. We're going to go to God in prayer and say, hey, I hate this thing.

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James 5 .16 says that we desire to confess our sin to one another and we may be healed.

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Because there's healing in having Christian accountability and fellowship. So that's what he's getting at.

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He's talking about kind of the disposition of your heart.

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He's not talking about being perfect. But I will say this. For someone who is truly in Christ, they cannot desire to practice sin.

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And so that's where we need to examine our hearts. Do I love sin?

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Is there something that's sinful that I know about that I do in my life and I'm not really convicted and I don't tell anybody about it because that's what

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I long to do? Or when sin rears its ugly head in my life, do

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I try to crush it? Do I try to plan to avoid certain temptations? So do you see the difference?

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It's the difference of the heart, what one practices and plans for. So look with me at verse 7.

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Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he,

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Jesus, is righteous. Now verse 8 is very interesting. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil.

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For the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

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Okay, so I actually want to camp out on this for just a little bit. Does anybody know the origin of who

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Satan is, where he came from, and how he first began his works of evil?

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Avery? He was not a societal being.

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You said something real interesting, kind of being second in command. We're not told explicitly, but we kind of get that picture, that he was the most superior angelic being.

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He was an anointed cherub is what some translations say. Some say he was a covering cherub.

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So there's been speculation of what that looks like. One person explained it to me like this.

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So this is kind of loose understanding, but I like how you said it's almost this idea that he was second in command.

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But he seemed to be the angel that was kind of in between God and his eternal glory that couldn't totally be looked upon.

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And all the other angelic beings had to look through the covering cherub,

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Lucifer, Satan, which when I say Lucifer, many theologians look at some passages in the

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Old Testament and see this dawn of the morning, Lucifer, as perhaps being

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Satan before he was a fallen angel. And so those same texts tell us that pride found itself in Lucifer's heart.

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He wanted to become like the Most High God. Isn't that wild? He wanted to be

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God. He became jealous of the worship that was being given to the creator of all things, and he wanted it for himself.

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Now we're reading between the lines a little bit, but there's many verses that tell us that Satan was cast out of heaven.

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Does anybody know perhaps how many angels went with him? A lot.

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Some theologians point out in Revelation 12 that maybe a third of the angels went with Satan.

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We're not told how many angels exist, but they are beings. They are persons, not with flesh and bone, but they are moral agents that can decipher between right and wrong.

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They are intelligible. They can reason. They can make schemes and plot. These are the spiritual warfare that I'm talking about.

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Demons are fallen angels. They're not holy angels that worship God and are messengers and are obedient to him.

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So you have two types of angels. You have holy angels and fallen angels. The fallen angels used to be holy angels.

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And so like Avery was saying, there was at one point in time, I'm not sure if this was before the foundation of the world or since the very foundation of the world, there's kind of a dispute, but Satan began his works of evil and was cast out of heaven.

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And so at some point in time, Satan entered into the garden in Genesis 3.

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Someone raise your hand. What did Satan do with Adam and Eve? Does that ring any bells out there?

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Justin, do you know what Satan did with Adam and Eve in the garden? He tempted them.

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He tempted them. Does anybody else remember how he tempted them? Liberty? And he told

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Eve that she could be like God if she ate that. If she ate the forbidden fruit, as we might say, ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and he started casting doubt on God's Word.

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Did God really say? And then, like you said, he said, you will be like God.

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And the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life started to set in Adam and Eve's heart.

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But you notice Satan is in the mix. The works of evil are beginning within human history, right?

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So ever since the fall, remember God made that gospel promise that Satan will bruise the heel of the promised offspring, the

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Savior, to come, but ultimately that coming Savior will crush the head of the serpent. And so all in the

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Old Testament, think about Israel, remember? They were enslaved in Egypt, and they went around in the desert.

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That was God's chosen people. Satan at large pretty much had the pagan nation's hearts captive.

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I'm talking about in the masses. All of the pagan world was captivated by Satan.

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It was only Israel that God was protecting. Isn't that wild? Now there was some pagans,

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Gentiles, that were saved by God's grace, like I believe Ruth, Rahab, many people in Nineveh in the story of Jonah.

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So we do see God's grace extending to the pagan world in the Old Testament. My point is

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Satan was at work at large in the entire world minus Israel.

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Because I want to paint a picture of how Satan has always been at work since humans have been around, right?

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Remember the story of Job? Remember Satan was attacking Job and took pretty much his whole family minus his wife away, all of his stuff, and Satan would go to the throne room of God and make a wager with God about Job.

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Well, Job is good. He's your servant because you protect him. And God's like, have at it. You just can't take his life when it's all said and done.

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So Satan has been heavily at work murdering in the lineage, the promised lineage,

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I believe trying to pollute the line of the coming Messiah. It never worked. I think that's what we see when

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Satan obviously was influencing Cain's heart to kill

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Abel, right? Because he knew a coming Savior was going to happen. So what does he do? He tries to murder that lineage, and we see that all throughout the

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Old Testament. But Satan is trying to pull people away from glorifying

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God. We see that big time in the Old Testament, right? And so then we get to the Gospels.

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I love this because Satan entered into the heart of Judas Iscariot. Did y 'all know that? He said he moved into his heart to carry out this wicked thing, and he did it thinking, oh,

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I'm finally going to kill Jesus. But guess what? Y 'all remember Genesis 3 .15,

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that gospel promise? That's just merely bruising his heel. Jesus dying on the cross, that was tiny.

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It was actually predestined to happen. That was prophesied to happen. And so Satan, in his mind, thinking he was winning, but it was actually fulfilling

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God's redemptive purpose. And so when Jesus resurrected, then Satan got the reality check of like, oh, that was a crushing blow, like death couldn't hold the

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Holy One of God back. And so we live in a time now after the cross, right?

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After Jesus fulfilled the law perfectly, suffered, died on the cross, remember earlier in the context, to take away sins.

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So now Satan is still at work. It seems like he's bound in many ways that he's not as free,

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Lance, like he was in the Old Testament with all the nations of the world. But now we see the gospel being proclaimed into the entirety of the world, going out into all these new places, and Satan is just losing, losing, losing.

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But he's like a roaring lion, still trying to devour whomever he can. He's still trying to take back unbelievers from hearing the gospel, right?

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Remember we're talking about the parable of the sowers? Remember that seed that gets sown along the wayside and the birds come in and swoop it up?

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That's depicting spiritual warfare. Delaney, I remember you telling me, I've shared the gospel with a friend and they just seem like they do not care.

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Spiritual warfare is happening. So Satan's at work, but even though Jesus delivered this crushing blow at his resurrection,

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I believe it's Romans 16 verse 20 that says the church is continuing to crush the head of the serpent.

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How? By living holy, godly lives, by sharing the gospel. The church being salt and light, shining in this dark world.

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And so as Satan is still like a roaring lion, doing evil works, tempting, devising wicked schemes and spiritual warfare that we can't always see, he is going to be ultimately and finally defeated by being thrown into the lake of fire.

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He'll be thrown there. The rest of the demonic horde, the demonic hosts will be thrown in there with him.

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And all of those that die in their sin, they all have the same destiny. So any thoughts with that so far, talking about the works of the devil?

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When I was y 'all's age, I had tons and tons of tons of questions about Satan and demons.

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I was always intrigued by that. Maybe that makes me a little bit weird. Do you ever think about the spirits around us?

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Do we have a guardian angel? Have you ever thought about stuff like that? I will say, I don't think there's a specific guardian angel assigned to each person, but all of the holy angels are guarding the saints.

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So I would say all holy angels are guardian angels.

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Now you do have special cases where you have the seraphim and angels that are in heaven singing holy, holy, holy for the

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Lord God almighty, who was and is and is to come. So you do have that. But angels at large,

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I believe it's the last verse in Hebrews 1. It talks about how angels, their primary role are ministering spirits.

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So God sends them as messengers to guard us in the midst of spiritual warfare.

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So my point is, if you're a child of God, then you may not have just one angel interceding on your behalf where you don't even see in the midst of fallen angels, but a whole lot of them.

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And it comes out in other places like Matthew 18, where we see angels guarding even

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Israel. Michael the archangel came to Israel's defense a whole lot against Satan.

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And so that's kind of a good picture even on the Christian level. We have angels that are around us and we don't even know it.

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In what ways are they guarding us? Because in Zoomies, you usually think of how they're fighting each other with swords and whatnot, but that might not always be the case.

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Bodyguards? Yeah. Demons alone. So I have a few theories. So if you're like, give me a verse, sometimes

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I might be hard pressed. Because I'm operating on a few principles. They are ministering spirits.

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That means that they come to aid us even when we're unaware of it. But I think it could come in ways like you could be in nighttime driving and you're about to swerve off and then some unexplainable event, the whole car is totaled and you're unscratched.

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I think there's a chance that there was an angel protecting a saint. So I think you get that kind of thing.

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And I can't prove that. And when I hear people tell stories, obviously I'm like, I don't know if what they're telling me is true.

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Maybe they really believe it or not. But I'm open to the fact that angels can protect us in ways that are very mysterious.

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And Hebrews 13 talks about how we entertain angels unaware. Now there's a context there with hospitality, but I can kind of extrapolate a little bit and say, there are angels around us and we don't necessarily know it.

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They mention swords and things like that. It's so interesting because I do think holy angels are warring with fallen angels, but it's not like they're dying, right?

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Like piercing them with another sword and then they're like, all right, you won. And they just kind of walk off.

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So we don't know. But the way I picture it is whoever is most powerful in the moment gets to call the shots.

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Does that make sense? So I feel like Michael is considered an archangel, therefore very powerful.

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And we see verses like in Jude how he doesn't rebuke Satan but says the

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Lord rebuke you, like where the source of the power is. So my whole point is it's very mysterious with how the spiritual warfare, angelic beings who are around us, how they interact.

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You know what's funny? They look at us and we're a mystery to them too. So we're two different kinds of creative beings that have questions about one another.

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That's another thing. So while we're on the topic of angels, when some angels took form to talk to people, for example

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Mary, they always begin with do not be afraid. Is it how they sound is it that afraid?

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Is that scary or their looks unnerving? I think both.

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I think both. I think their looks primarily, they're shining, right? And it's probably shocking. And I think there's something to how they sound.

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They probably sound glorious and just so different than what we're used to. And so I love the point you're making.

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They have to begin by saying don't be afraid. And you're like okay. Delaney.

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So you know what, like in screw tape letters, it's usually like it refers to them as like the demons are like actually plotting against you and they're like ooh, we'll really make her mad and she'll make everyone else upset.

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Like that's insane. I think C .S. Lewis was on to something because they are logical beings.

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They are able to reason very similar to us. How do we know that? There's a lot of verses that talk about the works of the devil.

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He is devising plots and schemes to tempt, to accuse.

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And so I think he's the arch, like the strongest, smartest angel, maybe at least an authority.

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But he's a representation of all the other ones too. Now they have different ranks supposedly because they're referred to as principalities.

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So that kind of assumes a hierarchy where he's kind of the lead. But yeah, screw tape letters is interesting because C .S.

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Lewis was on to many principles about, I think he's right. There's a lot of plotting and interacting.

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But what we have to understand, y 'all know that person that's just like, oh, the devil's just been really at me hard lately.

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And I'm like, I don't think he's probably focused on you rather than like bigger things going on in this world.

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Yeah. Now, but there's a principle. Now, whether we're, you know, Satan himself is tempting me.

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The principle that he's working through the strategy, being assigned to certain parts of the world.

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I do think they have to devise plans. I don't think they're always consistent. We see that in Scripture.

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They're not always on the same page. We see an account in Acts where one demon just, it seems like they had it.

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They just did not like what was going on and they kind of broke protocol. So, yeah,

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I think Screwtape Letter is probably one of the best fanciful books that's kind of operating on some of the principles that we're getting at.

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Does that make sense? I don't think Satan is primarily concerned with, you know, Joe Blow over here that no one knows about.

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But it doesn't mean that there's some type of demonic activity tempting them, right?

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And a lot of times, our flesh is leading us astray anyway. So, Satan, I think one of his primary function is creating false doctrine, working through the sons and daughters of disobedience, distorting the truth, leading us astray.

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Any other questions? I would like to add to that. Isn't there like some cult out there?

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Like, isn't there a Satan's Word? And then people that, you know, quote, worship

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Satan? Oh, yeah. And you think about this. There are those groups that explicitly worship

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Satan. But anyone who denies Jesus Christ, who denies the

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Trinity, they are ultimately a child of the devil.

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In some principle, whether they're explicitly worshiping him or just thinking that they're living lives, you know, to lust the flesh, lust the eyes, pride of life, thinking about them, they are functionally doing

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Satan's bidding, which is a good transition point to verse 10. And we'll sum up here.

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By this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil.

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Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

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So I want you all to think about these things. This is telling us

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Jesus' primary purpose was to destroy the works of the devil. And you think about all the different angles you could look at that verse.

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There's a verse in Luke that says Jesus' primary goal was to preach the gospel. Well, guess what defeats the wicked one?

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The gospel, right? The Holy Spirit going forth, changing hearts, people coming out of darkness, becoming children of God.

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That plays a part in destroying the works of the evil one. So I just think about sports analogies a whole lot.

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You know, when you're playing sports, you want to come up with a game plan to beat your opponent, right?

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And I think it's no different with our Christian walk. We want to have a game plan.

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We want those spiritual habits. We want to have those godly disciplines. We want to know who the enemy is and how to properly war against him.

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Only truth, only the word of God and hiding in your heart. That's the only thing that can stop Satan in your life, on a personal level.

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Jesus is the best example of that in the wilderness. It is written, it is written, it is written. Jesus not only knew the word, but he understood the word in its context.

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Satan can't combat truth because he's the father of lies. So any final thoughts or questions?

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I got a golf clap from Avery, I think. Well, y 'all continue to think about these things, spiritual warfare.

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I am very fascinated when it comes to angels and demons. I really believe in the principle that James 4 talked about.

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Submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

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We have nothing to fear about Satan because it's kind of a scary thing. But when you're in Christ, perfect love casts out fear.

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What could Satan possibly do to a child of God who has the holy angels coming to their defense?

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Now, could we possibly start dabbling in demonic things and get ourselves into trouble?

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Yeah, but with the Holy Spirit, we're going to be convicted. We're eventually going to get out of that stuff.

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A brother or sister in Christ is going to be like, hey, why did you buy a Ouija board? What are you thinking over there?

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You know what I mean? So anyway, those things are very interesting, but be thinking on those.

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And one of the overarching points that I want us to walk away with is it's not possible for Christians to live in sin, to plan for it, to love it, to want to habitually practice sin.

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And the same is true for unbelievers. They can't practice righteousness. They can't long for it.

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Maybe they can do it externally, but not in a way that's truly pleasing to God because it's not rooted in faith in Christ.