Delivered, But Still Battling (01/18/2004)

Park Meadows Church

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You can be turning to Colossians 1 and verse 10 this morning. I'm going to review a little bit before we move on.

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We've been talking about the great accomplishments of Jesus Christ in his finished work on the cross.

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What did he accomplish when he said, it is finished? We've talked about that he's made you a part of the eternal plan of God.

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He brought about redemption. He brought about reconciliation. He brought about propitiation.

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In other words, he satisfies the Lord's justice in his dead. He brought about forgiveness, which means to remove the sin from the sinner.

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He made us to be conjoined with Christ. In other words, we were in Christ at his death.

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We were in Christ at his burial. We were in Christ at his resurrection. We were in Christ when he ascended into heaven.

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Therefore, we are in him at the right hand of God now, seated in the heavenlies.

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We talked about the fact that we have been freed from the law, that we might fulfill the law in Christ.

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We have been made the children of God through regeneration. We have been adopted as sons.

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We have been made acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. We have been justified.

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Last time we started talking about a new topic, that we have been delivered from the power of darkness.

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We're still talking about that this morning. Last time we reviewed just a little bit, the introduction to this was this, that there is a blinding power that Satan has over the unsaved mind with respect to the gospel.

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What does gospel mean? It just means the good news. The good news that Jesus Christ died for the sins of God's people.

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But Satan has the ability to blind. He has blinding power over the unsaved world.

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He can blind their minds with respect to that. You remember the story that Jesus told, the parable of the sower, where he said he sowed the seeds and some fell on the hard path, and the black birds came and ate the seed.

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How did Jesus explain that? He said, well, those are they who hear the word and before they can ever think about it or before it goes into their heart,

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Satan comes and snatches it from their mind. Satan has this power, this blinding power over the unsaved.

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That's found in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 1 through 6. We talked about it last time. Secondly, the whole company of the lost, everyone who is lost is energized by Satan.

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And is in Satan just as those of us who are saved are energized by God and we are in Christ.

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So it's a parallel, only it's the opposite. The lost world thinks they act in and of themselves, but the

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Bible teaches in Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 through 3 that Satan is the one who worketh in the children of disobedience.

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And this word worketh in the Greek language is energeo, which our word energy comes from, but also the word erg, which is a unit of measure in physics for work.

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But it means that Satan supplies the energy for the unsaved world to do the things that they do.

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And then we looked in 1 John 5, 19, which says, and we know that we are of God, but we also know that the whole world lieth in the wicked one.

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So they are in Satan just as we are in Christ. So no one is acting in and of their free will because there's no such thing as free will after the fall.

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After the garden of Eden, we lost our free will because free means sovereign. To say that you have free will means that you have the ability to make a decision without being influenced by anyone, and that's not true.

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We're always either influenced by Satan, or we're influenced by God, or we're influenced by some of Satan's people, or we're influenced by some of God's people.

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We don't make sovereign choices anymore now. We can make choices, and we're responsible for them.

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But the human fallen mind is influenced greatly, and the Bible teaches that those who are in the world are in Satan.

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They are moved by his will, they're moved by his whims, by his strategies, and those of us who are in Christ are moved by the

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Holy Spirit of God as he is connected in unison, in oneness with our spirit. Now that's how we introduce this.

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Then we began to talk about the topic that we're after, and that is that the believer, however, is delivered from the power of Satan, delivered from the power of Satan.

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Now it is true that even though we're continued, that we're delivered, we continue to have to wage war.

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There is such a thing as spiritual warfare. We found that in Ephesians chapter 6 starting with verse 10 last time.

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We talked about how we need the whole armor of God that we might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

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Who remembers what the word wiles means? Does it mean he's wild?

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No. It is a military term, it means military strategy.

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So it says we put on the whole armor of God that we may be able to stand against the strategies of the devil.

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What does that mean? It says we battle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places.

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Satan is highly organized and he has all of his demons in line in an organizational structure.

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And as he sends out his orders, they follow them for some reason, I don't know why they would obey anyone, but they do, they obey

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Satan. And he has strategies for your life, strategies, military strategies to come against you because you're a child of God.

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As he comes against God, he comes against God's children. And we are supposed to keep on the armor of God which we discussed last

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Sunday, I won't go into it again today, that we might be able to stand against those strategies. Now if it were true that being delivered from Satan means we never have to worry about those things, then why would

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God give us Ephesians chapter 6 verse 10 and following? Why would he say we have to stand against something that doesn't affect us anymore?

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So it does affect us. And the best illustration we've been talking about in Sunday school, Brother Otis' class, he's been teaching verse by verse through the book of Joshua.

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If you haven't been able to make that, I would suggest come, I invite you to come at 10 o 'clock and listen to that teaching.

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But in Joshua, what happened? God promised them that everywhere their foot stepped, they would own that land.

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And he said, I will send messengers before you to defeat each enemy as you come to them.

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But he said, I'm not going to let you overcome them all at one time. You remember that? Who can remember why? He said,

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I won't let you overcome them all at once because what? Because, can you remember, because the wild animals would come in and destroy you.

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The wild animals, if you destroyed all the inhabitants of the land, you're a small enough people where the wild animals would sort of take over and come among you and kill you.

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So I'm not going to let you do that. We're going to go in and take it one at a time. So what's the truth that's taught there?

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God had already delivered the entire promised land into their hand. However, they still had to fight battles one at a time as they took over each city, didn't they?

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And that's a beautiful picture of what this teaches. Now let's go into Colossians 1 and let's start to talk about the fact that we are delivered.

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We stand delivered from the enemy. However, the paradox is even though we stand delivered in experience, we still have to battle.

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But our standing, our state is as a delivered one, we've already won. We cannot lose, but we still have to fight the battles.

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Now let me ask you this, in our study in Joshua, in Joshua, that's

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Hebrew for Joshua by the way. You didn't know that, did you? That's Texan he said.

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No that's Mahayan. Were there any battles that they lost?

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There were, weren't there? Remember the battle of Ai? They had just won the battle of Jericho because God defeated the enemy before their eyes.

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They didn't even have to really do much in that battle, it was God's victory. And then they went in in the flesh with sin in the camp and tried to take the next city assuming well that's going to be just as easy as the first one and they were defeated.

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They were sent running and several of them were slaughtered. And so if you're not prepared with the armor of God on, having been sent by God, you can be defeated in a battle.

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Now you can't lose the war. So you stand delivered, but in practice, in life, you have to fight battles.

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So he doesn't just when you get saved, the day you get saved all of a sudden you've got the whole promised land as yours.

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You take it little by little as God walks before you and leads you in these battles.

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So let's talk about what it does mean to be delivered from Satan. Colossians chapter 1 verse 10, that you might walk worthy of the

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Lord into all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

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Now notice we're going to work our way down through this passage to verse 13.

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But let's notice all of the things that surround us in this passage, the things in the context of it that have to do with our deliverance.

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First it says, well actually this is a prayer of Paul for his converts in case you didn't notice that in Colossians chapter 1 if you go up a little bit above verse 10, you'll see that Paul is praying for his converts.

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So look what his prayer entails. First of all, verse 11, he prays that they might be strengthened with all might.

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Do you not need strength to go into battle? Don't you need to be a mighty man of valor to go into battle?

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So he prays that you'd be strengthened with all might. But how? According to God's glorious power.

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Not according to our power and that's what they learned in AI. If you go in in the flesh to fight with sin in your life, you have no power against, not against this enemy.

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Because the enemies that they fought physically picture our spiritual enemies which are what?

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The world, the flesh, and who? The devil. So when you look at the Old Testament, the

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New Testament tells us it was written for those of us who live in the end times as in samples or examples.

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So all of the physical things that they do teach spiritual truths. So as they go in and they attack these physical enemies, it's a picture of us fighting the warfare against our spiritual enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil.

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Our flesh has no power in that battle whatsoever. And so we have to understand that we must be strengthened with all might according to God's glorious power unto all patience.

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You know what? The battles themselves will bring patience. We grow more and more patient as we grow older as Christians.

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You know why? Because we fight many battles. And as we fight battles, we lose some of them and we learn lessons.

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But every one of them bring more patience. So patience and long -suffering and joyfulness.

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We even learn to be joyful when we're in the midst of a battle. That certainly doesn't come naturally, does it?

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Now, he continues to pray, he says, giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet.

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The word meet is an old English word, it means fit. He has made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

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Who has, that's past tense, has delivered us from the power of darkness.

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Now stop and think about this a moment. The same power of Satan that has power to blind the minds of the unsaved.

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The same power of Satan that energizes the unsaved world. That same power, verse 13 says, you have been delivered from.

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He has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear

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Son. The next point we'll study when we finish this one is what it means to be translated. Right now we're talking about what it means to be delivered.

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Now verse 14 continues to surround this concept of being delivered with the context of how

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God does it. Verse 14, in whom we have redemption. Well the first thing he did was he bought us and set us free from the slave market of Satan and sin.

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Redemption means to be bought and set free. To bought out of the ownership of one servant and placed under the ownership of the new servant.

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Who is it who bought us and what did he buy us with? Jesus bought us with what?

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His own blood. So when he bought us, he redeemed us and he bought us out of the slave market of Satan and every lower lord that we ever had in our life, whether you had sin habits that you brought with you the day you got saved, the day that Jesus bought you with his blood, he set you free from every lower lord.

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There is no sin habit that can truly have control of you, not rightfully so. If it does, it's because you want it to and that's not right with God.

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God wants to set us apart, to separate us. He wants to bring us out of the world that we were in.

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He wants to bring us away from Satan who we were in and he wants to place us in Christ that we follow him in all obedience.

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The only way we can obey is in Christ. If you've ever wondered why you can't keep that list of rules you've learned, it's because the flesh still can't follow

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God even if you are saved because your flesh ain't saved yet. It's the one that gets changed in the air at the rapture.

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It's not saved. It hates everything God does. All your flesh wants to do is be selfish and do you know that your flesh includes your brain?

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It's an organ just like your heart. If you don't believe it, go look at someone who's been laying there dead for three weeks and open them up and look at his brain.

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It's just as rotten as his heart is and as rotten as the flesh is. Your brain, that marvelous computer that God built and placed in you, is part of your flesh.

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That's why you have to be in control of the imaginations of your heart. You've got to be in control of your thought life.

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You've got to think about what you're thinking about as a Christian. The new man, which is you saved and connected with God by the

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Holy Spirit, that new man will not sin. All sin starts right here. In fact, all sin really is in here.

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Therefore, if your new man stays in control of your thought life, you cannot sin. Well, why is it that I don't just say, well, then you start today and go the rest of your life and never sin again?

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Because I know me and I figure you're like me. You're going to not always be filled with the

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Holy Spirit for whatever reason. I don't know why we're like that, but if we have to be on guard to stay filled with the

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Holy Spirit, to go back into the flesh is natural. So we have to walk in the

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Spirit and be on guard. This is all military terms. So what happens is

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God has redeemed us by his blood and look at verse 14, even the forgiveness of sins.

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Do you know that that means he has removed the sin from the center? Jesus who is the image of the invisible

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God, the firstborn of every creature for by him were all things created that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him.

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So what principalities does that include even? Yeah.

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So even Satan in the verse where it says we battle out against flesh and blood, but principalities and power, spiritual wickedness in high places, even those principalities were created by him and for him.

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So apparently they serve his purposes. Guess who it is that normally brings that patience into our lives that God is bringing into our lives.

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Often that's delegated to Satan and these powers as they work in the world around us.

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So verse 17, he is before all things and by him all things consist.

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Jesus Christ holds every molecule and every atom and every electron and proton and neutron and smaller than that, the little ones, he holds them all in place.

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If Jesus moved his hand, it would all just go into nothingness and he is the head of the body.

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That means of the church, we are connected to him. We are in him in the heavenly seated right now, just as surely as he is in us walking on this earth and influencing this physical world.

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He is the head of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead that in all things he might have the preeminence for it pleased the father that in him should all fullness dwell.

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That means all of the fullness of the Godhead in a body. That's who Jesus was and having made peace through the blood of his cross.

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Why did there need to be peace? Because our sins had separated us from our

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God and we stood as enemies of God and by the blood of Jesus Christ as he brought us into himself by faith, he made peace between us and God by his own blood.

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All of the times they sprinkle the blood of those little animals in the Old Testament and they sprinkled it on that mercy seat.

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It pictured that it brought peace between God and men.

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He made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself.

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That includes the entire cosmos, which is God's orderly arrangement in the whole universe because when man sinned, it affected even the earth, didn't it?

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Even the earth was cursed and the animals and they didn't sin, but they came under the curse.

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And so Jesus not only died for his own, but he died for God's entire creation to restore it to the place it was before sin.

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Reconciled by him all things and to himself by him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.

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So verse 13 that falls in the midst of this majestic passage that teaches many of the ways that God delivered us, but also teaches who

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Jesus Christ was and is. In the middle of that is this little verse 13 where it says, he delivered us from the power of darkness.

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Let me talk to you about this little word delivered for a moment. There's another word that you see often in the

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New Testament is the word saved. And the word saved and the word delivered can be used almost as synonyms, but they are slightly different and the difference is significant.

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This word delivered where it says we're delivered from the power of darkness is a word which means to be rescued from, to be rescued from what's interesting.

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It comes from a little Greek word, which means to draw something to oneself.

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So it carries the connotation that to be rescued because when you study the little old stories you've studied before about the prince going to rescue the, you know, the princess from the fiery dragon, you know, all those wonderful little books you read as a child.

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Was he going to just rescue her just for the sake of rescuing her? Or was he also rescuing her for himself?

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That is the connotation that this word has because it comes from the smaller word in the Greek that means to draw to oneself.

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So it means when it says that he delivered us from the power of darkness, it means that he rescued us from that unto himself.

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He wanted us is the reason behind it. Now we receive the benefit of being rescued from the fiery dragon, but it's because he wanted to be with us.

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What a beautiful word. So this word delivered from the power of darkness means to be rescued from.

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What's interesting is when you see the word saved in the New Testament, it's a little Greek word, so -so, and it means to be preserved from.

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Now think about that. You have been delivered, which means to be rescued from, and then you've been saved, which means to be preserved from forever.

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Preserved is the word that gives us eternal security. Preserved, when the Bible says you are saved, a lot of people, our dear brothers and sisters that don't understand that once you're saved, you stay saved forever, they don't even understand the word saved.

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It's so -so. It means to be preserved. What is preserved? You've got to defy the definition of that word if you could be spoiled.

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You can't be both preserved and spoiled at the same time. And so they'll see that someday if we keep praying for them, but you have been delivered, rescued from, out of the power of Satan, from the slavery to him, he no longer owns you, and you've been delivered or rescued from that, and now you've been saved, which means you are preserved unto

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God forever. But this word is to be rescued from. It's not quite the same as to be saved.

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It's a slightly different idea, to be rescued from. Now, as we then go through the scriptures and we look at several of the key verses where it talks about us being delivered from the power of darkness, there are two other little words that are kind of important to understand in the

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Greek language, and you're going to find one of these two words with the word delivered every time. It's either going to say delivered ek or delivered apo in the

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Greek. Ek means from out of, apo means away from.

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And so it's important to see which word is found together with the word delivered because there's a slight difference in the meaning there.

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Let me show you some examples. Turn to 2 Timothy 4, 17. What this little bitty word ek and apo, these two words, can teach us is that there are some things in life that God delivers us from but not away from.

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In other words, we are left in the midst of it, but we are delivered from it. A good example of that is your flesh.

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You're still living in it. You haven't been taken out of it yet. That's just one example.

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Well, let me show you where these two words are used within two verses right next to each other. 2 Timothy 4, 17 and 4, 18.

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In the first verse, 17, you see the word ek, which means from out of, and the second one you'll see apo, which means away from.

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So it says, Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known and that all the

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Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of, that is ek,

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I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the

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Lord shall deliver me from every evil work and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom to whom be glory forever and ever.

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Amen. It shows the distinction between these two little words. The idea of being delivered out of is a stronger idea.

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To be delivered out of the mouth of the lion is meaning that he was totally taken out of and away from this lion.

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Now, do you think that lion pictures the lion who roams about seeking whom he may devour?

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And then he says he's delivered from every evil work and preserved unto his heavenly kingdom.

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By the way, that word preserved is so, so you can might as well put the word saved there unto his heavenly kingdom to whom be glory.

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So are we totally removed out of the evil works around us?

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We're really not. But we are delivered from them positionally. We are delivered.

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We stand as free. We're not slaves to them. We're not slaves to any sin habit we have ever had in our life.

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We are free from it. And if we stand in Christ, we will not do that sin.

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We do not have to because we're not rightfully a slave to it. I'll tell you a little story that fits in well here, though.

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Do you remember the story of David and King Saul? That there came a time when

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Nathan told Saul, you're not the king anymore. God has removed you. And David has been anointed king of Israel.

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Guess what? Saul did not leave that throne, did he? What did he do?

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He chased David all over the kingdom trying to kill him. Remember how David had to hide in the wilderness?

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Saul tried to kill him. And Saul kept on the throne of Israel as king.

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What was he doing? He was usurping authority that was not rightfully his. He was a usurper.

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He had positionally already been removed by God, but experientially, in other words, in his experience, he was sitting on that throne for a while.

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That's what Satan does. If Satan finds himself on the throne of your life after you've been born again, he's usurping something that's not rightfully his.

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That's why you can say, get off that throne. It's not yours. It's Jesus's. And it's mine also because I'm the new man and I'm in connection with Jesus by the

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Holy Spirit. So you get off that throne. And he has to flee instantly. If you've never practiced spiritual warfare living, let me tell you how easy it is if you're born again.

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Any thought that comes into your mind that doesn't edify, which means build, is not from God. Any thought that comes into your mind that is unclean, that is not right with God, where you might look at another human being from the point of view of using them rather than caring about them, you look at another human as something, a thing that you could just use, that's not from God.

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Any thought that comes into your mind that won't build you to be a stronger person of God is not from God. So what should you do with it?

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You should think and say, why is that in my mind right now? I belong to the

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Lord and I'm one with Him and we don't think that way. So Lord, would you please give me the mind of Jesus Christ right now?

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Let me think like He would think about this person or about this situation and remove this evil thought that's not mine or yours.

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And you know what? It will flee just like that. And it won't come back. Not that moment it won't.

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Not for a good while it won't. Why? Because Jesus Christ is your

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Lord. You have been redeemed. You've been bought with His blood, set free from the slave market of sin and Satan and set free with a price.

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And now Jesus is your Lord and He's the only rightful Lord that you have. He is the only true

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King that you have. And any other king that would usurp himself and place him on the throne of your life, you can send him away instantly by asking the

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Lord to do that for you. You never do it yourself. But you say, Lord, remove this from my heart and mind.

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It's not from you. I don't want it in there. Now listen, if you don't practice that moment by moment every day, you're a carnal

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Christian. You are carnal if you don't practice that.

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Because you're going to find yourself thinking thoughts that are not from the Lord. Therefore, you're in the flesh.

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Now see, we think that because we go to this church and we're a Bible church and we're in the Word and we study at home and we love each other and we walk with each other and we know the

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Lord, that we're never carnal. The truth is, if we're not practicing moment by moment, thinking about what we're thinking about and staying in control of it as the new man, staying in control so that this body becomes nothing more, and I shouldn't say nothing more, it's a marvelous thing, that it becomes a tool in God's hands for God's purposes because you, the new man, keep it under submission and bring it as a glorious tool unto

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God to do work in this physical world. That's what it's for, that's all it's for. Have you not heard the verse that says you're bought with a price, you are not your own?

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That's what it means, it's His. So we keep it under control, realizing that Jesus has freed us from every lower war.

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Does that make sense? Shake your head like this if that makes sense. Shake your head like this if you're asleep.

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Okay, I know where you are, each one of you. Okay. So, we see then that there are some things we've been delivered from and there are some things where He delivered us out of.

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Let's look at some of the ones that He's delivered us from, where the word oppo is used. First of all,

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Matthew 6 .13. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

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You see, He doesn't say He's going to take us totally out of this world.

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In fact, Jesus said the opposite. He said, you are in the world, but you're not of the world. He said,

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I'm leaving you in the world. I'm not taking you out of the world, I'm leaving you in the world, but you're not of it.

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And so this says, in Matthew 6 .13, Jesus was praying. He said, deliver us from evil.

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This is an example prayer that He taught us. He's teaching us how to pray. Deliver us from evil.

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Not out of evil, because that means you have to either die physically or be raptured. While you're here, you're not going to be delivered out of the evil.

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You're in it, but you can be delivered from it. It has no power over you.

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If you're one with the Holy Spirit, that means you're spirit -filled, and you're not walking in the flesh. You are actively, as a soldier, watching the gate of your mind.

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You have many gates. All your senses are like gates, where stuff comes right in.

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And I heard from another preacher, and it made sense to me, he said, they're always open. Those gates are never closed.

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So what does that mean? If the gate can't be closed, which is supposed to keep the enemy out, if it's open, then you better have a guard there.

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And who's the guard? It's you. It's the new you, the new man, who is always one with the

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Holy Spirit. That new man, you, the saved you, should be guarding that gate every moment of every day, thinking about what you're thinking about.

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And if it's not from God, you cast it out. You cast it out. That's what it means to walk a pure life.

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You're not keeping a set of rules anymore. You're not saying, thou shalt do this, thou shalt not do this.

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In fact, you've been delivered from the law, is one of the things you're delivered from by the finished work of Christ. And it brings you into the place where you now are in Him, seated in the heavenlies at the right hand of God, seated above the law, and above sin, and above Satan, and above this world system.

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You're looking down on it. In Christ. You just simply stay in control of your mind, which is part of your flesh.

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It's the most powerful part. It's the only thing that can cause you to ever sin, is your mind. You stay in control of it as a sentiel, as a watchman, every moment of every day.

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And to the extent you get lax in that, you are carnal. Now, if you've ever had problems before, understanding what it means to be spirit -filled, now you know.

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You know by knowing what the opposite is. So don't worry about what it means to be spirit -filled.

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Let me tell you how to know. Look at the opposite. The opposite of being spirit -filled is when you're not on guard about what you're thinking about.

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It's that simple. So walk together in fellowship with Jesus, and the two of you watch what you're thinking all the time.

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There's even a Bible verse that says, I bring all my thoughts into the captivity of Jesus Christ.

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That's what that verse means. It's a great life verse, by the way. Now, we are saved from or delivered from evil.

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Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory.

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So who is our king? Satan? No. Sin habits? No. God is our king.

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Therefore we stand delivered from evil. Let me show you another place. Now, what's interesting?

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It's interesting, therefore, we leave Matthew 6 .13 where it says, but deliver us from evil. That word evil is poneros, which means the evil one.

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So it's really talking about Satan. It's not talking about the evil stuff going on in the world.

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It's talking about the one that brings it, Satan. So Jesus says, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

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Now, let me show you a second verse. It's Romans 15 .31. And kind of a parallel verse.

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You might want to turn to also 2 Thessalonians 3 .2. Romans 15 .31,

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2 Thessalonians 3 .2. Because the second point is that we have been delivered from the harm that can be caused by unbelievers.

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Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, no, it's usually believers that harm me, that hurt my heart. That can happen too.

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That's another subject. But what this particular, these verses teach is you have been delivered not only from Satan, the evil one, but also from Satan's people, the lost around us.

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And it says it in Romans 15 .31 that I may be delivered from them that do not believe.

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That's very clear. Paul says that I may be delivered from them that do not believe.

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Doesn't mean he can be taken out from their presence. He's in their presence, but he's delivered from them while he's in their presence.

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That's powerful. Now, next Sunday we're going to talk about some verses where he says he delivers us out of some things.

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We'll see what those things are. Apparently, God saw it as necessary for us to be delivered totally out of something.

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But some things he found it necessary to keep us in there, with it. Keep it around us, but to deliver us from it while we're with it.

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Do you see the difference? Because the being with it is what makes us grow.

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How many of you ever growed a whole lot? Growed a whole lot. There's Mahia again coming out. How many of you ever growed a whole lot when everything was going perfect for you?

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Raise your hand. I knew she'd do that. That's why I said it that way. I got you.

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You'll understand later, but I got you that time. So you didn't grow a lot when things were going perfect?

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When did you grow the most? During the hard times. That's why he leaves us in the midst of some of this, but he delivers us from it even while we're in the midst of it.

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So, 2 Thessalonians 3, 2. And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men, for all men have not faith.

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That's kind of an awesome verse. That's a sad verse, if you think about it.

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God tells us right there there's people going to go to hell. He already has exactly in his mind who they are.

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He knows exactly who they are and he says they will not have faith because faith is a miracle that comes from God.

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It's not something you can dream up in your own mind. But God promises he will deliver us from unreasonable and wicked men who have no faith.

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So we see he promises to deliver us from Satan himself and from Satan's people that Satan controls.

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Thirdly, turn to 2 Timothy 4 .18. This one's kind of interesting because it has both the word deliver and the word sozo, which means save.

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It has them both in the same verse. So we are rescued and then we're preserved in this verse.

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2 Timothy 4 .18 And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work and preserve me, that's sozo, or you can say save me, unto his heavenly kingdom to whom be glory forever and ever.

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Amen. Now we looked at this verse a while ago when we were doing a little word study, but this verse says we are delivered from every evil work.

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We're not delivered out of it, but we're delivered while it's around us. So that is a specific verse that says you are delivered from your sin habits and you're delivered from the sin habits that are controlling other people around you.

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You are delivered from every evil work. You stand as a position because you're in Christ.

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You stand delivered from it. It has no power over you. Anytime it does, it's because the sentinel, who is that?

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Who's the watchman in your mind? You, the new you, the saved man, the saved you in connection with the

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Holy Spirit. That sentinel, for some reason you chose to let down that guard. And that is sin before you ever did what you thought was the sin.

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That is the sin because it's doubt rather than faith. You're not walking in faith.

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You're walking in the flesh. But we've been delivered from that. We don't have to go there.

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We can choose for long seasons of our life not to sin at all. Show me one place in the

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Bible Brother Rocky used to say that says you've got to sin today. He said, I maintain you can go long periods of time without sin.

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He said, but you probably won't. But he said you can and you should.

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And God expects you to and you answer for it when you don't. You lose rewards. So his point was you have the power to go for hours into days, into many days in a row without one sin if you will watch over the mind.

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Try it this week. I dare you. Try it.

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You can do it any time a thought that comes in your mind that you know is dirty or wrong or that Jesus wouldn't do it.

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Stop right there and say, well okay Lord, I'm going to experiment with what Brother David taught Sunday. Lord, this is not your thought.

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This is not from you. Would you please remove it from my mind? It'll be gone just like that. It won't bother you. Satan may send another one 10 seconds later, do the same with it.

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And once the devil learns that you know how to live that way, you know what, lots of times he'll go find somebody that doesn't because it's easier.

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Oh, he'll come back and test you. But what I'm saying is you'll find the warfare to be easier once you learn the battle.

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Once you learn how to use that sword a little bit, it gets easier to use, doesn't it, Brother Roger? Every evil work.

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And lastly, look at first, that's only 110. We'll stop this morning. We see we've been delivered from Satan himself.

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We've been delivered from any harm caused by unbelievers. In other words, hurtful words they can say to us, hurtful things they can do to us.

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They can do nothing outside of God's sovereign will. And then thirdly, we are delivered from every evil work that's around us.

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We're not slaves to it. Now, fourthly, we're delivered from wrath to come.

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Now, look at 1 Thessalonians 1 10. It says, And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even

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Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

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Do you think the wrath of God in some ways is here and in other ways is coming to this world?

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9 -11, was that a picture of his wrath? Yes, it was. Isn't it interesting that it struck

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Wall Street, which is the center of our economic power and glory? The center of everything that provides things that we lust for in this country.

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And it was just a warning shot over the bow, really. I know lives were destroyed, and I don't mean to belittle that at all, but it was a warning shot compared to what's coming to this country and to the whole world.

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And even eventually into the Great Tribulation, where God's wrath will be poured out upon this world in the end times.

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The Bible says you will be delivered from that. It doesn't say you'll be delivered from out of it. It says you'll be delivered from it.

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I'm not trying to teach a doctrinal position here, but I'm saying that's the Greek word that's used. And this is the fact.

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The wrath that you will see, I don't care if you see a bomb go off in Dallas, Texas from the

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Al -Qaeda, and that is part of God's wrath in the end times. I believe that with all my heart.

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You can be delivered from the fear that comes with that. You don't have to be bound by it.

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You don't have to be stopped by it. You are absolutely delivered from it because you are not part of God's wrath.

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God's wrath is not for his children. It's for the world system. You may be in the world when part of that happens.

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There'll come a time when you're taken out at the rapture. But part of it has already begun, and you were here.

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So during the part that you're here for, just remember this, even in the midst of it, you are delivered from it.

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Now next Sunday we'll stop and look at the things we are delivered completely out of. Let's stand and have prayer together.

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Father, we thank you that you are our deliverer. That you rescued us, not just for the sake of rescuing us, but because you wanted us.

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And so you rescued us unto yourself from the enemy. Lord, may you cause us to practice many of the things that we saw in your scriptures today.

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Teach us to be the watchman over our own minds, and thereby to walk in the spirit rather than in the flesh.

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And Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ who gave his blood to ransom us from this darkness.

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We ask you to bless our meal together, our fellowship time, and our afternoon service. In Jesus' name, amen.