Are You as Spiritually Tough as Jesus? Part 2

A couple of weeks ago, we were talking about Jesus Christ. We were talking about how tough Jesus Christ was. I was bringing out a story about myself and how I had looked at myself, kind of found myself laughing at myself about how a lack of tough I am in certain ways. I'm sure that that probably would be true for you, that you are not as tough as you would like to be, spiritually speaking. We went through a sermon last time where we looked at what Jesus Christ had to do to be a tough-as-nails individual. We can give ourselves excuses and we can say, well, I had a bad day and we allow ourselves this or that of the other issue. But Jesus Christ was not allowed to have a bad day. He was not allowed to have a bad minute. He was not allowed to have a bad second. How long does it take you to sin? A second? A microsecond? If He would have sinned, none of us would have salvation. So His life was a battleground every second of every minute, of every hour, of every day of His life. And, of course, you and I have Him as an example. Now, we understand that we're not going to be sinless. We understand we're not going to be perfect. We understand that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh. But we also understand that we need to be tough because we're living in some very bad times. Times are only going to get rougher. And if the various things that have made you and I break down and cry, those things are going to happen in life. But we don't want to get to the point where we say, well, fool with the church, fool with God's way of life. You know, this person offended me. This person looked at me funny in church. Or they keep on doing something in church. Well, we went through the Scriptures last Sabbath. I'm not going to go through all that again. Talking about, you know, giving a snapshot of some of the people in church at the end of the age. Christ said, when He comes, would He find faith on the earth? We see Matthew 24, where we have brethren, true Christians betraying one another. Where we see the love of many growing cold. If somebody's hurting you and you don't know how to handle that, if you're not tough enough or I'm not tough enough to handle that, our love can grow cold. We see the Laodicean people at the end of the age who are self-righteous and Jesus Christ says that they are spiritually blind. Now, that's not true for every Christian at the end of the age. There will be people at the end of the age who will be some of the greatest Christians who have ever lived. And that could be you. That could be me. Or we can be the other, the other snapshot. The question is, which way are you and I going to go? Which way are you and I going to go? A couple of weeks ago, I sent out a midweek study talking about Satan's devices. Let's take a look at 2 Corinthians 2 for a moment. 2 Corinthians 2. You know, it's important that we understand the battle tactics of the enemy. And we are in a battle. We're in a battle for our spiritual lives. All eternity is at stake for you and I because God has called us. He's opened up our hearts and our minds. And we've got to know how our enemy is going to be coming at us. 2 Corinthians 2, verse 11. Lest Satan should take advantage of us, we are not ignorant of his devices.

Every good soldier has to know how the enemy is going to be coming at him. I remember seeing a movie many, many years ago, back in the early 1960s. The name of the movie, some of you older folks may have seen this, was called Zulu. I don't know if any of you saw that movie. It's a true story. Story about how a group of, I think, four or five thousand Zulu warriors in Africa, on one occasion, they attacked a British column. I think there was something like 1800 or 2000 soldiers in the column and just wiped everybody out.

Just wiped everybody out. This was in 1879. In a couple of days after that, they came to a mission church. There were, I think, a hundred British soldiers there. They were facing several thousand Zulu warriors, very tough warriors. The bottom line is, after two or three days of really hard fighting, the Zulu warriors had to return.

They had to retreat from that confined space because the tactics that the British soldiers used was very good. They knew how the enemy was going to come at them. It's a true story. As you watch the movie, you would see 11 of the men got the Victoria Cross for bravery in 1879. It was a very small group of people. It's a very large group of people. Now, the warriors, they had some of the British guns from the previous engagement, but basically, they had spears, whereas the British had single-shot rifles back in 1879. But they knew the strategy.

They knew how the enemy was going to come at them, and they were able to defeat the enemy. We need to know how Satan is going to be coming at us. We see he's got his devices, and so we have to understand him, understand that he's going to put a target on our back.

He doesn't want us to have salvation. He hates God. He wanted to knock God off his throne. He knows what your future is going to be, and because of that, he wants to knock you out. Let's take a look at Luke 22. Luke 22. And verse 31, and the Lord said, Simon, Simon, indeed, Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat. Sift you as wheat. Satan realizes when we're strong. He realizes when we're having a bad day, when we're having a bad moment, when we are down, when our defenses are down, and he will attack accordingly. In the Bible study I sent out a couple of weeks ago, I talked about various devices, and this was not an all-consuming list.

I said, Satan has got mental devices. He wants your mind. He wants my mind. He will wear our minds down. Sometimes when we're ill, sometimes we've got long-standing illness. We're not feeling well. We have to realize when we're not feeling well, we are vulnerable spiritually. We may be not feeling well physically, but Satan can turn that against us spiritually.

So we've got to watch ourselves because he wants our mind. So he's got mental devices. He's got moral devices. He wants our heart. He wants our heart. We've had a number of sermons and messages here in the last year or two about entertainment, about what we watch on TV or here on radio or the kind of music we may listen to.

There's any number of ways Satan wants to get into our life, and certainly entertainment, where we just are sitting in the comfort of our own home, allowing various things to enter our mind that can bring us down. Satan has motivational devices. Do you, do I have an issue that is habitual? You know, people have various issues in their life that are habitual. They say, well, you know, I really need to get rid of that. Well, those sorts of motivational things where we don't find ourselves being motivated to conquer something that is an ongoing negative thing in our life could be a certain frame of thinking.

It could be we could be people who are just always doubtful, always negative. We kind of allow ourselves into depression. We can have various physical ailments or difficulties.

There's also accusatory devices. Satan is really good with this, especially in the church. Satan loves to have us point fingers at one another. He likes us to accuse one another. He's an accuser of the brethren, and he loves it when we do his work for him.

He may accuse you around Passover time. He may accuse you as you're living your Christian life. Oh, you're not a Christian. How can you be a Christian and think that way? How can you be a Christian and do those things? How can you be a Christian and you never pray? How can you be a Christian and you don't really study? When do you open a Bible? And so he will accuse you. He'll get you down. He wants you to just give up. Satan wants your doubt. Satan also has prideful devices.

Do any of us have issues with pride? I think every one of us has an issue with pride. You know, when we were looking at Jesus Christ's life last Sabbath, we saw that he had people in his space all the time accusing him, testing him, belittling him, torturing him, but he couldn't allow himself to have prideful issues. He couldn't say to himself, well, don't they know who I am? I'm here to give them eternal life.

So Satan has all those devices and many, many more so. You can probably think of some on your own that he wants to use against you. Last Sabbath, we also talked about, as I said, how Satan and all the demons came after Jesus Christ. Every minute of every day, all they needed was one little sin. One time where he would just let his guard down. But realize, even though we're not as strong as Jesus Christ, Satan waits for us to let our guard down. He will keep after us and just wear us down. Just like a drop of water on a rock will eventually erode parts of that rock. Satan plays for the long game. He doesn't have to have you sin right now. He was, you know, I'll hit you and I'll hit you and I'll hit you. Sooner or later, you will be tired. Sooner or later, you won't be in a prayerful attitude. You won't be studying God's Word. Sooner or later, I'll have you. That's his thinking. So last week, what I wanted to accomplish was simply to give us a renewed appreciation for what Jesus Christ had to go through. Today, in part two of this series, part two in the ending part, we want to take a look at how do we hang tough? How do you and I hang tough with Jesus Christ? What do we do? Those of you who are older know the name Mahatma Gandhi.

Mahatma Gandhi said this, and I think it's a really interesting statement from a man who had his share of adversity that he had to overcome in his life. And I quote now from Mahatma Gandhi. He said, Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. I think that's really a very concise, very good statement that Mahatma Gandhi made. Let me read that to you one more time. Watch your thoughts, for they become your words. Watch your words, for they become your actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. But where does it begin? It all begins in our minds. Gandhi correctly pointed out that our thoughts are where we begin our spiritual defense. That's why, when Jesus Christ gave his sermon on the Mount, I gave a sermon on this some time ago, back in 2012, about a year ago, actually, when Jesus Christ began speaking and gave what we call the Sermon on the Mount, which is the Heart and Core teaching of Jesus Christ. How did he begin that sermon? He began that sermon with a series of beautiful attitudes. He says, these are the attitudes. This is the frame of mind that a Christian needs to have to do battle with Satan the Devil. And there are eight Beatitudes. It's interesting that, as we talked about about a year ago, when you take those eight Beatitudes and you break them down, you study them, the first four Beatitudes outline a deepening relationship with God. The last four Beatitudes depict the impact we have on our relationship with our fellow man. So, just as we can break the Ten Commandments down, love toward God, love toward man, the same thing is true for the Beatitudes. In the first four Beatitudes that we're talking about, a deepening relationship with God, the first Beatitude was humility. If we're going to defeat Satan, we've got to have a humble frame of mind, which means that we have to realize we are always vulnerable. I don't care how strong we think we may be. We may be all prayed up and studied up and fasted up and we're doing all of our spiritual disciplines, but we still are frail human beings.

We must be humble. The second Attitude was we need to be people of conviction. One of the things that kept Christ so strong is He was a resolute man. We're going to talk about that in a little bit. He was resolute in his desire to follow God and to do what God wanted him to do. Third Attitude was that of being teachable.

Fourth Attitude was that of spiritual motivation to hunger and thirst for righteousness. So humility, conviction, teachability, spiritual motivation. Those have to be in us and they have to be strong if we want to hang tough with Jesus Christ. The second Four Beatitudes, Beatitudes number five through eight, we need to be merciful.

When we see how people at the end of the age, some people, some Christians at the end of the age, will grow cold. They'll get offended. They'll betray one another. Now, if these same Christians were merciful people, that wouldn't be happening to them. They would be able to drain that anger. But because they've not been merciful people, because they harbored rudges, they are going to fall away from the church. They may be in a lake of fire. Brethren, that can happen to any of us. You or me, any of us can be in this situation. That's why it's so important now when times are relatively safe for us to make sure we are merciful people. And as I said to you on so many occasions, being merciful doesn't mean we condone anybody's sin. Doesn't mean we say, it's okay what they did. What they did may have been very sinful and very hurtful, very harmful, but we say to ourselves, I can't let that get to me. I can't let that sour me. I've got to drain out that anger.

The next beautiful attitude was moral integrity, being pure of heart. We live in a cesspool. My heart goes out to our younger generations. When I was growing up, it was hard enough to keep your mind in proper gear. But now we've got the internet. Now we've got where kids are so bright today, you can put all the parental controls you want to on your computer. And so many times kids know a way, they or their friends, know ways of getting around that. And once you get into that internet, you can go anywhere and see anything. I mean anything. So we need to be people of moral integrity. Peacemakers, once again, if we all are peacemakers, are we going to be so offended and outraged at the sins of other people that we want to betray other people and hurt other people? If we are a peacemaker like Jesus Christ was a peacemaker, we will have more of the attitude, Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing. Not, you hurt my wife or you hurt my kid, therefore I'm going to hurt you, and I'm going to hurt you worse. Or I'm going to do it to you before you do it to me or my family. That kind of thinking is going to be so easy for us to fall into when times are really hard. That's why we need to understand why we need to be tough and develop that toughness right now. Because our families will be in play. There will be a time when we will not be able to feed our family or clothe our family. There will be people coming to want to hurt our family. Or if they, or you know, talking to you and saying, well, if you don't give me so-and-so's name, then your family's going to pay the price. You know, brethren, at that point in time, we've got to have our strength. If we're not prepared at that point, we're going to fail at that point. We've got to be people who are strong with God. And, of course, Jesus Christ, the last beatitude, was being persecuted, standing with God, no matter the cost. The last beatitude is the longest of the eight in terms of wording and the deals of persecution. As we made mention in the last sermon, John, the Apostle, was asking Christ there in the book of Revelation, when are you coming? And what was Christ's response? Well, there's got to be a martyrdom of saints before I come back. And that can mean anybody in this room. Nobody's exempt from that.

So, we're looking at our frame of mind, as Mahatma Gandhi said, but as I made mention a moment ago, one of the things I think is so important that we see in Jesus Christ, and he's our ultimate example, was that Jesus Christ was resolute. I've got that as a major portion, major subject heading here in my notes. Jesus Christ was resolute. To be resolute means to be characterized by determination and purposefulness. He had a purpose in life. He was determined. Nothing was going to take that away from him. He locked on with his mind as to where he needed to go, what he needed to do, and he was resolute. Let's take a look at 2 Corinthians chapter 11. 2 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 3.

But I fear lest somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, by his devices, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity, from the purity that is in Jesus Christ. Our enemy is crafty. He has various ways. He will come at us. We have to understand those ways. Be prepared for those ways. Realize that when we are weak, he's going to be most apt to come at us. When we're physically weak, when we're mentally weak, when we're exhausted, that's when he's going to come.

We have to understand that we need to be in the proper position. You know, since I'm using the analogy about battle, I was thinking as I was reviewing my notes this morning, a movie I'd seen some time ago about Gettysburg. And Robert E. Lee felt that if he took the battle up here north and won some significant victories, he could march all the way into Washington, D.C., and put a letter on Abraham Lincoln's desk and sue for peace on Confederate terms. And so he took, I think it was 90,000 of his men, he entered the north across the Mason-Dixon line into Pennsylvania. And as it turned out, what took place was a series of coincidences. They found themselves in a little town called Gettysburg, just a little tiny town. But the Union Forest was nearby. I think they had 70,000 men. And Brigadier General John Buford, who was a cavalry officer, had heard scouting reports that Lee's men were nearby. So he went into Gettysburg. He got there first. And when he got there first, he took a look at the lay of the land. And as any good general would do, you need to have the high ground. And so he only had 2,500 men at his disposal when Buford got there. All the rest of the Union army was behind. They were almost a full day's march behind. But he got there for this 2,500 men, and he set up his position on the high ground in Gettysburg. And that's what turned a tide of that battle. He had the high ground. The Union forces would not let go of that high ground. Robert E. Lee, the tremendous general he was, came within a hair's breath of victory there in Gettysburg. But he didn't. And that was the battle. The war would go on for another couple of years. But that was the battle that changed the tide of the war. But it changed the tide of the war because Buford got there, and he took the high ground. Brethren, we need to watch the ground we're on. We need to watch our mind and what we do with our mind, what we allow our mind to dwell on, what we think on. We need the high ground. We need to be resolute with that high ground. Philippians 2.

Philippians 2. You know the scripture I'm going to turn to here.

Philippians 2 and verse 5, where it says, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Let's have the same mind he had. He had a resolute mind. He was determined. He had purpose. His life was going a certain direction. Nothing was going to deter him from that. He wasn't going to take any side steps, any side trips. He was going to make sure he had the high ground for battle. Let's take a look at some of the circumstances in his life. We begin here with Luke chapter 2.

Luke chapter 2 and verse 49.

Here you see that Jesus Christ is coming in with his parents. He's a young lad, 12 years of age. He's coming into Jerusalem for the high days.

The parents were heading home. They thought that he was with some other group of relatives. They found out that no one had Jesus, so they had to turn around and go back into Jerusalem.

He had been talking with the doctors and what have you. Verse 45. So when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem seeking him. This is chapter 2 of Luke, verse 46. Now so was that after three days, they found him in a temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. I'm sure their parents were beside themselves. Where is our little guy? We love him! Boy, when we get our hands on him, you can imagine what parents are thinking here. Verse 47. And all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and his answers. So when they saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said to him, Son, why have you done this to us?

It's interesting, human beings. He could have been in great peril, but the mom says, Look what you've done to me! Look what you've done to me! Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously. And he said to them, Why do you seek me? Did you not know? I must be about my father's business.

From age 12, he was resolute. He had to be about his father's business.

Are we that resolute? When Satan comes knocking on our door, do we say, I must be about my father's business? Or do we cave in and say, Satan, Well, maybe I'll do your bidding for the next few minutes. Why do you seek me? Do you not know? I must be about my father's business. John 4.

John 4, verse 34.

From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus Christ said, My food is due to the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. That was his food. That's where he was coming from. That was important in his life. There could be no greater priority for Jesus Christ than to do the will of him who sent him and to finish the work he was given to do. Is that the mantra by which you and I live? God has called us to do a work, not only corporately, but individually. He's called us to be his people, to get all the things out of our life that shouldn't be there. That's part of the work. Are we resolute that we want to be there? Is it a loot that we want to get those things out of our life that God wants out of our life? Go forward a couple of chapters of John 2.

I may mention, last Sabbath, that not only was Jesus Christ spiritually the strongest individual who ever lived in the flesh, I think there could be a good case made that he was no pushover physically either. Here we see an example of this. John 2. I mean, he was tough physically. John 2, verse 13. Now, the Passover of the Jews was on the hand, and Jesus went up to the Jerusalem. And he found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves and money changers doing business. When he had made a whip of cords, he drove them out. Now, we're talking about one guy by himself. He makes a whip. He's going up to a number of people. It says, them. One man against a number of people. I'm sure he was pretty fearsome. I'm sure he had a look in his eye. Now, Christ didn't hate anybody, but he hated what was happening here in this situation. He took action. He was not some pansy. He made a whip of cords. He drove them out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen. I mean, there's a lot of things he's doing here. Poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables. He said to those who sold out, take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house of merchandise. Then his disciples remembered what was written, zeal for your house has eaten me up. Here's a man who's resolute, but he's not just resolute in his mind. He's resolute in his actions. He was going to do something. They were desecrating his father's house. He wasn't going to stand for that. So he made that whip of cords and took off after these individuals. I remember he didn't hate anybody. This was not being done in hatred. He had righteous indignation here for what was happening.

But he was resolute. John 17.

John 17. At the end of Jesus Christ. Remember we read at the beginning of his life how he said, I must... my food is through the will of the Father and finish his work. Well, here we now are at the end of Christ's life. John 17.4. And read a letter in my Bible. I have glorified you on the earth. I have finished the work which you have given me to do. I finished the work. He was resolute. He had a purpose. He had a determination. And he accomplished what he needed to accomplish.

Okay, so we want to be resolute. But we need more than just a hardness of mind, a toughness of mind. We need to be fortified spiritually. This is my second major point. We need to be fortified spiritually. 1 Corinthians 10.

You know, we can do all sorts of wishing and hoping spiritually, but we need something more than ourselves. 1 Corinthians 10, verse 12. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

So, even when you think you're spiritually strong, take heed lest you fall. How many times have I seen people who thought they were so strong in certain areas that Satan would turn that prideful thinking against them and use that against them? Verse 13. No temptation is overtaking you, such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. But with the temptation, we'll also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it. As I mentioned to you on so many occasions, brethren, I think that the understanding of verse 13 is that we are able to handle the temptations that come our way only with God's help. If we look at that verse thinking that no matter what, we'll handle it on our own, we are mistaken. We will wilt. We must, the way of escape is we escape into God's hands. We escape into God's strength.

We don't just escape from a trial.

You know better than that. As I look into this audience and I see some of you and your faces, I know what you've gone through in your life. I know the length of your trials, the depth of your trials, how that Satan has come after you wave after wave after wave. Some families in this room seem to have gotten more of their share than other families.

All of that we must remember that our way of escape is in God the Father, in Jesus Christ, in their strength, under their umbrella. The quickest way to fall is to think that we are above it, or that somehow we are so strong we can handle it no matter what. 2 Corinthians 10. If we try to handle it on our own, we will fail. 2 Corinthians 10, verses 3-5.

2 Corinthians 10, 3, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God, for the pulling down of strongholds, casting down arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. You can't get a better definition of being spiritually resolute than what we just read. Bring every thought into the captivity to the obedience of Christ. It's when we start allowing our minds to wander spiritually that we get into all sorts of issues. We take things for granted.

Since we've talked about movies, let me talk about another movie. Years ago, back in 1960, there was a movie called Spartacus. Based upon an actual individual who lived thousands of years ago. He was a slave. He started a slave revolt. For almost two full years, as Spartacus and the various slaves, literally, I think, went up and down the Italian peninsula, I think, twice. Gathering slaves from various rich Roman estates as they went. And they continually confounded the Roman army, the Roman legions. Roman legions were obviously well known. One of the largest empires the world had ever seen. And yet, here you've got a ragtag bunch of slaves, many times taking their wives and children with them as they went. Going up and down the Italian peninsula. Beating the Romans time and time again. In the movie, it showed where one aristocratic general, he had very little field experience in the field. But he encamped his army. And when Spartacus and his men found this camp of Roman soldiers, they felt, well, we're running up against slaves. They're slaves! They're not an issue for us. And so when Spartacus and his men saw that, they said, we've got these guys. We've got these guys. They don't have any... The way the Roman army normally would work, whenever the Roman army was in enemy territory, every night, after they had moved, they would stop early. They wouldn't just march till sundown. They would stop early. And they would dig a tremendous ditch all around their encampment. It'd be fairly wide, fairly deep, all around their encampment. They had certain sections of the army. That's what they did. They would just, you know, hundreds of men out of the legion of 6000. They would do this digging. And then what they're pulling out of the earth, they put that right on top of that, right next to that ditch. So you've got the ditch, a wide, deep ditch, and then you've got the dirt on top of that. And then they put stakes in dirt. So anybody who can get into the ditch, they've got to come up. They've got that other earthwork and the stakes in there. And that's what the Roman army did every day they moved. But in this particular case, in the movie, they didn't do any of that. They thought their enemy was nothing. So they let their guard down. They didn't have. They weren't fortified spiritually. Brethren, we need to never let our guard down. I know we're re-human, but we need to be more like the Roman army and making sure that we've got our fortifications there. And our fortifications are our spiritual fortifications. Let's take a look at those, Luke 6.

Luke 6.

Luke 6, verse 12.

Now it came to pass in those days that he, talking about Jesus, went out to the mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God. Continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose twelve, whom he named apostles. Jesus Christ had a tremendous decision to make. He had a number of people who were following him, but he needed to cut that down to a manageable size and give these fewer people intensive training. He wanted twelve disciples that were going to become apostles. So he centered his communication with God. He centered it all night long. He realized these men were going to be in a tremendous battle, but Christ recognized the value of communication. The value of communication.

And we need to appreciate the value of communication, our communication with God. I was watching a special... This probably sounds like the world at war up here today. But I was watching a special about World War II. And one of the reasons why the German army was so successful in World War II, especially with their mechanized army, was the fact that in their tanks were quite substantial. They had an 88 cannon mounted on their tanks, which was the same caliber they would use for anti-aircraft weaponry. It was a really big gun. But they also had something else, in addition to the thick armor, the heavy gun. Each of their tanks... They were diesel. Each of their tanks also had communication. And the various commanders, various tanks, communicate one with another. Our Sherman tanks, built right down there in 12-mile in Van Dyke in Detroit, Chrysler products, our tanks were not built for anti-tank warfare in World War II. They were built for anti-personnel warfare. Smaller gun, less lesser armament, and no communication. And they were gas powered, no communication. And so one of the reasons why the Germans were so successful is every tank could communicate with one another. They could coordinate their attacks. And of course, then they had that weapon of theirs, that 88. And they were showing... There was an older gentleman, probably in his 80s, talking about what it was like to face one of those. He said he was in a little village there in France someplace, and one of those shells went through a house, went through all the walls of a house, and took out one of our Sherman tanks on the other side of the house. That's how powerful those things were.

But communication is key. It's key. It's key for Jesus Christ. It's key for us. In our battles, we have to have communication with our HQ. That's not in Cincinnati. That's in the Third Heaven. That's with God the Father and Jesus Christ. Matthew 17.

Matthew 17.

Here we see an example where an individual wanted a demon cast out of his child. The disciples could not do that. They came to Jesus to begin talking to him about this. Here in Matthew 17.

The disciples came to Jesus privately and said, Why could we not cast it out? So Jesus said to them, Because of your unbelief. For surely I say to you, If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, Move from here to there, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind has not come out except by prayer and fasting.

We want the strength to deal with the other worldly forces of Satan, the demons. As time goes along, we're going to be more and more a part of our culture.

We need to be strong. We need to be people who are praying and fasting. Christ was always praying. Here it shows the benefit of fasting, being at one with Him, at one with God. Now we turn to Luke 4. We were in chapter 6 a moment ago. We'll go to chapter 4 of Luke.

Luke 4, verse 17. Luke 4, verse 17. And he was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Then he closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Jesus Christ knew His identity. He knew from the time He was very, very young. He was resolute to that knowledge of what He needed to do. He was able to turn to the Scriptures and say, This is who I am, what I am going to do. And brethren, you and I need to be studying God's word, centering on our calling, understanding what it is we are to do. And we need to imbibe deeply, richly, fully in the Word of God. If you and I are allowing our study of God's word to be an occasional thing, if it's not something that is always a part of us and our mind is just drinking in daily of what He has for us in His word, then we will be weak and we will fail. We don't want to be weak. We don't want to fail. We want to be strong. We want to have this reinforcement.

Lastly, John chapter 18.

This is John chapter 18.

Here, Jesus Christ is before Pilate at the end of His life. His life physically, obviously still alive today in spirit form. John chapter 18 verse 37. Are you a king then?

For this reason I came into the world. Jesus Christ was one who meditated. He thought deeply on the things of God. He made those things a part of the fabric of His life. It wasn't something He put on just for the Sabbath. It wasn't something He put on just for the Holy Days. This was who He was inside and out. It was the fabric of His life. You couldn't separate His beliefs from who He was.

For this reason I came into the world. We've had two sermons now. Hopefully it's been a help to you. It's been a help to me. Hopefully I can live to what I need to be doing. We're facing some really hard times in the future. We're facing hard times now. Our spiritual life is always on the line. And we need to be tough as Christians. We saw how Jesus Christ was resolute. We saw what it took for Him to be resolute. We need to be resolute, determined, and purposeful in our lives. We need to be centered on the Word of God with our prayer, with our fastings, with our studies, with our meditations. We have to realize that we need to be people of peace, people who are forgiving of one another. Because if we're not, then those things will eat on us and hurt us and can destroy us. And we don't want any of that. So please, let's you and I, let's work together as a team, as family, to help each other be as strong as we possibly can be for these troubled times that are coming.