How Does a Christian Cultivate a Deep Relationship With God in Satan's World?

What is our goal as Christians? As we look at Ephesians 4, verse 13. To me, this is one of the great verses of all the Scriptures. It's a very concise statement as to what our goal is as Christians. Ephesians 4, verse 13. Till we all come to the unity of the faith, we want to be unified with God our Father. We want to be unified with Jesus Christ, our elder brother. We want to be unified with our brothers and sisters in the faith. That takes a lot for us to be able to do that, to have that kind of unity, spiritual unity. Till we all come to that unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God.

Yes, we want to be knowledgeable Christians. Knowledgeable not only in a sense of academic knowledge, but knowledge in a sense that we know that God's ways work. We've employed the principles in our life, and they work. They're valid. They're true. They're good. Knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man or woman, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Jesus Christ. That is our goal, to mature to the place where we seek and begin to arrive to some degree.

We'll never be perfect. We'll never be 100% there in His flesh, but we want to seek the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Barb's very high there, isn't it? Very high. Now, if you would, please, turn over to John 10. We see in Ephesians 4 what God's goal is for us, but what is Satan's goal for us? Satan has a goal for us. He's got a strategy in mind for you. He's got a strategy in mind for me. He doesn't sit there just twiddling his thumbs. He wants to see us destroyed.

John 10 verse 10 says, the thief does not come except to steal and to kill and destroy. He wants to steal our peace of mind. Satan wants to steal our joy that we would have at Passover season. I was remarking to my wife earlier in the week. I forgot how I got into the subject. I was thinking about conscience. I remember years ago in another state, we had a very dear lady. She was about my age at that time, in her 30s.

Just a very dear lady who had such a sensitive conscience that it seemed like we were paying her a visit several times in the course of a year, because she would read an article in the Plain Truth magazine back in the day. She would listen to a sermonette or a sermon, and if she wasn't doing everything she read or heard, she would go into a tailspin.

It was so perplexing because she was such a fine woman, living a fine Christian life, but her conscience was so sensitive that after a while, and I was the associate pastor there in this particular area, the pastor said, look, what I'd like you to do is stop reading the Plain Truth. I mean, it just got to the place where she became almost, it was just really hard for her. Now, Satan loves to see that in us.

If we've got a really sensitive conscience, what's in many ways is a good thing, but he will want to steal our joy. He'll want to steal our peace of mind. He'll want to make you think about all the faults and failures you have and relive those and kick yourself as you're down. Well, that's not what God wants for us, but that's what Satan's goal is for us. He wants to steal. He wants to kill. He wants to kill the hope we have of the coming kingdom of God.

That's why I'm looking forward to the Holy Days. When we look at the Holy Days, they're a breath of fresh air compared to what the world has. Satan wants to kill that hope in us, and he wants to destroy. He wants to get us sidetracked, off-track. He wants us to begin making half steps, baby steps toward another way of living. So we see our goal as Christians in Ephesians 4. We see Satan's goal for us, which we don't want to take part in. Now, where are we in this battlefield? Let's go over to Ephesians 6.

Ephesians 6. A couple of weeks ago, when I was not able to make it to church in Chicago, Mr. Bradford covered some of this material. Ephesians 6, verse 12. Again, knowing God's goal, knowing Satan's goal, where are we on the battlefield? Ephesians 6, verse 12. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. Notice, we do not wrestle. I don't know how many of you have ever done any wrestling. I've made mention that I've did a little wrestling in PE class in high school.

My wife used to do some wrestling as well in her PE class in high school. And when you're doing that, and you've got an opponent that's basically your size or maybe a little bigger, and it's muscle on muscle, that is strenuous effort. And just a matter of a few minutes, even when you're talking as a sport in high school, for example, or college, I think it's like three minutes at a pop, and then you get a break. But for three minutes all out muscle on muscle wrestling, that's tough.

And so the idea here, the concept in verse 12, is we are doing something that's very energy taxing. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. We wrestle against Satan. We wrestle against the demons. We wrestle against the works of this world, our society. So this is where we're at on the battlefield. Let's even drill down a little more. Let's go to Romans chapter 7.

Romans chapter 7, a very famous set of verses here, scriptures, that you and I relate to very, very much. Romans chapter 7. I'm so glad Paul wrote this. Paul wrote this because he was inspired of God to write this because we need to hear this. Romans chapter 7 verse 15. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice. But what I hate, that I do.

I think all of us relate to that passage, don't we? Drop down to verse 18. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh nothing good dwells. For the will is present with me, that how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not. But the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Verse 22. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. So we see this battle going on in our hearts and our minds. Verse 23. But I see another law of my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So this Passover season, as we think these thoughts that the Apostle Paul articulates here, as we think about the goal we have as Christians, as we think about what Satan is trying to do in our lives, where we find ourselves in the battlefield, I want to ask a question today and hopefully answer that question. The question is this. How does a Christian cultivate a deep relationship with God in Satan's world? How does a Christian cultivate a deep relationship with God in Satan's world? We are all Christians in this room. We all desire to cultivate a deep relationship with God. We all live in Satan's world. How do we do that? This Passover season, that's something that we want to really examine. We're told to examine ourselves. That's part of the process that we go through every year at Passover time. Now, as you're sitting there, you're thinking, okay, Mr. Del Sandro is going to give a sermon today. Basically, the thought behind the sermon is, make God your number one priority. Well, there's certainly nothing wrong with that, is there? I have preached on that topic on many occasions. You have heard any number of sermons on that topic. You have discussed that topic, making God your number one priority with others on many occasions. You have come to own those words. You've come to own that mindset. However, we still live in Satan's world. We still have human nature. We not only have our human nature to contend with, we've got our mates human nature to contend with. We've got our children's human nature to contend with. We've got our bosses and co-workers human nature to contend with. We've got our neighbors' human nature to contend with. We've got church people's human nature to contend with. We've got all sorts of contention going on in our lives with human nature.

And it can be very, very taxing. So we need to be very careful in terms of how we're going to move forward. Let's go back now to John chapter 10, because I didn't read the whole verse. John chapter 10.

We saw in verse 10, John 10, 10, what Satan wants for us, his goal for us. But again, let's take another look at this verse and see what Jesus Christ wants for us. We saw some of that in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 13. But let's read the second half of John 10, 10, where Christ says, and in my Bible it's all red lettering, I have come, Christ has come, that they may have life, real life, spiritual life, life in another dimension, and that they might have it more abundantly. This is what Christ wants for us. This is what the Father wants for us, the abundant spiritual life. And we have that by making God our number one priority. We have that as we cultivate a deep relationship with God in Satan's world. But again, how do we do that? Thank you, sir. He just brought me a little vodka there, so that's nice. I was actually listening to a sermon by Gary Petty a while back, and he made mention of something, and I thought, well, I will steal that, but at least give him credit for the idea.

I've known Mr. Petty for a long, long time. I knew his, I used to attend occasionally the church where he grew up. His father, Rover Petty, was an elder that was ordained back in the mid-1960s, and back in the mid-1960s, they were in the Pittsburgh area. Grover Petty, Gary's dad, was one of just a few ministers we had in the worldwide church of God east of the Mississippi.

And if you enjoy listening to Mr. Petty speak on TV, it's too bad you didn't know his dad. Grover was the kind of guy, you give him a Bible and you say, talk on a subject, and off he would go. A wonderful man. He's not with us any longer, but just a wonderful man. And I see a lot of Mr. Petty Sr. and Gary. Mr. Petty, Gary Petty, gave a sermon, and he started by going to Luke chapter five. Let's turn over there. Luke chapter five and verse 16. How do we cultivate a deep relationship with God in Satan's world? There's a concept here in Luke 5.16 we need to pay attention to. Luke 5.16. So he himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed. Jesus Christ often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed. The idea here is we want wilderness time.

Wilderness time with God the Father. Wilderness time with Jesus Christ. Now, when you think about it, Jesus Christ had a tremendous target on his back.

24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Jesus Christ, you know, we often think about how loving he was, and certainly as we see in the scriptures, God is love. Christ is love. Was, is, wherever will be love. And yet Jesus Christ is also something else.

Jesus Christ, when he was in the flesh, was very tough. Very tough. You had to be tough to be able to go through life as he did in the flesh and never once sin. Never once sin. And the reason he was able to do that was because he allowed himself plenty of wilderness time.

How much wilderness time am I getting? How much wilderness time are you getting? Are we embracing that concept? Hopefully we will. Let me give you some benefits of wilderness time. Something we want to really embrace. Wilderness time with God helps us unplug from Satan's world. And we desperately need to unplug from Satan's world. Satan's world drains us. Full of anxiety. You know, I didn't read it here, but when I gave this sermon a few months ago or whenever it was in Chicago, there was an example I quoted about a young teenager and how he was a very bright student. He was taking advanced placement classes. But because he was pushing himself so hard, he hit a wall. And basically his whole life came crashing down. They had to, his family had to take the time and place him in a certain kind of facility where he can, where he could heal. And that facility was thousands of dollars. I forget the exact cost. It was a couple thousand dollars a day. I mean, you had to have some sort of really good insurance to send somebody there. And they were talking in that article. It was in the New York Times Magazine about how much our young people in this country are now doing that. They're hitting the wall. They're trying so hard because they want a good career. They want to be perfect. They want to succeed in life. And they're pushing themselves. And they're pushing themselves. Sometimes the parents are behind that push. And now what do we see? We see so many young people, especially as they get into the first year of college, where they need special counseling, where we see record numbers of suicides. And if that's what Satan is doing to our young people, Satan wants to do that to us as well. He never lets up. His hands are always on us. He never lets up. So we need wilderness time so we can unplug from Satan's society, from the draining effects of Satan's world, and all the anxieties that go with it. That's why the Sabbath is so beautiful. That's why the Holy Days are so beautiful. When Mr. Petty was giving this sermon, one of the ladies who was listening, he may have mentioned this. Apparently he probably gave us a couple of times. But one of the ladies was wondering, well, how do I get wilderness time? Where do I go? You know, if you live in a big city, where do you go? You know? I was... I forget who I was talking to the other day. I was making mention. I lived in a little town, Yorkville, 17,000 people. And a person I was talking to thought that was really hilarious because they live in a town of about a couple hundred people. You know? The church we've got in Ann Arbor, Michigan is in a little town of 150 people. There's one blinking yellow light, and that's right where the church is. And we had... the church is a building that one of our deacons bought. He converted it from a factory that used to slaughter chickens, I guess, I think it was. And he had an open house for the community. And right across the street from our building was a Sabbath keeper. And so she came in and she started saying, well, yeah, I keep the Sabbath. You know, she was... you know, not of our particular belief, but she kept Saturday's Sabbath. And then as I was walking around the room, I was talking to other people from the community who also were Sabbath keepers. Now, I don't know that they knew that, you know, this was going to be a Sabbath keeping church or not, but there were a number of people there, Seventh-day Adventists and various other people, various types of thought, that they honored the Seventh-day Sabbath.

So, you know, we very much want to unplug from the world and be with God's people on the Sabbath, on the Holy Days. Now, the lady that was asking... asked Mr.... or was discussing with Mr.

Petty, where do I get wilderness time? Well, where she got wilderness time was when she did her dishes.

She had a big picture window right above the sink. And she normally would hate doing dishes, but she learned to love doing dishes because as she was doing dishes, she was praying. She had a beautiful panoramic scene right through that window, and she was looking at God's creation. She was thinking that, my dad made this. My dad! The tremendous designer, creator, engineer, all the things that God is, a sustainer, that being created all that. And so she... that was her wilderness time. She would pray as she was doing her dishes. Of course, she had prayed other times as well. Let's take a look at 2 Timothy chapter 1. 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 7. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Power, love, sound mind. And by us taking advantage of wilderness time, time when we can have alone time with the Father, alone time with our elder brother, that strengthens us. We want to embrace that concept of wilderness time. It's one of the benefits. Another benefit of wilderness time.

Wilderness time helps clarify, helps us redefine our spiritual needs and goals.

As we approach the Passover, brethren, what are some of your spiritual needs? What are some of your spiritual goals? Do we have... we all have spiritual needs, we know that. But what are your spiritual goals? Do you have spiritual goals? I'm sure that you have some. But do they need to be clarified, redefined, re-examined? John chapter 4.

John chapter 4 and verse 34. John 4.34.

Jesus Christ says, John 4.34, Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

To do God's will. To do God's work. You know, we understand and appreciate we are a part of an organization, United Church of God. We send our tithes and offerings in to help with a work of getting out the gospel message. But again, what are we doing on an individual basis? I may mention that last summer, at the beginning of the summer, I went to play golf and, as it turned out, I thought, well, I'm going to go to this course I've never tried before. And I got up to the first tee and there were a couple of guys standing on the first tee. And I drive up in my cart and they look at me and say, well, would you like to play along with us? I said, well, sure. And so we played two or three or four holes and about the fifth hole, I think it was. They said, well, Randy, what do you do for a living?

I said, well, I'm a minister. And they started laughing. I thought, well, here it comes.

And one fellow, his name was Chuck, looked at the other fellow whose name was Ron. He said, well, Ron, there, he's a Baptist preacher, too. And so we struck up a nice conversation. And over the course of last summer, I was playing golf a lot with the Baptists. Really enjoyed that. And of course, during the course of a lot of those, and they're just two really fine guys. But during the course of our playing golf, Ron would come and say, well, I'm thinking of giving this as a sermon on Sunday. What do you think of these points? He said, well, you might add this or you might add that. And then this last, here, probably what, two weeks ago, I called him up to see how he was doing. And he said, well, how are you doing? What are you going to preach on on Sunday? Now, I was biding my time. I wanted to make sure I had the ground all prepared. But I thought, this is the time. This is the time. So I said, well, you know, Ron, I'm a Sabbath keeper. Oh, now, you mean Sunday? I said, no, I mean Saturday. Oh, you keep Saturday. Well, that's fine with me. That's fine with me. You know, as long as you believe it's Christ as your Savior. I said, yeah, I do. And then we got to talking about various things. He said, now, you obviously believe this. I said, well, actually, I don't. Here, I, you know, I don't keep Christmas and, and so forth. I keep the Holy Days as we see in Leviticus 23, as we see in the New Testament. You do. Oh, that's interesting. He said so. And then we got talking about the last great. Oh, so you believe and there's, there's two and three chances for people, because we were talking about the resurrections. I said, no, I don't believe that. I believe God gives everybody one shot, one good chance. I said, now, Ron, I said, what do you do with, you know, Acts chapter four and verse 12 says, there's no other name under heaven whereby people can be saved. So what do you do with all those people? Let's say that we're alive before the birth of Jesus Christ, who never knew Jesus Christ. And even since that time, what do you do with them? Do they go to hell? Well, no, right. They don't go to hell. Well, do they go to the kingdom of God? No. Well, I don't know. So anyhow, we had a really interesting conversation. I said, you know, Ron, what we need to do, you and I sit down sometime over a cup of coffee and, and, and chat about some of these things. So, you know, it helped me to realize and to appreciate, and I've done this wherever, you know, back in the days when I was not in the full time ministry, back in a time when I was still in the full time ministry, and they said, Randy, we're going to cut your salary in half. You go out and find yourself work for 30 hours a week, continue to pastor your two churches in 1998. And so I worked in the warehouse. And the guys, the guys there knew that I was a minister. And, you know, they would come and they'd ask me various questions. And I appreciated that. You know, we had one guy that was just a small little fellow, but knew all the, all the most horrible, dirty stories and dirty mouth. And, but one day when I was standing in the back of the warehouse, his name was Kelly. Kelly came up to me and said, Randy, and he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. He had questions. He said, do you think somebody like me can ever be forgiven? You've been with me the last six months. You know how I talk and what I say and the things I've done. Could God ever really forgive me? And he was serious.

So folks, that's a part of us doing the work. Not hiding our light under a bushel, but being, you know, and not that we're going to, you know, walk into the office and knock on somebody's desk. Hey, you know about the Holy Days, you know, but when the times are right, when you've cultivated a relationship and they ask a question, then that's an opportunity for us to be able to come to the fore and begin to discuss things with them. You know, just like Mordecai said to Esther, that you've come to this time and this place for this reason.

So again, we want wilderness time to clarify and define who we are. Who we are. Another benefit of wilderness time, it affords us the opportunity to reassess where we are in our growth, in terms of our growth in the church, our growth in the faith, I should better say, where we are. Reassess ourselves. And of course, this Passover season, that's something we want to do. We want to take a look at ourselves. Where are we? Where should we be?

2 Corinthians chapter 13.

2 Corinthians chapter 13.

You know the scripture I'm going to turn to here. 2 Corinthians 13 verse 5.

It says, examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith.

Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you are disqualified? So here it says, to examine ourselves.

In the low one-night Greek-English lexiconda, where it examine is defined this way. To learn the nature or character of someone or something by submitting such to thorough and extensive testing.

Are you thoroughly examining and testing yourself? Am I doing the same thing? Where are we with that? Wilderness time, when we can get apart where it's quiet, just us in God, God's Spirit working with our minds, His Word, the Bible, we begin to analyze and think and meditate. Where are we? Where do we need to be? That's our wilderness time.

Now, those are some benefits of wilderness time. Let me talk about some more of the nuts and bolts of taking full advantage of wilderness time. How do you take advantage? Let's say you've got a place you can go. I'm sure that you do. I do. You probably have many places you can go. Early in the morning, maybe you're an earlier morning person. You get up early in the morning. Maybe you're up at four or five o'clock in the morning. It's nice and quiet. Your mind is now full of all sorts of things. And you can take the time, your own personal wilderness time. It's you and God. Maybe you're more like me. To me, mornings are meant for sleeping. I'm not good in the morning. I'm kind of like a pinball. I get up in the morning. I'm bouncing off of walls. And Mary says, would you please wake up? I'm up, you know. So I'm spraining my ankle and doing all sorts of wonderful things. But whatever is good for you, you know, you take your wilderness time. Let's take it. How do you take advantage of that wilderness time? Letter A. When in the wilderness follow God's lead. When in the wilderness follow God's lead. God loves us. He wants the very best for us. He knows what is best for us and has intervened in lives to illuminate what's best for us.

So let's ask ourselves a question as people led by God's Holy Spirit.

At this point in your life, where is God leading you right now?

What is God's Spirit doing in your hearts and minds right now where you feel it's an undeniable thing? You've got to do this. You've got to go a certain direction. There's something you need to do.

Two of the last, I think, two of the last three guys I ordained, and I won't mention names here, but two of the fellows I ordained as deacons here in my life, it came to my mind. I said, why isn't this individual ordained? Why aren't they ordained? And it just seemed like wherever I went, whatever I was doing, if I had some discretionary time and I was thinking about the local church area, it came back to me. Why, Randy, aren't we ordaining this person yet? Are they qualified? Yeah, they're qualified. Why haven't I sat down with them and discussed it with them? God was leading me that these people needed to be ordained. So, brethren, if God is leading you and it's just undeniable, what is He saying to you? What is God saying to you right now? He speaks to you through your prayers. He speaks to you through fellowship. There are many times in my life where I've wrestled with something or other and some brother or sister comes up and they start a conversation, and the answer is right there. God has led a person into my life to give me an answer I was seeking. Now, if I wasn't attending services, if I wasn't going to church, if I was part of the stay-at-home group, I wouldn't have got that answer. You see, God doesn't just lead the ministers. God leads every one of us. Every one of us has got God's Holy Spirit and leads us powerfully. And there's things you see that I might not see and vice versa. And as we discuss things and talk about things, we've got more of God's Spirit that comes to the fore. There have been many times I've had people come to me and really give me... They don't know they were helpful to me, and yet they've said some things to me that were an answer to prayer. Of course, then the question is, how am I going to respond? You know, it wasn't the pastor general who gave me that advice. It was little little lady. Well, it seems to me there's something we do at Passover that deals with humility, right? We'll talk about that next time I'm here. Let's look at Proverbs chapter 3.

To take advantage of wilderness time, follow God's lead. However that comes to you, through your prayer, your study, through conversation, through... We had, I thought, a wonderful sermonette today. A lot to be learned from Mr. Bratton's subject today.

You hear something in a sermonette, you hear something in a sermon, you hear something in a conversation. How is God leading you? Proverbs chapter 3 and verse 5, Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, all of your heart. Lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways, not just some of your ways, in all your ways, in all of our ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths. If our paths aren't being directed, if mine aren't being directed, if yours aren't being directed, is it because we are not acknowledging God in all of our ways? Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil. You'll be health for your flesh and strength to your bones. Exodus chapter 13. Exodus chapter 13. Now verse 21.

Exodus 13.21. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so as to go by day and night, God leads us. You may not see a pillar of cloud or a pillar of smoke. That doesn't mean God's not leading you. He does it through the various things we've talked about. John chapter 6. Take a look at this. John chapter 6. Off quoted scripture. John chapter 6 and verse 44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I'll raise him up at the last day. Where is God? God has already drawn you to the church. Does he stop drawing you? Does God draw you to more understanding? Does he draw you to more truth about yourself? About what you need to be doing in your life? Verse 45. It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught by God. What is God teaching you? What is God teaching me?

There's something happening. If we are people of the Bible, if we are people of the Spirit of God, then God is working with us. What is it he's trying to get across to you right now, or to me right now? We shall all be taught by God. As was brought out in Mr. Bratton's civics, the message today, God loves each and every one of us. He wants the best for each and every one of us, and that means he's going to lead us in a place that goes away from self-hurt, where we're not acting in our own best interest because we're self-deceived or we've got misinformation. We don't like seeing our kids do that. We are God's kids. He doesn't like seeing us do those sorts of things, so he's going to lead us away if we give him the chance.

So in the wilderness, follow God's lead. When in the wilderness, as I said earlier, you know, how do we take advantage? We unplug from Satan. We unplug from Satan.

Let's go to Matthew 4.

You know, as I turn on the evening news, and I, you know, last time we were here, I kind of hit you hard with Isaiah chapter 3. I got to talking about politics to the place where I put my sermon on the private side, so people who are not in the Beloit Church would not hear it, because I really got teed off on the politics of our nation. And once again, last night, I was listening to TV and what a number of people who are running for president. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this. I don't want all my sermons to be on the private side. Something that Mr. Obama never tackled, or Mrs. Clinton never tackled, that now some of the Democrats who are standing or running for president want to tackle, is this idea of reparations, where we pay money to people of color, because of what happened back in the days of slavery.

Don't get me started.

But apparently that is gaining traction, and I'm thinking to myself, where is our country going? Where is our country going? Matthew 4, talking about unplugging, I'm going to unplug from the political scene here. Matthew 4 starting at verse 1. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Proactive here. Christ is seeking Satan out to defeat him. And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights afterward, he was hungry. Yeah. Now when a tempter came to him, he said, if you are the Son of God, command that these stones be become bread. And he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Jesus Christ here is quoting Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 3. How do we unplug our mind from Satan's world? We go back to God's world. We go back to the things of God. Mr. Armstrong used to say, if you want to get air out of a bottle, you put water in. Well, we are like a bottle. We are a vessel that needs to be filled with God's Holy Spirit. We need to be filled with that water. And as we are filled with the water, the air, the vanity comes out. Right? Verse 6, Satan says to Christ, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written, he shall give his angels charge over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up lest you dash your foot against the stone. And Jesus said to him, it is written again, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. Quoting from Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 16.

So Christ is our example in all things. When Satan was coming after him, what did he do? How did he unplug from Satan? He quoted God's Word. Verse 8, again the devil took him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. Verse 10, Jesus said, away with you, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 13. Unplugging from Satan. And there's power in that. As weak and as fallible, as physical and fleshly as you and I are, God gives us powerful tools. He gives us his spirit. He gives us his Word. And if we utilize those tools, we can be very successful in the onslaughts of Satan. Let's go to James chapter 4. James chapter 4 verse 6.

James chapter 4 and verse 6.

But he gives more grace, therefore he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Next time I'm with you, we're going to talk about humility. There are three aspects to the Passover. You've got the foot washing, you've got the bread and the wine. I'm going to go through this in both congregations this year, both here in Chicago. And the point I want to make next week about humility is what a blessing humility is. What a tremendous blessing it is to be humble. Not just that we need to be humble, but what a blessing it is. When we understand what it is and we apply that principle to our lives, God gives grace to the humble. Verse 7. Therefore submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. This tremendously powerful being will flee from you if we submit to God, if we unplug from the world and from Satan and follow God, Satan will flee from us. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Again, this is all part of that unplugging process. Cleanse your hands, you sinner, purify your hearts, you double-minded. So there's the idea here of unleavened bread, where we get, where we repent and get rid of those things that hurt us. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves. Notice again, we return to that idea. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up. He will lift you up.

This is a great segue for the next idea here. Taking full advantage of our wilderness time.

Plug. If we're unplugging from Satan, letter B, letter C, plug into God and God's way of thinking.

We don't want to just unplug from Satan. We want to plug into the source of real power. We want to embrace where real power comes from. John chapter 3.

John the Baptist speaking. Again, I've quoted this to you on a number of occasions. But the principle to me is so wonderful, so powerful. John chapter 3 in verse 30. John the Baptist talking here, he says, he, meaning Christ, must increase, but I must decrease.

That's how we plug into God's thinking, where we must decrease, but God must increase in our hearts and our minds. Philippians chapter 3. Philippians chapter 3 starting here in verse 7.

Philippians 3.7. But what things were gained to me, these I have accounted a loss for Christ. Yet indeed I account all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish that I might gain Christ. You couldn't find a better scripture talking about priorities than that.

Everything else is nothing. Philippians 3.7 and 8. Everything else is worthless and nothing compared to that relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ in our wilderness time. Verse 12. Philippians 3.12. Not that I've already attained or I'm already perfected. We talk about that all the time, don't we? We realize we're not going to be perfect in this flesh. But I press on. Doesn't mean we just sit down and throw up our hands. I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind. We talk about that. I'm not going to read it now, but we talk about that in Passover in Hebrews 9.

Because of the sacrifice of Christ, our consciences are cleansed. And because our consciences are cleansed, we can move forward to do the works of God. I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind. Brethren, don't wear a ball and chain around your ankle about past sins. If you've truly repented of them, that's it! Move forward!

Forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. That's what we want. We want to have that kind of philosophy.

David was a man who sinned big, but he repented even bigger. He could have gone through the rest of his life after the Bathsheba experience, and just with his head hung down. But he realized that's not where it is at if I want to continue to have a relationship with my father. I sinned big, but I'm going to repent, and repent big, and he did.

He was called a man after God's own heart because of that. Wouldn't you and I love to have that name given to us, or that description given to us by the Father or Jesus Christ?

Lastly, letter D, how do we take advantage of wilderness time? When in the wilderness, cultivate humility. It's a big thing. To me, humility is one of the greatest attributes a Christian could have. Cultivate humility. Numbers chapter 12.

Numbers chapter 12.

And verse 3. Numbers 12. 3.

Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.

Very humble. He was so humble he wrote that about himself.

It is thought that perhaps, oh, I can't think of his name now, but I think that's one of the people who put together the Old Testament wrote that in Moses' behalf. It's wonderful to have these senior moments, isn't it? Ezra. Now when a man Moses was humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth. You know, you think about the life of Moses, and I think a lot of Moses' humility came as he reflected on what God had done in his life. Think about it. Through hindsight, Moses knew that God had spared his life. His mother had put him in that basket, stuck it on the river. He came to rest with the daughter of Pharaoh. That was a tremendous way that God intervened in his life. And then Moses received a world-class education. In Pharaoh's household. World-class. Whatever, you know, and God was the one who was doing that for him. And I think you can look back in your life and see how God has educated you along certain lines. How he's put you in certain positions. How certain people come into your life to train and educate you in various ways, not just academically, but in a lot of other ways that are important in life. So Moses looked back and saw how God did that for him.

And then he saw where, you know, he killed the one Egyptian, went into the wilderness for 40 years. And again, God was training him in the wilderness, training him to be faithful. Now, he was a man who had a share of issues, and we see that in the scriptures. But again, God was working in his life, and he saw that. Then those last 40 years of his life, leading Israel, all he learned, the way he came so close to God.

So Moses, you know, throughout his life, had to come to realize that whatever he was, was because of what God had done in his life. And whatever you are, or whatever I am, if it's of any value or any worth, it's because what God has done in our life.

Romans chapter 5.

Romans chapter 5, verse 1.

Romans 5.1, Therefore, having been justified by faith, faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We've got faith in that. We've been justified. Our past sins have been forgiven. We have peace. We have at one man, because our sins have been taken care of. We've got a relationship now because of Christ's sacrifice with God the Father and our elder brother. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith. We have access to God. We've got access because of the sacrifice of Christ, through whom we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. This grace in which we stand. How does a Christian cultivate a deep relationship with God in Satan's world? We cultivate that through the grace in which we stand. The grace in which we stand. So today, brethren, we've taken a look at three benefits of wilderness time. We've taken a look at some nuts and bolts of wilderness time. How do we take full advantage of that?

Jesus Christ did. We want to follow His example. Last scripture for today, John chapter 17. John chapter 17.

Because Jesus Christ took full advantage of wilderness time, He was able to say this. I have glorified you on the earth. I have finished the work which you have given me to do.

Brethren, you and I need to ask ourselves, how are we doing with verse 4?

Are we glorifying God on the earth the way God wants us to do that?

Are we in the process? Now, our work is not finished. We're still alive. We're still, we're not on our death beds or anything. But are we in the process of finishing the work which God has given us to do? Those are questions we should be asking ourselves this Passover season.

How does a Christian cultivate a deep relationship with God in Satan's world?

The short answer, make the best possible use of wilderness time.