Learning by Examples

Okay, so this is part four of three. Part four of a trilogy, I guess. So I know I promised three, but it just feels like there's one more topic in this series. So this is going to be part four of the two trees that we've been talking about so far. And this will be practical examples applied. So I know we've touched on some of the examples, but this will be, let's dissect what we've talked about so far. Let's apply it to life, how this actually works, by going through biblical examples. And just to reiterate or to refresh just very quickly, if we look at what we're talking about here, we have the three scriptures, or the three... I'm sorry, the four scriptures that talk about the three ways that Satan hijacks a relationship. And he's done this from the beginning of time with Adam and Eve. He's done this throughout the Bible, and he's done this, or he does this to us today. This is the way he works. This is his methods. This is how he trips people, how he captures people, how he gets you to do things, how he gets you to sin, is by these three things. And if you take these four verses and put them together, they all talk about the same thing in a little bit of a different way. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life. These are not of the Father, but of the world. This is Satan's world. And this is the exact same three things in Genesis. This is also the exact same three examples that are called out in Jude, talking about Cain, Balaam, and Korah, those three things. And then in Matthew, this was how Christ was tempted by Satan. So if we stack all those up again—I know we've reviewed this a few times—but it's very important to understand, because we're going to take this just a slight step further. When you look at these three things, they're all talking about the same things. Sodom and Gomorrah, if you were to stack it up across these, was described with these three things. Every single thing in the Bible that is of Satan that works like him and his attitudes, his moods, and emotions will have these three components, or one of these components that are there. And this is important because when we talk about it, we look at Satan. He is called the Prince of the Power of the Air. So in Ephesians 2, verse 1 through 3, he's called the Prince of the Power of the Air, a spirit that works in the sons of disobedience, a moment when we once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. And it's been described before that Satan operates kind of like a broadcast-like radio waves, things you can't see, but he transmits in these moods and these attitudes in this way to us. And if we tune into this wavelength, we're tuning into his wavelength.

Therefore, this subject is a lot about attitude. A lot of times we only discuss the words. You know, somebody will come up and they'll say, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But how do you address an attitude that's underneath? This is the hard part. Because you can't just say, hey, you have a bad attitude or you. It's for us to diagnose and understand where our attitudes are tuning into the wrong wavelength, not the correct wavelength, because this is how he works. We always think it's logical. It's going to be words. It's going to be something like that. But you know what? He comes at us with temptations, with attitudes, with shades of all of these things in subtle ways. The thing that trips people up is always one of those three things. In fact, preceding every single sin is one of these three things.

Think of it this way. Preceding the sins, and we'll look at the Bible. One of these three things is behind sins that get committed. So this is how he operates and transmits things.

You see groups. Where do you see mobs? Mobs are whipped into a frenzy or a fury. It's by an attitude. It's by sending a wavelength. It's by getting people stirred up. So he's called the prince of the power of the air. He works by this, and he works by these methods.

It is very important to understand these things. As we go through the examples, we'll see how underneath all the examples that you read where somebody's going off and sinning, you'll find one of these three things. So let's do a little sleuthing together, too. As we look at these examples, I won't give you the answer, but see if you can figure out which one of these three things, more than one, is underneath each one of these examples as we go through.

So that's what this sermon will cover, is let's apply this to real life and how it works. Now as we also learned last time, if you look at the ten commandments, the ten commandments are in direct opposition to these three things. So if you break down roughly the first five of the commandments, those deal with pride of life. And I find it very interesting that more than half of them are devoted to countering pride of life, if you want to think of it that way.

It should give you some weight to how important of a thing to consider that is. Because for you to divest your pride, you have to give up your other gods, including yourself. You can't have other idols or things that you look to. You don't take the name of God in vain. You have reverence for Him. It's not your pride lifting you up and running God down. The Sabbath day. A Sabbath day where you have to put ourselves aside, and we have to submit ourselves to God in the holy time that He has set apart.

You could be fired from work. There's a lot of things that could happen. You have to put your pride down. And then honoring your father and mother, not just in the spiritual realm, but down to the physical level to your parents, requires you many times to swallow your pride, doesn't it? Family relationships? I don't know anybody who has a perfect one. Maybe some do.

I don't know. But there's always nuances of things. And you know what? God says it does not matter. Still honor your father and your mother. That takes swallowing your pride, doesn't it? Many times. So if you look at this, there's counters. There's opposites to each one of these things. And obviously the last few, they overlap. But the lust of the flesh, you know, murdering, committing adultery, etc. You know, thou shall not covet lust of the eyes. But you know, the ones before that, too, committing adultery, you have to look at these things as well.

There's a lot of things. The commandments are direct opposition to these things. Now you could also take the works of the flesh, the works of the flesh and Galatians, and you could map those and bucket them into, and I loosely did that, you can loosely bucket those things into these three categories as well, can't you? Where are contentions and jealousies and selfish ambitions, dissensions and heresies? Those things all have to do with people wanting to, you know, they don't suppress their own pride and want to be something.

This is where these things come from. And all the rest are obvious, right? Adultery, fornication, etc., etc. If you look at the works of the flesh, those can be loosely bucketed into those three things again. So you see, throughout the Bible, there's a consistency of these three things that's talked about, encountered. It's discussed in example after example after example is given of these three things. So it's very critical for us to understand all the way back to the two trees, how things were started, what things are based on, and how it works.

It feels like we miss that sometimes. Today, let's see how this works and things underneath it. Right? So you can map those, and the Ten Commandments are direct opposition, and it was said or simplified by Mr. Armstrong to say, one is a way of get, and the other was a way of give. And that was a summation of those two sides of the world.

I get and satisfy my flesh and everything else, or I give my life to God, I give to other people, etc. Give versus get, way of life. So you can see how that those basically map. So that's a basic review of what we've been discussing, and we've gone through each one of those things one at a time.

If you missed those, those are posted online. If you want to go back and dissect each one of those three things in detail, we've done that in the past. But let's look today. Let's learn from example, because behind every sin that gets committed is one of these three things. There's one of these three things. Okay, so let's start with the obvious examples.

Let's start somewhere obvious. So I'll buzz through these examples pretty quickly. I'm not going to dissect all the nuances of the examples, but I'll just let's read it, think about it for a second, and think which one of the three things is behind this example. Let's start with an easy one. Okay? I'm lobbing a softball. If you know what softball is. All right. So it says in Acts 12 verse 20, it says, Now Herod had been very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and they came to him with one accord, and having made blasters the king's personal aid, their friend, they asked for peace, because their country was supplied with food by the king's country.

So on a set day Herod, arrayed in a royal apparel, sat on his throne and gave an oration to them. He's speaking to them. And the people kept shouting. So it wasn't him, but the people shouting. The voice of a god and not a man.

Right? They were saying, you're a god. This is the, you're so eloquent. You're this. You're the voice of a god, not a man. Then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give glory to God. And he was eaten by worms and died. Okay? Start with an easy one. What is behind that? Which one? Okay. You can see it. Pride of life. Right? There's a pride there. That's about him. And guess what?

People are, you know, kissing up to this guy and saying, wow, you're amazing. You're like a god, not a man. And he did not give glory to... So it's a sin to not give glory to God. What's one of the big things that we learn from this? One of the big things. One of the big things is the opposite of pride is giving glory to God. The opposite of pride is giving glory to God. Let's pull something out of each one of these things as we read through. Not just identify what's behind it, but let's pull something out for us to really kind of grasp that we're being taught here.

This is very important. When we talk about giving glory to God, it's a subject that is super, super important. And we think, oh yeah, you know, we do. But there's shades of this, I can tell you. There's shades of this. Right? We get in trouble when, you know, if we're not giving God 100% of the credit for things, then we're starting to move into the sight of pride, and ourselves are lifted up in some way.

Right? Our efforts, yours and my efforts, are nothing. They're nothing. They really are. You know what? You were called by God because He picked you. It's out of His kindness, His grace, His... the credit goes back to Him. You know, a lot of times we think, oh, you know what? I'm sure He picked me for... I don't know. Maybe He saw something in me that was great. You know what? He says He picked the weak in everything in the world, the cast-outs the worst. Okay? So let's start there.

You know why? Because the glory is going to go to Him, not you. So when we start thinking like that, and it comes... it doesn't come to us. It should always go back to God. This example, Herod didn't stop them from saying it. You know, oh, you know it's amazing how great you are. He's probably like... He wasn't blatantly saying it himself, but He didn't stop them and give God the glory. This is super critical to understand here that the opposite of pride is giving glory to God.

So when we think about our lives, when we think about the things that happen, your calling, glory goes to God. The knowledge you have, the truth you have, the doctrines you have, the glory goes to God. Even the blessings you have, a lot of times we think, man, I must have been doing really well.

Guess what? Sorry. God is really gracious to you, and He's also good sometimes when you do things wrong. The glory always goes to God.

God is that way. He's the giver. He gives you those things. It's very important for us to understand that 100% of the glory must go to God. So this is an important concept for us. If you have trouble with that, what I just said, there might be a pride somehow in there, because our efforts seem to us to be so great. They seem to be something, and you know, us doing great things, but the glory goes back to God 100%. And if you have trouble, think about this. Think about the pride, sort of. If you have pride and don't give God glory, this scripture probably is hard for you. I've read this quite a few times over the years and think, ah, this sounds a little harsh. Right? Let's read this. The unprofitable servant, Luke 17.7. It says, In which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him, when he has come in from the field, come at once and sit down to eat? But will he not rather say to him, prepare something for my supper, engurge yourself, and serve me till I have eaten and drunk? And afterwards you will eat and drink. Does he thank the servant? Because he did the things that were commanded him.

I think not. So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, we are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.

Okay, that's the essence of that concept in keeping God's law. If you want to think about this, do we keep God's law 100%? Do we try 100%? Do we put our effort into it 100%? But when we have done all the commandments, we still say, you know what? That was my duty to do. And God says, that's still unprofitable. Because God is the one who enabled that in the first place, and the Spirit, and gave the commands, and everything else, the ability to even want to keep these things.

The glory has to go back to Him. What happens is, when pride creeps in, we start to say, yeah, you know, I'm doing pretty well. Look, my checkbox of things is, I feel pretty good about myself.

The reason that that's hard for a person like that is you need to say, sorry, I'm just doing what's required. I'm unprofitable. If that rubs you the wrong way, then there's something possibly there that rears its head. And we want these things to feel good about ourselves. When you go to God, how are you justified before Him? You remember the two people praying? Remember this example? It's so important. One guy said, you know, I'm doing pretty well. Check, check, check. The other guy said he wouldn't even lift his eyes and said, I am a sinner. Which one was justified before God?

It's the one who said, I'm the unprofitable servant. I'm a sinner. When you appear before God in His throne, He will judge your works. But you don't get to say, you know, I deserve to be in here because I did all of this. You say, I am a sinner. And I ask and by your mercy, ask for forgiveness.

This is a super critical point because anything that starts to smell like not giving glory to God and taking credit to ourselves is the path of pride. Starts small, creeps in, gets bigger, ends up where Herod is, ends up where you're not giving God glory, and ends up where Satan is a being is. God is super sensitive to pride. Let me just say, He resists a person with pride.

So we should not smell anything at all like it or think or run this line of things. What's a proper response? I mean, it's in the Bible over and over when you do something great. Like, here's an example. The apostles in Acts 3 verse 11, this is now, as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them. So they just done a miraculous healing on the porch, which is called Solomon's, and they were greatly amazed. Can you imagine this? You do something where it's a healing and all the people that are in the crowd around you come up and were like, wow, that's amazing. And what would they start to say to you? Think about it. You know, wow, that's amazing. That's, you know, you'd be like, oh, no, that, you know, God does the healing. But you must, you must submit to God and be a good servant, right? Oh, yeah, you know, you're right. I must submit, you know, you start down this path that it just starts prying in there, that type of thing. What did they say? He says, men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why do you look intently at us? Why are you looking at us like we're anything? As though by our own power or godliness we made this man walk. I mean, clearly 100 percent. Don't look at us at all. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the God of our fathers glorified His servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go. Okay, so what, this is the proper response, right? That's the response. That's conversion with pride pushed out, because you will be poked with it. Somebody will come up and say to you, for those who speak up here, super important, super important to never take credit. And when you pray about your message, it is not for you. If it turns to you and about you, you will not be effective. You want to be an effective speaker up here. You point people to God 100 percent to His glory, His way. Do not take credit. If you get anything spiritual out of speakers up here, myself, it's not because of us. It's because of God. No credit goes to us. Did I prepare something? Yeah, it does not matter.

I could prepare every presentation in PowerPoint in 47 hours, and if God doesn't do it, it doesn't go anywhere. So the glory 100 percent has to be to God. If you want to speak effectively, pray that way, know that way, and get any semblance of taking credit out of your heart, and you'll see what happens. That's what happens. This is a very important point, super important thing. Dress many times. I spent a little bit more time on this one, like I said, because you look at the weight of this point in the Ten Commandments, in the Bible, in the examples. Man, this one's everywhere. This is something that I think we ignore, but happens all the time.

Okay, so let's move faster then. Another example. Saul. Okay, let me just read this example. We turned back to 1 Samuel 15. I'm kind of breaking in the middle of a thought, right? They had to go invade and capture a city and supposed to kill everything, because they were evil, wicked, and God wanted them to do that. So Saul went away, came back, and he didn't do that.

So what did he say, right? Saul, starting in verse 17, says, So Samuel said to him, When you were little in your own eyes, you were not, were you not the head of the tribes of Israel?

It did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel. Now the Lord set you on a mission, and said, Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.

Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord?

Why did you swoop down on the spoil and do evil on the side of the Lord? And Saul said to Samuel, But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek. And I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder, sheep, and oxen, the best of the things which it had been utterly destroyed to sacrifice the Lord your God.

Okay, so there's this is kind of funny if you think about it, right? He was told to destroy everything. What does he do first? He starts to blame, shifted on to the people, right? You know, the people did that. But they did it for a good reason. They brought them back to sacrifice to God. Oh, doesn't that warm your heart, right? Is kind of what he's saying. And then he said, I've, you know, later down on, you know, he got rebuked for this, obviously. But if you go through this whole process, you know, God said, sorry, that is not obedience to me. And then verse 30, this is what I'm just kind of moving on to the points. He says, then he said, I have sinned.

This is Saul, right? Is this real repentance? What does he say next?

I've sinned, yet honor me now, please, before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may worship the Lord your God. So Samuel reluctantly did it after the second time he said that. What do you see behind this? Again, he's very blatantly the people.

He didn't stop it, because you know what? He wanted everyone to like him. This is what he's after.

It was more important for him to look good in the eyes of the people, so he let them not kill the stuff. And then he said to him, please, I've sinned. You know, people can talk the talk, right? That's why when you look at the attitudes, there's one of these three things will manifest itself underneath things all the time. He said, yet honor me now, honor me, right? Please, before all the people, make me look good. Please don't make me look bad. Okay, what's driving him?

Sounds good to start with. We've got him to sacrifice and all this other stuff. But again, this is the pride of life again. He wants to look good in front of the people. Primary motive, what did he do? Didn't follow the command. He sacrificed in front of people. Now he wants to, let's wrap this all up, even though he knows it's a mess, and still make him look good.

Okay, can you see how underneath every single sin there is something that's driving this one of these three things? That gets poked. Okay, it's very important. So for us, what do we learn from this?

Wanting people to like you, like in this example. I'm not saying we should want people to hate you, but you know when that's something that drives you, wanting people to like you can be a side of pride or lead to pride. Right, and this is, you know, it's a hard thing for, sometimes for leaders, especially like in this example, because you know you don't want people to hate you, but if you follow God, sometimes you're going to have to make the right calls on things, right? And you follow God first, but if you just bend to the will of the people because you want them to like you, you're starting to go down a path of pride. You're starting to go down where you saw what you leads to a place where you're lost. That's where it leads to. So it's very important to understand and self-reflect on these things. Nothing wrong for wanting people to like you. I don't mean it that way, in a natural, good, right way. But when it comes between you choosing to do the right thing according to God, His will, versus not wanting to upset people, then you have crossed a path to where you're lifting yourself up above God. You are now are boarding on pride. Okay, so we have two examples of pride. Let's go on. Another example. See, as I read this, what you can call out is behind this.

This example of Demetrius, this is over in Acts 19. It says, and about the time there arose a great commotion about the way, for a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Diana, brought no small profit to the craftsmen. So he's creating his little idols of Diana, and he had a whole bunch of craftsmen, and they're making a bunch of money in here. And he called them together with the workers of similar occupation. He said, men, you know that we have had our prosperity by this trade. Moreover, you see and hear that not only at Ephesus, but throughout almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people saying that they are not gods which are made with hands. So not only is this trade of ours in danger of falling into disrepute, but also the temple of the great goddess Diana may be despised in her magnificence destroyed whom all of Asia and the world worship. So he's talking about this, and he says, now when they heard this, they were full of wrath, and they cried out and said, greatest Diana of Ephesus! Boy, they have insulted our god, haven't they? Cannot believe they've already insulted our god. So the whole city was filled with confusion. Then they rushed into the theater with one accord, having seized Gaius and all these people I can't pronounce, and Paul's travel companions. And when Paul wanted to go into the people, the disciples would not allow him. Then some of the officials of Asia, who were his friends, sent to him pleading that he would not venture into the theater. Some therefore cried one thing and some another, for the assembly was confused, and most of them did not know why they had come together. Didn't even know why they're there, but it was all what? Stirred up. Right? They're all stirred up. Now, what's behind this one?

What's behind this one? Which one of the three things? There's a few, but what's the primary one on this one, do you think? You can say it if you want. Yes. Right? Because it was about the money for them. It was about the money for them. Behind this was, hey man, we're making a great living on this, right? We're making a little tons of money on this stuff. Oh, by the way, let's just say it like this. They're, you know, offending our Diana. What do we learn from this big time? Let me tell you this. When it comes to these things, there's always a red herring in the mix. Okay? Do you know what a red herring is? A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue that's actually the issue. That's what a red herring is. Something gets thrown in to cause a distraction. What's the red herring here? You're offending our great Diana. I cannot believe they're doing so. They got people stirred up for that. But once again, what's behind every single one of these things is one of the three that's behind it, driving it, lust of the eyes, here, the money that they're going to lose out on. A red herring is thrown in. Now, here's a pattern to remember. This is a scripture to remember, because you're going to be encountered with things in life where there's a red herring that will make you argue all day long. And what's really going on? This is how you decipher attitudes on things, for those three things.

This is how you decipher attitudes underneath. We're not walking around judging people, but for us to discern problems that you're going to encounter, you have to know which of the three things is behind it and not fall for the red herring. Not fall for the red herring. There's always going to be something like that. Now, has this happened to us?

Absolutely. If you want to look back, let me just say it like this. If you want to look back at any single split we've ever had, in the history, there's one of these three things that is at work.

There is one of these three things that is at work. And what is discussed all day long is a red herring over here. Now, don't get that wrong in the sense of when the doctrinal things are being changed. That's absolutely a thing to discuss, but there's something behind that doctrinal change. People wanting to be and to take commandeer funds, money, power, anything else that you can think about is always behind the shifts and the starts of those things happening.

Can you decipher these things? Okay, think about this. Think about this in recent history. This should help you decipher when things start to happen and when you get things thrown at you that are hard to figure out. Think back to the root cause in one of these three things and see if you can find out what's happening underneath. That's the problem. Otherwise, what are we?

We're running into the square shouting in confusion and have no idea why we're there, like the people, right? And that's what happens. Total confusion. When you see confusion, when you see division and confusion, there's something else behind it than the red herring. Okay, this example is super critically important to understand that with. There's something else behind it. I mean, let's look at... This is an important topic, too. Okay, there's a lot of important topics, but I just spent a couple more seconds on this. But if you look at the works of the flesh, you know how they map to those three things. This is the outcome of picking and working on one of those ways of life. Look how many of them cover the concept of division. That's a work of the flesh, right? Contentions and jealousies and selfish ambitions, dissensions and heresies.

Heresies? Great word. What do you think heresies? Always, oh yeah, you know, it's somebody saying something wrong. If you look at the word behind it, if you look at the Greek, heresies is a body of men following their own tenets, dividing up into sex, dividing up into parties. Or dissensions arising from diversity of opinions and aims, hidden agendas. Does that describe anything you've ever heard? Yes. A work of the flesh is when you see that, guess what Paul says, he who practices that will not be in the kingdom. Let me just say it like that, because Paul said that. If this is your way of operating and having your own tenets and ideas and men getting men to follow you, and men following men in divisions and all these types of things, that's a work of the flesh.

This is why this is such an important thing for us here to address division from the root cause behind, right? The root cause behind things is so important for us to address division.

Not the red herring all day long, but address the root cause behind.

Take care of that. That's something that's not tolerated in the church. We're not going to be the confused ones where we're running around with our hands up and everything's all over the place.

We're going to address things at the root cause, because that is a pure work of the flesh and a way underneath it. I don't care what you think you're talking about. What's underneath it is something that causes confusion, causes people to run around. If you ever see confusion and things starting to split and just can't get a grasp on it, this is what's behind. So, this example is the one to remember. Put this one in your memories of how there's a red herring and you need to know which one of these three things is underneath to get to the cause and the attitude. This is where you start to deal with the attitude of it. Okay? Super important. The division side of it. Okay, I'm going to keep going on. I'll cover a few more examples here. The next one is Ananias and Sapphira.

So, this is in the New Testament as well, Acts 5, verse 1 through 11. I'll just read this one. See if you can sniff out which one it is here. But a certain man named Ananias was Sapphira. His wife sold a possession and he cut back part of the proceeds. His wife also being aware of it and bought a certain part and laid it at the... brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet.

Now, is it wrong to keep back a certain part? No. But what happened was, as Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price and land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not your own and prone control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God. So, apparently he said to them, I sold it and here's the whole thing. Right? So, he ended up lying. Then Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and breathed his last. So, great fear came upon all those who heard these things. And the young man arose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him. And then, now it was about three hours later, his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter answered her and said, tell me, well, you sold the land for so much? And she said, yes, for so much. And then Peter said to her, how is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door and they will carry you out. Then immediately, she fell down at the feet and breathed their last. And the young man carried and found her dad at such and such. So, great fear fell upon them. So, what was behind this? The sin was what?

The lying. What preceded the sin? Which one of the three? Once again, example after example, they had a lust of the eyes. They did not want to give all that money up. They wanted to keep some.

And it preceded the lie. The sin became the lie. But again, what's behind every one of these sins is one of these three things. Every single time. Every single time. And what do we learn from this?

One thing to pull out is the lust of the eyes and the flesh leads to lying. Just say it that way. And then a very clear example of that these days is, you know, when someone who's addicted or has an addiction, they end up covering and lying about it all the time to everybody else.

Right? It turns in. The sin itself also turns into more sin. The lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, like an anise and sapphira, leads to lying, covering, protecting that. Okay? So that's an important thing to pull out of here. Okay, let's go to another example. Let's breeze through a couple of these. The next one is Balaam. Balaam is one of the examples you know in the three that we had before. Let's go through it. This one's interesting, though. So God tells...so I don't know if you remember the story of Balaam, he wanted to go...he was paid money to go curse Israel, but he had to say, you know, I can't do anything unless God lets me. He makes himself sound like a humble servant, right? But he's not. Balaam was actually a sorcerer. He knew about God, and he knew that God was the one who's in control, and those were his special people. So he knew, like, man, they're protected.

So I can't really...so it's not from a humble perspective he's doing this, right? He's doing it from a man. Maybe I could just...I want that money. So maybe I can just go ask God. And so we ask God, hey, you know, should I get up and go with him? What did God say to him? He said, yeah, get up and go with him. So let's break into the thought, because this doesn't make sense. He says, then God's anger was aroused because he went. He told him to go, and then he's mad at him now because he went. Most people would read that and go, wow, God's a little fickle. But you know what? God was testing his heart here. Balaam wanted to be told, yeah, you can go. Go for it, buddy.

A person who was pure in their hearts and their motives would say, yo, that's not the right thing. I will check myself and not. You must be being tested. So when he got up to go, it was like God was telling him what he wanted to hear to test him to see what was happening. And he got up and God said, man, I know what's in your heart now. Now I know what's in your heart. So the anger was aroused because he went, and the angel of the Lord took his stand in the way as an adversary against him. And he was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. And now the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand, and the donkey turned his side out of the way and went into the field. So Balaam struck the donkey to turn her back into the road. So the donkey sees the angel and starts going off, and Balaam's getting mad.

Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between the vineyards with a wall on the side and a wall on that side. And when the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she pushed herself against the wall and crushed Balaam's foot against the wall. So he struck her again. That's a detail to come back to. It's fascinating to me. Then the angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place where there was no way to turn, nowhere to go, on the right hand or on the left. And by this time the donkey had had enough. And when the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she lay down under Balaam. So Balaam's anger was aroused and he struck the donkey with his staff. Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey and said to Balaam, What have I done to you that you struck me these three times? What's funny is Balaam answers the donkey he's riding. He always cracks me up. And Balaam said to the donkey, Well, because you've done this to me. I wish there was a sword in my hand. I would kill you. So the donkey said to Balaam, Why, I'm not your donkey, which you've ridden ever since I became yours to this day. Was I ever disposed to do this thing to you? And he said, No. Like this is a dialogue he's actually having with a donkey that's never spoken to him before. To me, that's pretty funny. But he's so mad. Why? He's blinded by what's driving him.

Isn't he? What's he blinded by? He wants so bad what? The money. He wants so badly the money that it's driving him that caused him to get up and go, which God was angered at him. It caused him to beat. It caused him to lose his temper. Caught. It exposed him all of a sudden. God squeezed him to now he found out what's in his heart.

Literally. What do we learn from this? God will press you until the inside truth comes out. Remember literally his leg getting pressed against the wall? There happened to you trying to keep your composure. You know, some composure. Not composer. You're trying to keep your moats out. You're trying to keep your composure. Something's inside is eating you up that's really there. So you get yourself hurt or something. All of a sudden it comes out.

Right? God will press you like your foot against the wall where it hurts till your inside pops out.

It'll come out. If you find yourself in a scenario like this where there's a severe violent reaction and there's something that took place before that for you, you need to check your heart. Ask yourself, wait a second, maybe I'm hiding something. God has a way of finding that out. He did this with Balaam. He tested his heart. He got up. He was mad at me. He did this with a donkey. He knew, and it all came out.

So God will press sometimes. It might hurt a bit until your true heart comes out. It's important for you to check that and realize, okay, there's something here. One of these three things is underneath that I need to think about. Am I mad at all the people around me right now? Or is it because I lost out on some money that I thought I could have and it was the most important thing to me in life? Right? That's what happened here. If you want to think of the example that way.

You know, you'll be pressed to where it comes out. Now the opposite example is Stephen. Okay? Stephen in Acts, he was full of faith and power. He did great wonders and signs among the people.

Then there arose from some of them called the synagogue of the freemen, disputing with Stephen, and they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke.

Then they secretly induced men to say, we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God. There's two things happening here. What's behind the sin here?

They could not. Their pride was crushed because Stephen had the wisdom of God was answering them, and they were so mad that they couldn't refute his words. What's the red herring here? We hear him say things against God and Moses. I can't believe it, just like the Diana argument. Oh, I can't believe he would do it. So again, something behind a red herring set, a sin is committed. Okay? And so what do they do? They stirred up the people and all the elders and the scribes, and they came upon them, seized them, and brought them to the council. And they also set up a false witness. Look at that. Who said, this man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against the holy place and the law. Now they're keeping on. Oh, man, you're gonna get people stirred up with that. For we have heard him say that Jesus and Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us. Uh-oh, you're changing the law. Right? The Sabbath. You're gonna change the Sabbath. I don't know how many times I've heard that said. Sorry, God set it up. We keep it. We're gonna keep it till forever, basically. For we have keep it forever. Sorry, I didn't mean basically. For we have heard him say to the Jesus of Nazareth, we'll destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us. And all who sat in the council looking steadfastly at him saw his face as the face of an angel. And when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God. And Jesus, standing at the right hand of God, said, Look, I see the heavens open, Son of Man, standing at the right hand of God. Then they cried with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with the only cord. And they cast him out of the city, and they stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes with the feet of a young man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord, don't charge them with this sin. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. So Balaam was pressed against the wall, and hurt in what came out the truth of what was inside. Stephen was pressed, hurt, stoned. Are you kidding me? I don't know if you've ever seen somebody punching you or throwing rocks at you where you're hurt and you start lash... you want to lash out. What does Stephen do? He didn't. He said, forgive them. Don't charge it to them. And what do we learn from that? Many things, but when someone who's been dealing with the inside of these three things is pressed, they'll respond with purity. Right? You have to address these things in you, because when you're getting hurt, they will come out, and you will react with one of these three things, or you will react with purity. This is what God is getting you to appoint of, isn't he? Sometimes it's going to hurt. Sometimes you'll be pressed, because God wants to make sure. So if you want to go with the process, when you're pressed, think about, man, what's my reaction? Which one of these... if my pride hurt? Am I losing something financially? Or am I've got a, you know, hidden sin over here that I need to deal with, and I'm pressed, and I'm reacting to that? Start to work on that. Start to get those things out. One of these three things. See which one it is, or two, and work on them.

You get to a place like Stephen, when you're pressed against the wall, and you're physically being beaten, you won't lash out, because you realize you will react at a purity like he did.

But not if you have one of those three things in your heart. You won't.

So, many other examples in the Bible. I think hopefully you're starting to get the idea of this. I won't go through these, but Joseph's brothers, what preceded the sin? Jealousy, right? They were completely jealous of their brother. Moses. Right? Before he sinned, striking the rock, what preceded that? We discussed that one. Pride was there. Do I have to keep doing this for you? It wasn't him. He didn't give credit to God. That's another example where pride and not giving God glory cost him not going into the kingdom at that time. Think about that one pretty, pretty long. Cain. He didn't control his impulses. Right? His anger at his brother, what it ended up doing, the sin was he killed him. He didn't control the lust of his flesh. Perceded the sin of killing his brother. Solomon. What turned his head away from the truth of God to idols was the many women that he had. The lust of his flesh in his eyes that he couldn't keep in check that he ended up going off. Nebuchadnezzar. I mean, what did he say before he was struck down in sin? He says, my might and my power. You know, he's out there on the porch saying, I built all this. And God says, sorry. Et cetera. Do I need to keep going? Because if you look at every example of some sin in the Bible and in your own lives, one of these things is going to be behind it. This is how Satan probes and works. And what comes out will be a sin and usually in the mix will be a red herring that takes people all over the place. Right? That's how it works. It's how he works. Let's not be ignorant of his devices, the Bible says. And the Bible goes on to tell us how his devices work. Sometimes I think we are ignorant. Let's not be ignorant of them. Let's not be ignorant of them. In one last example, I read in the Revelation because how what does this have to do going forward?

Revelation 13 verse 15 talking about the mark of the beast and the beast power and all that's coming in the future. He says, he was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. He calls all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark in the right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark in the name of the beast or the number of his name. If you don't have the mark of this, there'll become a time where what? You can't... you're not going to make any money. You're not going to be able to buy anything. You know what? There's going to... the mark of the beast, the power that comes in the future will be based on those three things. It's the way of Satan. It's the system of Satan, Satan's representatives. It's going to appeal those three things. Imagine the mark of the beast one day where you grew up in a neighborhood, nice neighborhood, nice neighbors, all this stuff, and one day you don't have the mark of the beast. They do. Ah, they've got something. Oh, man, they have a boat now, and they have this, and they have... and you can't do anything.

But what point is that pull of all of that way going to get to you? We always think it's just only negative. I guarantee you it's going to be such a pull that will pull people, because that's how Satan works. He wants you to put those things out in front of you and say, ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, look at that Lamborghini, which I really do want. I mean, need. I'm sorry.

I mean, need. I'm sorry. It's a need for me. No, but anyway, I'm jesting. But really, the mark of the beast, what's coming? You want to future-proof yourself for what's coming.

You need to think about dealing with these three things inside yourself, because it's going to be hard one day. It's going to be appealing one day. It's going to be hard to say no and trust God when your neighbor is getting more and more and more. Maybe you had the big house before. Now you have nothing, and they get a bigger, bigger house, and you know, etc., etc.

When that happens, you're going to have to grapple with those pulls. So if you don't deal with them now, they're going to be hard to resist. If you can't even recognize that they're in you, you're going to get blown away. That's why it's so important for us to be dealing on the inside with these three things. So hopefully this is mostly clear. Again, just to summarize, two ways of life. Ten commandments are one way. The ways of the flesh, the works of the flesh, and these three things are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. So you have a choice, and this is what we must do. We must recognize this is not an intellectual exercise. There's a wavelength and a way that Satan communicates. The way that he probes, and the three things are those three things that he does it, how he does it. And behind every sin is one of these three things. Get back to the root cause to address that. Don't get stuck over on the red herring.

Determine. Think about the attitude and the motivation for yourself behind, not just the result. But when you see those results, those works of the flesh, know that one of these three things, or all of them, are behind that. And therefore, to resist that, as the Bible says, if we walk in the spirit. So you either tune into that wavelength. You can't sit in a defensive position and say, oh no, no, no. The Bible says you must walk in the spirit to not fulfill the lust of the flesh, those things. We have to walk in this way. We have to do them.

We're not perfect, but you must walk and you must live those things. Right? If you're angry or mad, don't be. Think of something thankful. Be positive, happy, and walk in the way. Pretty soon you'll drop some of that off. But you have to walk in this way. Otherwise, we'll be susceptible to this wavelength. And that wavelength, like we found, is behind every sin. Okay. That concludes the three-part series of part four. So we'll move on to something else next week.

Thanks for coming today.