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Genesis 3:1-14

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Live from Bremerton. It's Monday night. Welcome. We are studying Genesis chapter three tonight, the fall of man. And so great to be here on this Monday evening at Rob and Vicki's home out on the patio, out on the deck. And we do a shout out to Pamela Doyle in Las Vegas who's watching and Steven Wilcox, not Larry. It's Steven Wilcox and Karen. I apologize for for for that problem of mine. We're listing out Carl and Sue. Carl Hendricks, massive heart attack a week ago. Today's his seventh day. He had a heart attack last Tuesday. Actually, it started Monday night. And he is breathing on his own now, getting better and better. They put a little pump in there to help him. And so Sue is keeping us updated. And we just give a shout out to Sue and to Carl. He'll be golfing soon. And what else? Anybody else we're supposed to be praying for? Got a prayer list? Alright. Well, let's pray now. Father, we come before you, Lord. We do lift up Carl Hendrix. And, Lord, we're so sorry for what he's gone through, but, Lord, miracles are happening. We thank you for all the doctors, the nurses, the technology, everybody working around the clock to help him and get him back going again and pursue. Lord, you've helped with her countenance, her peace, joy. She's a witness there at the hospital. And Lord bless them and be with Steve Wilcox. Bless his throat. Help him to get healed and help Bruce. We miss Bruce on Sunday, but bless him as he plays the piano and help his nose and his legs and and be with Brian Olson and Theresa, Lord. Bless them. Give them great help. And Lord, we just lift up anybody else that's been sick, Lord, that your hand be upon them. And, Christie, we pray you heal Earth, Road, and we love them, and we miss them. So we commit this time into your hands, Lord. Bless. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. The vocal is muddled. It's cutting in and out. So I don't know if it's over modulated or Modulated. Cutting in and out. How do I ring the phone? So when bad things happen to us, sometimes it might happen because God's setting the stage to do something great. Yeah. Right? So the answer is, no. He wasn't born blind because his parents sinned or he sinned. Now in a general way, that's it it is caused by sin, but not their sin. It's the fall in chapter three here, Genesis three. Because of the fall of man, sin entered the world. Right? Corruption and, death. And, but on an individual basis, we all of us suffer with sin. All of us have sinned in control of the glory of God. And these guys have a belief system kinda like the prosperity gospel of today, that if you pray hard, give hard, do good, if you're a good person, then good things are gonna happen to you. But when bad things happen, how do these people in these churches of the prosperity doctrine, how do they explain? How does a pastor that promotes that, how can he go to the hospital? How can he he's gotta go in a pseudonym. He's gotta go in an alias. Because his whole spiel on TV is you won't get sick if you have enough faith, if you give enough. Right? Right? Isn't that what they used to do? Yeah. Do they still do that? If you've got enough faith, man, everything will go well for you. You know? So the disciples are like, who did sin? This man or his parents? He's born blind. Jesus said neither. And so that the power of God, the glory of God may be made manifest. And so same thing in John 11. Jesus gets word that his friend Lazarus is sick unto death. Right? And Jesus purposely delays going there because the stage is set. He's setting the stage to do something even greater. Right? And so he told his disciples, hey. This sickness isn't unto death, but for the glory of God. And, well, Lord, if he's sleeping, you know, he's he's doing good. He'll he'll get better. No. Lazarus is dead. And it's good that I can tell you ahead of time, so you know. You know? And so the stage is set for Jesus to raise Lazarus from the dead. And a lot of the things that we go through, although they're a consequence of general sin in the world, the fall of man, and we experience these things and Job's wondering, Job's bewildered like, know, guy, why am I going through this? Did I sin? And his miserable comforters, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, they can't see behind the curtain, God and Satan putting bets out there. I'll bet you I can take everything away from him, and he'll curse you to your face. Alright. You're on, buddy. Go for it. You know? So Job starts to get kicked around like a football, and he doesn't know which end is up. He doesn't know what's up. You know? And but it's all for the glory of God. God is demonstrating, setting the stage. And so to today, in Revelation seventeen seventeen, God says that he's put in the hearts of the globalists, of these world leaders, to do according to his will. Why? Because Jesus is setting the stage so that when he returns, it's in his glory. And he's going to defeat the devil, the antichrist, the false prophet, and all the enemies of the cross. All the enemies, all the Elon Musk's, the technocrats, and all of them. And so our understanding of evil, when we see evil, when we go through evil, it makes a little bit more sense when we see somebody reaping what they've sown. You've sown to the wind, you're gonna reap the whirlwind. You deserve what you're getting. But then when we see this little baby born, and he's born blind, he didn't do anything wrong. Why is he born blind? How do you explain that? If you're a God of love, then why? You know, all the liberals will say, you know, what kind of God of love is that? And then many people, they have a little baby and the baby's perfect, but then the baby gets cancer and dies. And they've never the parents may never wanna believe in a God like that. They just how could a God allow that to happen? You know? And and we are on the sea of life, and the storms of life come against us the same as those in the world. The difference is Jesus is in our boat. Jesus is in our lives and he's teaching us that he's greater than any kind of suffering that we may go through. And the suffering, the answer to why is there suffering in the world? How would you answer that? Because of the curse. Because of Genesis three, because man fell And, and we forfeited dominion. We're gonna see in chapter three. We forfeited dominion of the planet. Our first federal head, Adam, blew it. And, and Satan became the littlest he got of this world, the prince of power of the air. And, and so the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. The process of death began there, physical death. Adam didn't die till he's nine thirty, nine and 30 years old, but his body began to corrupt. The laws of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, it begins to wane, it begins to corrupt, begins to go back to the dust, and it doesn't accelerate like the evolutionists would like you to think. Accelerating to be greater life, though, it's less. It's dying. It's reaching the place of death. And then the spiritual death, separation from God as they're expelled from the garden. So who did sin? This man or his parents, and he's born blind. And, and I love that, and I love the story of Job, and I love the story there in John 11 because, like Fanny Crosby, she's born blind, and she said that she was happy that she was born blind, and God used her in her disability to write over 5,000 hymns that were treasures to the body of Christ during her lifetime. And she was able to say that, I'm glad I was born blind because the first thing I'll see is the faith of faith of Jesus. Right? So that's a woman that had victory over the whisper of the devil. If you're God's a God of love, then why? From the most the heart, the mouth speaks. What came out of her heart was worship. What came out of the heart of Job when he lost everything was worship. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Right? And so we, recognize there's times where we question God and we, sometimes can be sucked into a desire to be in the blessed bee club. And to be in the blessed bee club, I need to know what the formula is. What's the formula? And if I practice this formula knowing that I'm gonna reap what I sow, I don't wanna sow to the flesh to reap corruption. I wanna sow to the spirit. So I want to I want the material thing. I want the spiritual thing. I want the healthy thing. I want the wealthy thing. I want it all. What's the formula? So now you look for a pastor that's epitomizing that Bless Me Club. He's the leader of the Bless Me Club. So then everybody starts to go toward that guy thinking, you know, he's kinda like Bill Gates. The closer I get to him, the richer I'll get. If I can just touch the hem of his garment, I've had an issue of blood, this woman says, and if I can just touch the hem of his garment, this issue of blood will stop. You know? So people are trying to get closer and closer and closer, and we think the closer that we get to Jesus, the more material wealth he's gonna give us, the healthier it's gonna give us. We're not gonna have prodigal children. Everything's gonna go great. And and then something happens. This guy that seems to be a spiritual giant is just so incredibly blessed. He goes broke. He loses everything, like Job. And now he's suicidal. So a man that we thought had monumental faith, enormous faith, he didn't do anything wrong. He got tricked. He got he got he got deceived by the people that he was in business with. And in their deceiving of him, he'd lost not only all of his wealth, but everybody else that invested with him. And what was his reaction? Because he was in the Bless Me Club with all the other Bless Me people. And so what did he do wrong? He didn't do anything wrong. He got deceived. Any of us can be deceived, if God allows that, if he removes that hedge of protection. How do you explain something like that? What do you do with something like that? Well, got over his desire to commit suicide, and people began to undergird and strengthen him. But as I was watching, I was looking at him like, you know, you were supposed to be a spiritual giant. You were supposed to show me what it's like to be a spiritual giant. And you're not. You don't have a faith. And and so I wasn't I wasn't critical like condemning, but it was a great way for me to learn. And what I learned in that is, I would rather evaluate people now what they're like when they're hit, when they go through trials, when they go through difficulty. What from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so God is allowing Job to go through this trial of evil. He's removing the hedge of protection. He's allowing the devil to to, strike Job's life. And now the whole world gets to observe Job's reaction. And the devil's banking that Job will curse God and die. And, even his wife said to you, why don't you curse God and die? And he said, oh, you speak as a fool's woman. Speak. Shall we not receive good at the hand of the Lord, not evil? And all this Job didn't sin with his lips. That's proof. That's proof that Job has a heart that's knit with God's and that he's a man of faith. And if I look at Abraham in the hall of faith, there's times where he blew it. But so do I. So do you. So we say, alright. Well, next time around, next time I'm, go through a famine, I'm not gonna go down into Egypt. And then the next time there's a famine, you go in the area of the Philistines. Hey. You blew it two times. You know? And, well, the third time. The third time. I'm gonna get it right the third time. And so it simply reveals our growth in faith, our growth in the spiritual maturity. And God is able to use the devil to expose our free will through tempting us of whether we love God or not, whether we're gonna obey God or not. We're not promised immunity, We're not promised being in the Blessing Club simply because, you know, we're Christians. And so in many cases it's the opposite. In many cases, as a Christian, you're going to suffer even greater. Throughout history Christians have suffered even greater. But the objective is to glorify the Lord. So we live in a fallen world. So when a guy named Joel says your best life now, he's lying to you. This is the worst it's ever going to be for you. This is the worst it'll ever be. Even if you're a billionaire, this is still the worst it's ever going to be, has no comparison to heaven and what heaven's going to be like. So for us as Christians, recognize that our life is but a vapor and it's very, very short. Three score and ten and ten more by reason of strength, about eighty years, you know. And then we ask them the bodies to be present with the Lord. Obviously some people have more suffering than others and all I can say with that is I would want to comfort somebody in that your reward in heaven is going to be greater and I also want to comfort them in that God has chosen you to represent him and to remind people of the cross. You're filling up the sufferings of Christ and I get frustrated when I see people with a formula and denigrating or cutting people down because they're going through trials. Godly people going through trials, going through horrific things and people abandon them in many cases and people begin to misconstrue that, oh, they must have done something bad. There must be sin in the camp like Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, you know. There wasn't any sin in the camp, nothing inordinate amount of sin. There's a general sin in all of our lives. But one of the verses I like to go to, If the Lord were to mark iniquities, who could stand? So if God's going to take me down for some supposed sin, particular sin, then He's going to have to take every other pastor I know down. If He's going to mark iniquities, nobody's going be able to stand. So when you stand and that curtains around you, that hedge of protection is around you, that's pure grace. It's God's grace. And that's what we pray for for our children and our families and church people, know, is Lord, keep that hedge of protection up because we live in an evil world. If you drop that hedge of protection, Lord, we got no defense. There's no way we're going to be able to defeat the devil and the powers of darkness to maintain this life of blessing we all desire. Become a Christian and your life will be blessed. In some countries, become a Christian and you'd be targeted for death. Your life won't be blessed if you're in Iran, you know. But I will say this, the thief in John ten ten, his strategy, the thief comes, the devil, he comes not but to steal, to kill, and to destroy. And Jesus said, but I've come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly. So the Bless Me Club is the life of the spirit. You can be Paul and Silas in a Philippian jail, beat the snot beat out of you, and you can be singing praising the Lord because it's not the circumstance, it's not the external, it's the internal. And internally you haven't lost your joy. You haven't lost your intimacy with God. Jesus is there with you in that suffering. You're filling up those sufferings. That I might know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. And so that's maturity. That is Christian maturity and we're all wanting to get there and I don't want to see any of us negate that maturity by going AWOL, by going after lies, going after things that, hey when you're proven, you know, you're gonna build your house on the sand, all right it looks like from the outside that boy you got to the Bless Me Club faster than everybody else. But when the storm comes, is your house, is your relationship, is your marriage going to remain standing? Are you truly a doer of God's Word, not a hearer only? Because if you're just a hearer and God allows the head protection to be removed, we're going to find out that your foundation, you weren't built upon Christ. You weren't built upon that rock, that strong foundation. So when somebody comes to the Lord and they're brand new in the Lord, we wanna get them rooted and grounded in Jesus because we know that when the honeymoon ends, there's one of those seeds when the sun comes down on it, it wilts. It's wilting from the pressure, the trials, the difficulty. So we wanna get that seed, those roots grow deep in Jesus so that when those trials do come, because they will, Jesus promised in this world you will have tribulation, right? But be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. So the answer to the skeptic, to the atheist that says, Well, God's such a God of love, then why is there so much evil in the world? How would you respond to that? I can't hear you. They choose to go against God. But a guy says, Wait a minute, I'm innocent. My dad was in the seven Eleven store and he was going there to get some milk and a guy came in there and shot him to death. What did my dad do wrong? He's the best guy I ever know. Why is there evil? Why is there evil? How do we answer that? How do we prove that God's a God of love? Because He gave His Son. The greatest murder that ever took place was the murdering of Jesus. The most unfair, unjust thing that ever happened in all of human history is the crucifixion of Jesus. Pilate said, I find no fault in him. He is the only one that didn't deserve to die. All of us, if we got what we deserved, if we really got justice, it'd be hell. None of us deserve heaven. None of us deserve being healthy. None of us deserve a good marriage. None of us deserve anything except hell. It's God's grace in our life. His grace. And we are reminded from time to time that the stage is being set. This suffering you're going through, God's going to work it together for good. God's using it for his kingdom and his glory. People are watching you and they want to see, all right Christian, what kind of Christian are you now? Know, history tells us that Caesar Nero, he quite possibly the Apostle Paul was preaching the gospel to him when he was chained to that Roman soldier and he had an audience with Nero. And history tells us that Nero went insane thereafter rejecting the Holy Spirit. And he became an even greater monster than he ever was before. So Nero, homosexual that he was, crazy man that he was, anti Christ kind of a guy that he was, he took Christians and he impaled them on poles. He put them on poles. He put a pole through their body, suspended them off the ground on poles, but beforehand he rolled them, had them rolled in pitch, which is tar. So the Christians are rolled in tar, which that alone could kill you, but they're still alive. They're suspended. And they're along his road that he has there in his garden. And then he gets in his chariot, and he takes a torch, and he goes through his garden lighting these Christians on fire, shrieking, screaming. What's it feel like now, Christians, to be the light of the world? How do you reconcile that evil, that level of evil? It's demonic, it's satanic. How do you reconcile the child trafficking, the proliferation of innocent children being paraded, being trafficked by these pedophile globalists and all different people, all different walks of life. You can't reconcile it. You can't justify it. Say, Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. The Lord's return is the only answer because we live in a very, very wicked and evil world because of Genesis three, the fall. And no matter how much we vote, no matter how much we try to fix it, we're not gonna be able to fix this broken world. In fact, the iniquity, the evil is going to intensify and increase as time goes on. And so we need to not be surprised at what's happening. But there is a verse that I really want us to go away with tonight because the days are evil, the times are evil. And we'll get there in a little bit, but I want us to evaluate and to look at how incredibly smart the devil is. And you and I aren't supposed to be ignorant of his devices, his strategies. I told you one of his strategies, to steal, to kill, to destroy. He's got a lot of different methodology, different ways that he divides churches and divides families and tempts and lures people into sin, things that will hurt them. But he's just so adept, he's so good at what he does in taking down that which is good. Now greater is he that's in us than he that's in the world. But, and we're to be salt and light, we're to stave off the putrification of the world. We are to be more than conquerors through him that loved us, right? Matthew ten thirteen. Did I scare Courtney away? Is she okay? That's sort of my gift, just scaring people away. No, that's not it. I'll find it. Okay, let's see here. He's subtle. Matthew ten sixteen. I'm sorry. I was there. Ten sixteen. Somebody wanna read that? Matthew ten sixteen. So what's that mean? You okay Courtney? It's okay if I ask questions like that what's that mean? So the things of the world are very tricky and deceptive, and we have to be wise enough to figure it out. We we we if Adam and Eve were smarter, they wouldn't have been deceived by the devil. Right? Now we're being sent out into the world as sheep in the midst of wolves. We have no defense for the wolves. The wolves are stronger than us. And so it's only as we seek the wisdom of the Lord, we seek his help that we're going to be able to combat the wicked one. But our greatest tool is truth. And if we know the word of God, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and we pray for discernment, then we're not as likely to be deceived by this generation, by the media, the propaganda, all the stuff that's out there. And so on the one hand, we want to marvel. We want to applaud the trickery of the devil, be wise as serpents. You're in a fight, you're in a battle. You're going to have to use your wits. You're going to have to use your ability to think and to take every thought captive and discern when you're being lied to and discern what kind of move to make or not to make. And we have our armor on and we have prayer and we can talk to headquarters and all that. But Jesus said, I'm sending you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpent and harmless as doves. He says, But beware of men for they will deliver you up to the councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues. So you're going to be beaten. This is a promise. This needs to be in your promise jar, guys. Do you really want to be a Christian? This is part of it. Throughout history, Christians have been hated. And you're going be brought before governors and kings for my sake, testimony against them. So sometimes the Lord's using you to ripen a people for judgment. They reject you all they want, but you're there, you're sent so that they can't say, I didn't hear, I didn't know that. Oh yes, you did. You knew the truth. You chose to reject the truth. So as we're looking at this verse, there are some things about Satan where Jesus said to be wise as serpents. So we want to see the characteristic of the wisdom of serpents and their cunning, their ability to see through things and wise and clever. And we can use these techniques in a good way, in a positive way to keep from being deceived, to keep from being devoured by wolves that are setting us up. I don't know if you've ever seen guys that come through a church, not our church because we're poor, but a lot of the churches where people are wealthy, they'll have a guy that'll come through and he'll target in a church like that and try to get everybody to make investments. And you know, hey, we've got this opportunity for you guys to all get rich. And pretty soon a bunch of people are signing up and they're getting in their retirement money, 401ks and all that kind of stuff. And the people just go along, go along, you know. And the next thing you know, the guy was a wolf. He's a wolf that preyed upon, you know, unknowing people. So we, that's just one way. Another way is our children. I got a 16 year old grandson. I had daughters, you know, 14, 15, 16. And the devil can send a wolf. He can send a wolf to seduce and to take them down. And we've done the best we can in the formative years to teach them right and wrong. But seduction is powerful. The devil's very adept, very slick. And I've seen some of these guys and gals that are very slick. And so we need to teach our kids, we need to be wise, we need to exercise wisdom, and this wisdom comes from above. And so I get very, very frustrated in the time in which we're living at how stupid we are as Christians. Just incredibly dumb as a stump. I heard that when I was driving the car here. I heard that from someone and she had a few adjectives too, you know. But that shouldn't be the characteristics of we as a church. We should be known for being wise, for being frugal, for being patient and all the virtues of being filled with the Holy Spirit. We shouldn't be so susceptible to Fox News and the propaganda and the psyops and this great, great time of deception because in Matthew 24, Jesus said, Take heed that no man deceive you. Right? And over and over again, don't be deceived, don't be deceived. Prove all things, hold fast to that which is good. Test the spirits, see whether they be of God or not. I mean, seldom do I get to fellowship with people that are awake, that can see the deception going on, you know? And so this is where it emanates from. This is where it starts. So Father, we pray that you'd be our teacher, that we'd be wiser. Lord, I've been deceived so many times. I've been taken advantage of so many times. And Lord, sometimes willingly, sometimes I want to see if this guy posing as a Christian is really a Christian. So I give him enough rope, Lord, to hang himself. But Lord, I want to believe. I want to trust. I want to know that there are people I can trust. And so Lord, love is vulnerable. Love allows itself to be exposed to hurt, to pain, to deception, to betrayal. But Lord, we pray that as we're watchmen, that we have responsibility over innocent sheep, babes in Christ. Lord, we, as adults, as those mature in our in your word, Lord, that we would be wise, that we would watch out for. Because Lord, we know we're gonna give him the count. And Lord, I don't want anybody's blood on my hands. So Lord, I pray evermore that we continue to provide the full counsel of God so that people are warned and made aware that they have the truth and what they do with it, Lord, it's up to them. But I pray, Lord, that we're not living under a bubble of deception, but we that bubbles burst and we see the light and we're walking in the light. We don't want that darkness to be even greater than it is. So help us Lord, we pray now in Jesus name, amen. All right, so now the serpent, serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field. So you've got Adam and Eve, and you've got Adam naming all the animals. And one of them singled out here is the serpent. And you've got verse 25, and they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. So you have them in their innocence, you have them in their integrity, you have them in your purity and virtue. How long do you think they enjoyed their honeymoon? The gap between verse 25 and chapter three verse one. How much time do they have in the honeymoon? We don't know, right? Now we hope, we hope they had quite a few years, you know? Because what's about to happen is bad, bad, bad, bad. They've got a really perfect environment, a perfect house, perfect cars, perfect everything. These are the only two ever had it. They had it all. They had it all. They had it everything, you know. And God gave them a great environment and all, but God put a tree of knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden to test their love for Him, their free will, their free moral agency. What would they choose? God didn't make them robotic. God didn't make them as Elon Musk would want people to have chips in their brain and be pre programmed and do according to their own will. And so we don't know how long, but we do know in Luke chapter eight verse 33 that there were two at Gadara, these two demoniacs that ropes, chains, nothing could hold them, and they were demon possessed. And as Jesus approached in there at Gadara, they said, We know who you are, Jesus. Have you come to torment us before our time? And you know the story. Their name was Legion and they went into the pigs and they went and jumped over the cliff and all. Here we have an instance where, and I could tell a joke there, but it's an old joke. You guys all know it. Deviled ham, you know that. Okay. So, this point, there's a demonic entity, Satan, that's going into a serpent. And the serpent is gonna speak to Eve. Now, how do we know it was a serpent? Let's look at some verses in the New Testament that tell us that old and New Testament. Who wants Ezekiel 2eight thirteen-nineteen? Okay. And how about Job twenty six thirteen? Job twenty six thirteen? Okay. Isaiah 51 verse nine. So if I if if I can I'm not blowing my own horn, but describe, give a definition of of what style of pastor I am or who I am as a pastor. I would like to be thought of as an expositor, a pastor that teaches expositionally with close affinity with the rules of hermeneutics, the laws of observation, interpretation, application, inductive bible study. When we look at this word serpent here, it's important that we not just assume. Now we're going to use the Bible to prove that this serpent is the devil. The serpent is Satan. Alright, Ezekiel 2eight thirteen-nineteen. Or at least Satan has infiltrated within the sky. Ezekiel 2eight thirteen-nineteen. Thou been in Eden the garden of God, very precious Do you want me to hold it? Oh, okay. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God, very precious stone was like covering in sardines, topaz, and the diamond, and beryl, and onyx, and the jasper, and sapphire, the emerald, and carbuncle, and gold, and the workmanship of the tabrets of thy pipes was prepared in thee from the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth, and I have set thee so. Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God. Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in all thy ways from the day that thou wast created till the iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence and thou hast sinned therefore will I cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty. Thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness and I will cast thee to the ground and I will lay thee before kings that they may behold thee. 3nine Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thy iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished of thee. Thou shalt be a terror and never shalt be any more. So that's the fall of the devil, Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28. And he's known as a dragon, as a serpent. Job 2six 13. Is that yours? Yep. His spirit made the heavens beautiful and his power pierced the gliding serpent. Isaiah fifty one nine. Jim. Awake. Awake. Put on strength, o arm of the lord. Awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab and wounded the dragon? The dragon. So a dragon, they say, is a flying serpent. Right? And it could be that this serpent came in all beautiful like described in Ezekiel 28, perfect in beauty. And after the fall, part of the curse is you're going to suck on, you're going to breathe dust. So on your belly, the serpent goes on its belly thereafter. Okay, Revelation 12 verse nine. And then also Revelation 20 verse two. Whoever gets there first. Because we're in a big hurry, man. We're in a big hurry. Alright. Just kidding. What's the second one? Revelation 20 verse two. And at twelve nine. Twelve nine. Here we go. And a great dragon was cast out that old serpent called the devil and Satan which deceives the whole world he was cast out onto the earth and his angels were cast out with him. So is there any doubt? Is there any doubt who this serpent is with that verse? There's no doubt. Dragon, the serpent that deceived the whole world. Right? How about Revelation 20 verse two? You're right here. And he laid hold of the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. There we go. All right so we got some verses confirmation who the serpent is. Maybe it doesn't need explanation but it's a good way to start. Another way is by definition. So, the word serpent in the Hebrew is nachash, which equals bronze, and nekoshet, which still has the root word there, has to do with a bronze serpent. And so it speaks of a shiny luminous one. And so the surface is nakash and the word bronze is nikoshet, so they're combined together, a bronze serpent. Do you remember a bronze serpent, a brass serpent? Yep. Okay. Now we're going to go through that. We're going to go numbers 20 one:four-nine. The children of Israel sinned. Now after this fall, the serpent is a symbol of sin and we tie that in with he that knew no sin became sin that we might be made the righteousness of God with him. So we're gonna go to Numbers and we're gonna see Moses lifting the serpent up in the wilderness and people look on that serpent and it's a brass one, right? It's a brass serpent. And by looking at it in faith, they wouldn't die from the serpents that are on the ground, you know, biting them and 24,000 of them dying. So numbers twenty one four through nine. Anybody, second kings eighteen four, john three fourteen, and second corinthians five twenty one Second Corinthians what? Five twenty one. I already quoted it, but we'll read it. Okay. So numbers, we're talking about Moses raising up a brass serpent. The word serpent in Hebrew, the root is in Hebrew is for serpent, but the same root is used for brass. So it's a brass serpent way back here in the garden. Numbers twenty one four through nine. Okay. Courtney has it. And they journeyed from Mount Mor by the way of the Red Sea to compass the land of Edom, and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. And the people spake against God and against Moses, wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water, and our soul loadeth this light bread. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and much people of Israel died. Therefore, the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against thee. Pray unto the Lord that he taketh away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses, make thee a fiery serpent and set it upon a pole. And it shall come to pass that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. Praise the Lord. So all the way back in the garden, the serpent, the whole thing, it ties in with Genesis three fifteen, you know, the seed of the woman, you know, his heel be bruised, but the serpent, the the seed of the serpent, his head will be crushed. Alright. So, second Kings eighteen:four, Hezekiah notices that they've made an idol out of this brass serpent and he tears it down. Second Kings eighteen:four. Who has it? Nobody has it? Well I just said it, that's what happens. My name's got it. Okay. My name, name, my name. Speak in it. Because your swords are sharp. You're sharp, man. He reinforced the high places and break the images and oh, boy. It's getting a little foggy here. And cut down the groves and break pieces the beaten serpent excuse me the brass and serpent that Moses had made for unto the days the children of Israel did burn incense so it is called Nehashanam? I don't know how to say it. Nahushta. Nahushta. And that's the name of the brass serpent that we just said. Nobody knows if I said it wrong, so so now John three. John chapter three. All this back in the garden, come all the way around to John chapter three. For God so loved the world. You got Nicodemus, a rabbi, right? A religious leader. He's thinking in the natural. He likes Jesus, calls him master, believes in him, but not born again yet. Not born of the spirit. And so if anybody's listening on Facebook we're going go ahead and read the whole thing because maybe somebody will get saved here. So verily verily I say unto thee except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him how can a man born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? And Jesus sees thinking in the natural. Jesus answered, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born of the water, there's the natural, you gotta first be born a human being, the water breaking, and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wills, and thou hears the sound of it, but cannot tell from where it cometh and where where it goeth. So is everyone that is born of the spirit. The word spirit is pneuma of the wind. It's mystery. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, how can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, art thou a teacher of Israel and thou knowest not these things? You're as dumb as a stub, Nick. No. Verily, verily, verily, verily, I say unto thee, we speak that which we do know and testify to that which we have seen and you receive not our witness. You're not there yet, Nick. You're not there. It's nighttime. I have told you, if I've told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things? Now, Nicodemus should be a real student of the Pentateuch, right? He should be a good student of the book of Numbers, right? Because he's a rabbi and these guys, a lot of them memorize the Old Testament. They memorize the books of Moses. So now Jesus reaches back to the book of Moses to try and get Nick to understand. And he says, If I have told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things? And no man has ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, speaking of himself, even the Son of Man who is in heaven. And so he's omniscient and omnipresent, right? In this case, he's taken the form of a man, the son of man, and he's here. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, which Debbie read, and it's a brass serpent, the Hushta, right? And Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. What's the serpent symbolize? Sin. In the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up. That whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. For god sent not his son into the world condemned the world but that the world through him might be saved. He that believes on him is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already because he has not believed on the name of the only begotten son of God. And this is the condemnation that light has come into the world, but men love darkness. They love their sin. Why don't people believe in Jesus? Here's the answer. This is the answer. It's not an intellectual problem. It's not there's not enough proof. And this is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest their deeds should be reproved. That's why in Ephesians five eleven, have no fellowship with unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. When you shine light on the lies of the generation which you live, they hate you. People hate you. They don't want their lives exposed. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are rotten God. Now, you look second Corinthians five twenty one and you got that? Go ahead. So that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Praise the Lord. So he that knew no sin became sin. The serpent, as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so shall the son of man be lifted up. In Psalm 22, he says, I'm a worm and no man, right? My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? The wrath of his father is poured out upon him for all the sins of the world. So he that knew the sin became sin, the father judged sin so that we can have righteousness, right? And that we might receive the righteousness of God that's in him. And brass is a symbol of judgment. It's a brass serpent. And so we're just so blessed to see that Jesus took the punishment that was due us and Father, if you're willing, remove this cup from me, but nevertheless not as I will, but Thy will be done. And so God's wrath was poured out upon his only begotten Son. He that knew no sin became sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Now let me ask you this, who works in the medical field? Anybody? Anybody have a family member in the medical field? Bernie? So Bernie's gonna explain to us what that serpent in the medical field mean. What's that mean? What do they call it? Is it a perversion of this, or are they trying to say the same thing through it? Are they trying to say the same thing? That there's healing? Jesus is that serpent that died for us to bring healing? He that knew no sin became sin? It's a Hippocratic oath? Okay. So I'm I'm not the heretic. I'm just quoting you. Is that what it means? K. Alright. Somebody that knows, what that means, you can look it up. I've been trying to look up stuff in regard to the transmission on our motor home, and I made a really good friend with an AI mechanic over the last few days. We're buddies. I actually thanked them. Thank you so much. Hey, no problem. But, these guys are amazing. They're so amazing the way they talk to you. So you could pull up that thing right there and somebody's got the answer to that, right? Okay. Somehow it ties in or it's a perversion of what this means. We have to examine that. So the Hippocratic Oath, the symbol of medicine. And so sin comes in, maybe all sickness is a result of the serpent because of the fall of man, right? And so the doctors are dedicated to alleviating sin, sickness, and death. And maybe it points to Jesus. Maybe the best doctors point people to Jesus, the great physician. That's how I'd roll it out. All right. So you got the serpent, established who he is by cross referencing, looking at other verses that name him. And, that's why I like that's why it's so cool when people reject the story of Noah. Excuse me, Jonah and the whale. People reject that, oh, that's crazy. How could a whale swallow a man, you know, and him live in there and then be spit up on shore, you know? And these same mariners go inside submarines, but somehow God can't do that. But then you have it authenticated by Jesus quoting it. As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of great fish, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. So what we did is we went and we looked at passages. If anybody refutes that this serpent is the devil, we've got the proof. We got the goods, buddy. Okay. So now the serpent was more subtle. This word subtle is the Hebrew word arum. And Adam and Eve were in a place of purity, virtue, innocence, integrity, and that was the position they were in, in verse 25. Now Satan is going to lay some traps. He's gonna lay some bombs for them to step on in his subtlety. So he's targeting their integrity. Again, a play on words, the word subtle is a room and integrity is a room m. And so they're in their place of integrity, but he's subtle and he's gonna break down their integrity through his subtlety, through his conniving, through his all. So the word nakedness speaks of them being oblivious to evil. They do not know where the traps are laid. Now that's why I had us read, Be wise as serpents. I don't want you and I to be oblivious of where the traps are laid because Jesus told us to be wise as serpents. And the devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He goes around trying to trick and scheme. And as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. So we're spending our entire life trying to teach truth, to break the spell, the seduction that the devil has over people based upon lies and half truths. You're gonna find out that the devil speaks the truth. In Psalm 91, he's quoting Psalm 91 to Jesus. But even in this passage with Eve, he's gonna speak the truth. So quit running around, justifying the evil of somebody and say, well, there's some good things. The devil does good things. There's no way he can convince you or seduce you if he doesn't have some truth extent. But it's the lie part that blows you up. It's the bomb that goes off. The Adam bomb that goes off that messes you up. Alright. So the nakedness oblivious to evil. They don't know where the traps are laid. So he's subtle. He's shrewd. He's sensible. He's prudent, he's cunning. And we looked at Matthew ten sixteen to describe those characteristics that we can use in a positive way that we're not beguiled. Think of a virgin daughter and the Apostle Paul in second Corinthians chapter 11. Somebody start with second Corinthians chapter 11. Let's go there. Paul's Paul is honing in on this. Second Corinthians 11. Don't you love God's word? There might be a good soccer game on tonight or boxing or football or baseball but but hey you can always record it and watch it later right? So Paul is really worried about these Corinthian believers. He's worried that somebody's going to come along like a father that has two virgin daughters, that some guy's going to come along and they're in their purity, they're in their integrity, they're in their virginity. And he wants them to be wise concerning all the attempts by the wicked one to take them out, to take them down, to take away that purity. And so too with boys, you know, Judah is a pure young man and you got to be careful because the girls are prowling nowadays too. But in any event, doesn't want them to be guilty of adultery, spiritual fornication, of worshiping a false Jesus, a false gospel, a false spirit being seduced by the tactics of the wicked one. So he said, Would to God you bear with me a little of my folly and indeed bear with me. I'm jealous over you with a godly jealousy. When we had Jessica and Brittany, and I'm looking at my grandkids, as a parent, you're looking over them with a godly jealousy. You're just like, you know, I want to protect them. I want to protect them from all the evil that's out there. And for I have espoused you, so he's using the marital term, right? I've espoused you, the betrothal to Jesus, right? You belong to Jesus, to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. So he said, I'm hoping and praying that you're gonna get to the age, you're gonna get to the place of maturity where you're married to Jesus. That's how I wanna present you on that day that he comes for us with the rapture, that you're pure and chaste and you didn't fall away. But I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled, there's that subtlety, beguiling, beguiled Eve through his craftiness. So your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that's in Christ. So the battle's in the mind. The media that we have today is very, very powerful with distributing information. And I beg people to quit going to the mainstream media for their worldview, for their facts, for their information, because you're being deceived. You're getting some truth, but you're getting a whole lot of lies and agendas and you're not thinking biblically for very long. If you're saturated in all these talking points, they all talk the same thing. It's just absolutely mind blowing how deceived the evangelical church is today because they've been seduced. They've been seduced. Now, if you were to seduce the evangelical church, how would you parade out the vessel that you want to use to deceive them? How would you paint them? How would you posture them? What kind of candidate would you put out there? You wanna put them out there as a Christian, right? Because you want compliance. You want the church to comply with the lies that are coming. You don't want the church fighting this peace system going into place. If you put a Harris out there, if you put a Biden out there, the evangelicals are gonna fight against the beast system. They're gonna say, Wait a minute, look at what you're doing. But see, this guy can do no wrong. The church is just totally seduced. They drank the Kool Aid. They're beguiled. They can't see the facts. They can't see the facts. They can't see the millions of people that have died from the word speed jab. They can't see it. It's somebody else's fault. We're gonna play the blame game. Because he has a Bible. Because he has a statue. Because he says, he might believe. Yeah. He almost looks like a Christian. He almost does. And and, you know, Clinton Clinton said he got saved in a Billy Graham crusade. You know? Bush said that he got saved coming on alcoholism. They all say that to get the evangelical vote. Barack Hussein Obama said he was a Christian until he got caught by Stinopolis when when and Rick Warren was used to present Barack Hussein Obama at his inauguration and used an Aramaic word for Ichsus, for Jesus. And then Barack Hussein Obama or Barry Sotero or Bathhouse Barry, you know, he says, My Muslim faith, and George Stephanon Lalala, he says, You mean your Christian faith? Oh yeah, yeah, my Christian faith. Because it was all a farce. It was all to gain the evangelicals. And then after the inauguration, guess what? He's a full blown Muslim, homosexual Muslim. You can't stop that. And guess what? The evangelicals voted for him a second time. That's a mind blower. That's just a mind blower how stupid we are. So how do I live in such a stupid world? Ignorance is bliss, right? So I'm a crazy man on Sunday morning, right? I'm not crazy right now. I'm not crazy. I'm making sense right now. All right. So I fearless by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his craftiness. So your mind should be corrupted. There's the battle. As a man thinking in his heart, so is he. The devil wants to corrupt the way you think. He wants to indoctrinate. He wants to brainwash. And he will use lies and he will use half truths and he will use the technology with lying signs and wonders when the AC is operative to deceive the whole world with pharmakia, with sorcery. So now we come to the simplicity that's in Christ. It's pretty simple, gang. It's pretty simple. So Paul goes from here. So your purpose, if you don't want to be deceived, just get to know Jesus. So somebody give me the example of a bank teller being able to detect a fraudulent $100 bill. How do they teach now they probably use a scanner thingy. But in the old days, how did they teach the bank teller? Vicky was a bank teller. How to spot a phony bill? Phony $100 bill. Feel it. Feel it? So get to know the real thing. When a fraud comes, you feel it. Alarm bells go off. You know, even as a young Christian, as you're getting to know Jesus, the Holy Spirit's alarms are going off when somebody comes to your door and they present a different Jesus. You know, I had JWs, two women come to the door and they, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was a God. They put the a in there. I was a brand new believer and they had me start out in John. Well, I read John chapter one and immediately the Holy Spirit says, that a is not in the Bible. And so I caught him and I said, no, that a is not in there, man. You guys are presenting a different Jesus, you know? But that was the Holy Spirit helped me bring it to remembrance. So what little study I did at that time, prepared me for some, and the Lord, I'm sure orchestrated them knocking on the door to teach me how subtle the enemy is, right? How crazy the enemy is. To be aware, Rick. And so if he comes, if this guy comes preaching another Jesus, so Jesus said, Who do men say that I am? The general consensus, who do people today say that Jesus is at Charlie Kirk's funeral? Is there gonna be a myriad of different opinions of who Jesus is? Or is it the only begotten son of God? Is he the only way, the truth and the life? No man comes to the father but by him. That's the exclusivity of Jesus Christ. That'll get you arrested in Canada, right? Even talking about Jesus getting arrested. But if he's a way, a God, then people aren't as offended, right? They're not gonna be offended. But we're not inclusive. We don't include Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, the new age belief systems and religious systems. Why? Because of the resurrection, destroy this temple in three days, I'll raise it up. He's the only one. He proved he's God. He's the only one. So he that comes preaches another Jesus, Jesus looked at his disciples, Hey, who do men say that I am? Some say you're John the Baptist. Some say you're Elijah. Some say you're that prophet. Some say you're Jeremiah. You've been crying an awful lot, Jesus. You remind us of Jeremiah. You remind us of Pastor Rick. Nobody gets saved and he just cries all the time. And then he says, Who do you say that I am? There it's personal. That's the question everybody has to ask, answer. Peter says, Thou art the Christ, in the Greek. That's the equivalent of the Messiah in Hebrew. Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus said, Blessed art thou Simon Bar Jonah for flesh and blood. Remember Nicodemus in chapter three? He's thinking in the natural, the flesh and blood. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father is in heaven. And I say unto you, thou art Peter, little stone. And upon this rock, you being the Pope, I'm gonna build my church. No, he didn't say that. He didn't say that. He said, You're a little stone. Upon this rock myself, I'm gonna build my church. And the gates fell not for Bill. All right? Okay. Just seeing if you're awake. This is exciting. So preach a different Jesus so you get to know Jesus. Or if he another Jesus whom you have not preached, or if you receive another spirit, the spirit of antichrist, the spirit of inclusivity, the spirit of love is don't say bad things about pedophiles because you're going to hurt their feelings. Everything in the Bible, being a thief, being homosexual, being an adulterer, being a fornicator, being a liar, All of that stuff puts you in jeopardy in Canada right now if you speak against it because you can offend somebody on social media and you get a knock at the door and get arrested. It's hate speech. It's calling evil good and good evil. So they have a total different spirit. It's a spirit of antichrist, which you have not received or another gospel, which you have not accepted. You might be aware with them. So don't bear with them. Don't give in in the name of love. When Obama did, I said it on Sunday, Obama did the same sex marriage marriage, and he said, You people voting, you voted twice against it. You got it wrong. We just fixed it. He acted like a king. He acted like he can do it every once. He just, Oh, we're changing it. And then he put rainbow lights all around the White House. And then he took that Rob Bell. He took a theme from Rob Bell. Love wins. They call that love. You standing against same sex marriage based upon what God calls marriage. You're a hater. You're a bigot. You're a homophobe. You're a terrorist. You don't fit in with society. So if you want to go along to get along and have a big church, then just keep telling everybody love wins. Don't judge, judge not unless you be judged. Wear the mask, stay six feet away, love your neighbor. All right. Get the jab for your neighbor. I suppose I was not a wit behind the very chiefest possible though I be rude in speech yet not acknowledge, but we have been thoroughly made manifest among you in all things. I have committed, I have committed an offense in abasing myself that ye might be exalted because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely. And so Paul is talking about these false prophets that are coming in seducing the sheep. Paul spent eighteen months leading these people to Christ. So now the false prophets are coming in with their nice suits, hair, cap teeth, everything, and they're pointing at Paul saying, He's just a hillbilly. That guy, look at him. He's rude in speech. He can't even talk. The guy's, ugh. I can't even say it. I'm getting in trouble. Alright. So Paul's saying, these guys come in and you get readily give them money. I come in and give the gospel for free. The more I love you, more you love me less. But these guys, they act so important with their doctorate degrees and their papers and all that. I rubbed other churches taking wages with them to do you service. So Paul, you know, he was supported by other churches to be able to present the gospel for free and to survive for eighteen months as he's working also for the church of Corinth. And when I was present with you and I lacked, I was chargeable not to any man for that which was lacking to me, the brethren who came from Macedonia, the church of Philippi brought a gift to Paul to help support him while he was in the area of Corinth. Supplied, and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you and so will I keep myself. As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia. Wherefore, because I love you not? God knows. But what I do that I will do that I may cut off occasion from them who desire occasion that in that which they glory may be found even as we. Now he explains who they are. He's explaining who these charlatans are. For such are false apostles. So they come in as an apostle, but he says they're false apostles. They're deceitful workers, transforming themselves, answering the question, how would you present if you're a globalist banker, how would you present a man as a candidate that can win the following of the evangelicals? You don't present him as a Democrat. You've gotta present him as a Republican Christian who promises them everything he knows they want. Transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel for Satan himself, here we come back to the serpent. For Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. So, he's doing some really good things. Yeah, Satan does some things too. Bill and Melinda Gates have a foundation to jab kids in Africa and they spin it on the media as they're saving lives. It's a bold faced lie. They're killing kids and sterilizing kids, but they have so much money, nobody's gonna prosecute them. And nobody's going to say the truth. But if you go to some of these countries in Africa, they don't want the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in their country anymore because they decimated these children. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers, they're working for Satan, also be transformed as ministers of righteousness whose end shall be according to the works. So the modus operandi, the strategy is Jesus said in John eight forty four, The devil is a liar. He's a deceiver. And he'll deceive you by being an angel of light. He'll deceive you by being a Christian. He can be a Mormon. He can be a Catholic. He can be anything, a Baptist, a Calvary Chapel pastor. He can be anything. He can morph into whatever to deceive, to deceive people. And now one thing you'll see about Paul here, the one thing he did to make sure that he wouldn't be lumped in with them, what was that? He did not emphasize money. One of the earmarks of a false prophet, false minister, false whatever, is they're obsessed with money. Peter said they'll make merchandise of you. You're just a nickel in the nose. And they'll always talk all the time about giving and money and all that other sort of stuff. So Paul's saying, No, I received gifts from the church of Philippi because they're more mature so that you guys wouldn't be stumbled because these false prophets are coming in and man, they're fleecing the sheep. They're fleecing you guys. That was one of the ways he protected his integrity to not, be lumped in with these guys. So you gotta be wise. He was wise to the tactics of the of the wicked one to lose his reputation. So the serpent was more subtle than any beast. So he's wise, he's clever, he's a good talker, he's shiny, he's flashy, he's polished, which the Lord God made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, has God said? So the first attack that the devil makes attempt is against the word of God. Has God said? Now, what should the woman have said when Satan came to her? Jude nine. Jude nine. Jude nine, get thee get thee behind me. Right? Has she said that? Get thee behind me, Satan. Right? Even Michael the archangel made not a railing accusation against the devil when Moses, when tending for the body of Moses, for some reason the devil wanted the body of Moses. And Michael says, The Lord rebuke you, right? He may not rail in the accusation. He kept Jesus between him and the devil. The Lord rebuke you. And that's what we can do. We don't want to have conversations with the devil. We wanna keep Jesus between us and the devil. The devil's too slick. Too slick. So yay, has God said? And so he's remember the devil knows the scripture. He's a twister. He'll twist the scriptures. You've got to know the word of God better than the person you're engaging, the false Christ, the false prophet, the false whatever. And one thing I've discovered is when somebody asks me a question or I'm approached by somebody that, says something I don't have an answer for, it's wise to say, you know, let me get back with you. And then to go spend some time in the word of God to make sure you got it right. Make sure that you have a rebuttal. Make sure that you know what you know and why you know it. So I don't I don't like making mistakes and then continuing on. I want to go back to what I forgot or, you know, didn't quite get right. And before I move forward, when I get home, if I make a mistake in the pulpit, if I'm trying to recite the different armament yesterday, and I'm trying to say, you know, hey, the belt of truth and, you know, the breastplate of righteousness. I didn't say breastplate of righteousness. I think I forgot that. But I said, you know, the boots, I got the boots and then the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit and shield of faith. I think I might've forgot the shield of faith. Anyway, forgot one of them. So then I go home and I reread it to make sure I can get that down deep in my heart so that I don't just blow it off, right? I wanna make sure that I've got a working knowledge of the scripture. And part of memorization is repetition over and over and over and over. Now it wasn't a critical thing. It wasn't a doctrine that I missed a misstep. I even asked the audience, which one am I missing? Then you guys could interact and say, hey you didn't mention the shield of faith pastor. All right. And, but those kind of things bother me. They stay with me. So when I get home I go back over everything I've said. If there's something that stuck out And then I say, you know, of my memory, I went with like the other day when we talked about a couple weeks ago about David at the Brook Besor and he left, he went into battle with the Amalekites. I was struggling for the name Malachite and it was an Egyptian, servant that worked for the Amalekites and Ziklag, everybody was taken by them. And the numbers of four hundred and two hundred, at one point I thought, David went into battle with four hundred and two hundred stayed with the stuff. And that was correct, but I was unsure. So I went home and looked that up because I don't want to be unsure. I want to make sure that I can still memorize scripture if I'm going off the cuff like that. So it means a lot to me to not say something wrong, to not say something. A lot of times I make the mistake and my dad always pointed it out, I almost did it here, when I said, I love that Jesus quoted about Noah. And pretty soon if I would have continued, I said, you know, Noah and the whale. I do that one all the time. And that's not as bad because VeggieTales got it right. So, Jonah and the whale. So stuff's important for me. So anyway, has God said. So the first attempt is to attack the word. Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. So now he's mocking God. He's creating doubt, trying to indicate doubt in the mind of Eve. Her husband's not there. You guys are recovering. Adam should have been there. As one guy said, Eve should have taken the shotgun out and killed that serpent, right? But she's vulnerable. She's very, very vulnerable there. And remember how I talked about Sampson? You guys been plowing with my heifer. If you weren't plowing with my heifer when I wasn't here, you wouldn't have known the riddle, You know, we're a covering for our wives and our wives are also there as a covering for us. Now that headship doesn't work that way. We're covering Christ. But Kathy is very, very good at helping me know right from wrong. She knows right. And I might be deceived and she'll say, You're a dope on her man. Why do you say that, honey? And then she'll give me her facts, know, All right, I'm a dope on her then she'll say no you're not a dope interrupt you're just a jerk you did that on purpose butterfly kisses babe butterfly I thought it was funny. But anyway, we work together to try and stay on track. We want to make sure that we don't have anything filthy in the house, TV shows, radio, Internet. Want to raise our kids in a pure safe environment. Our grandkids, same thing. And so we work together to, make sure that if Jesus was here, would Jesus watch this with us, you know? And, I don't know. I hope so. But if you're in doubt, bug out. When in doubt, bug out. So ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. And the woman said unto the serpent, so the devil's got her talking. You got to get him talking. Get him talking. Get him engaged. And the woman said, unto the serpent, we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, freely eat. We have freedom, huge freedom, liberty. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die. So here he's lying. He's telling her, you're not going to die. She's adding something different than Adam told her because Adam got it firsthand from the Lord. Notice verse 17 of chapter two. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it. For the day thou eat thereof, thou shall surely die. Said nothing about touching it. Now if I'm Adam, I want to protect my wife. I want her to be so far from eating it. I don't even want her to touch it. Right? Don't even touch it Eve. You you might be thinking about eating it. All right, look at that fruit. Lust of the flesh, lust of eye, the pride of life. The devil's gotta make sin look enticing. He's gotta make that birthday cake, that chocolate, German chocolate birthday cake, all the nice icy and all. He's gonna make it look good to Rick, right? Or a smashed cheeseburger. It's got to look good. If it's got worms sticking out of it, and you know, that's not appealing to me. So the fruit's going to look good. The devil's going to package sin that it looks really good. And the second tier is, it's gonna make you wise. God's keeping you from information. God's killjoy. He's keeping you from something that he knows is really good for you. Invert, the devil inverts. That which is good, he makes evil. That which is evil, he tries to make good. He's a counterfeit. He's a confuser. And lust the eye. And the third one is the pride of life. You'll be as God. He knows when you eat of it, you're gonna be as God. So who wanted to be as God? The devil in his rebellion. That's his rebellion. I wanna be as God. The Isaiah fourteen fourteen, I will be as the most high. That's God. And that's the Jared Kushner. We're gonna be like gods. We're never gonna die. That's the lie in two Thessalonians two. You reject the truth, God's gonna give you over a strong delusion that you believe the lie. What is the lie? Jared Kushner's saying my generation's never gonna die. He's already buying in. Now they're gonna have to convince everybody that if you allow us to mess with your DNA and download this program into you, you can be transhuman and you can have a chip in your brain from Elon and you're never gonna die. God's gonna give them over to a strong delusion. But it's the same thing with Jesus. It's the lust of flesh, lust of the eye of the pride of life. In Matthew four, it's the lust of the flesh. I'm getting ahead of myself here, but you guys will get it. So Jesus fasted for forty days. He's hungry. He's physiologically, he's a human. He's hungry. If you are the son of God, command that these stones be made bread. The devil's enticing him, tempting him to physiologically satisfy that urge, that desire. Eve, this food, this this food it's it's good to the eye man. It'll make you wise. So now go up on top of the temple, and if you jump off the temple, I'm quoting scripture out of Psalm 91, he'll give his angel charge of you unless you die, put against stone. You're gonna you're gonna be a celebrity. Everyone's gonna see you. You're gonna you're gonna be wise. You're be different than everybody else. And then the pride of life. If you bow down and worship me, I'll give you all these kingdoms of the world, you know? And Jesus didn't take the shortcut. But the lust of lust, lust the eye, the pride of life, and, and so we know that, lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, the pride of life. First John two sixteen and seventeen. And so let's see her free will, but the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it. Now, some guys will cite that, she's adding to the scripture. That was the first sin. No, I don't think so. The Lord allowed that in there. And it could be the oral repeating of it by Adam. He put that in there, lest ye die. So basically, and the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die. There's no consequences for sin. The devil's lying. You're not gonna die. So some of the rabbis said, now what if Satan was getting her near that tree and then he pushed her and she touched the forbidden fruit with her hand? She hadn't eaten it yet. She just touched it. And then what if she didn't die right there? And he says, see, you didn't die. Gus lying to you. You're not gonna die. Now she eats it. He was trying to get her to eat it all along, but he used a half truth there. And the serpent said unto the woman, you shall not surely die. For God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as God. So he's keeping something from you. He's keeping Godhood from you. He's keeping the Gnosticism, the secret knowledge, the sorcerer's knowledge from you, as the devil goes about in that way with the new age movement today and secret knowledge. We have secret information about the aliens, these guys that have different planets and all. Pretty soon we're going to disclose where they came from and all. And we as Christians, we say, They're demons. They're demons. Been around forever. We don't believe they came from some other planet and all that, but a whole lot of people are going to go, God, maybe they did. Maybe there's other planets and creatures out there. Maybe there's a different gospel. Maybe we can go to Mars with Elon and colonize it and get the water that's there, you know? Rocket man, you shall not eat of it, shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, you shall not surely die. So he's an incredible, credible liar and that's his greatest attribute. That's why the truth is of the greatest importance to you and I is to know the word of God, sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. The root of sin is independence of God, acting independently of God, acting outside of what he's told us to do. And what are we to do? We're to love. We're to love the Lord that our God will love our heart, our mind, our soul, our strength. How does God know? How do others know that we love him? Obedience. The obedience of faith. Not living according to the letter of the law. Letter of the law kills. Spirit gives life. There's a desire in your heart to live a life that's pleasing unto God. Doesn't mean I've reached a place of sinless perfection, but in the case like this, it's a no brainer. I say, no, I want to live to please God. It's Joseph saying, how could I do this great evil against God? I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to go with Potiphar's wife. And the fellowship we enjoy with God is more important than living for pleasure. So your eyes are gonna be open. You shall be as God, not knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes. Like I said, that German chocolate cake, that chocolate, it's looking good. How can I resist it? I'm on a diet. I've been dieting from sugar and man, it's just so good. And then when you start bringing in the smell, Kathy warned me yesterday on Father's Day she's going to make some chocolate chip cookies this week and she says, Now I know you're dieting, I know you're trying to fast, but I just want to let you know that I'm going to make some chocolate chip cookies. Well, not only am I going to see them, I'm going to smell them and she's going to eat them sitting in bed right next to me. How can I possibly resist those cookies? It's impossible for me. I'm gonna have to, don't touch them. Don't touch it. I'm gonna have to start my I'm diet next done. How can I do it? I don't have it in me. I just can't do it. It's like, you're the devil. You're the devil. We're coming to that, So, it's looking good. So you think of marketing, you think of sales, you think of how the world makes adultery look so good. You think how the devil makes fornication look so pleasurable, but they don't show you the sexually transmitted diseases, do they? They don't show you the unwanted pregnancies. They don't show you the abortions and the sex trafficking and the children. None of that's there. It's always trying to prey upon you're lacking something. Your marriage isn't good enough. You're blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Something's being kept from you and your car isn't good enough anymore. It's paid for and it runs great, but you know what, you need one of these new ones. And so they show the new one and the guy's in his 50s, but he's got a 25 year old girl in his arm. Know, wow, if I get one of those sports cars, you know, then I'll get a trophy, a trophy girl, you know, or whatever. And so everything's marketed, lying to you, making you think that this is what's lacking in your life. It might be Wheaties, you know. When you're a kid, I need some Wheaties. I'll be a better ball player, you know. I need Captain Crunch. And they're marking you as a kid. And mom, I need that toy. I gotta have that toy. If I don't get that toy, you know, my life's over. And you're convinced. So my mom would say, get a job. Alright. Alright. So, pleasant to the eyes, a tree to be desired to make you wise and so she took of the fruit thereof and did eat. And gave also under her husband with her and he did eat. Now, first Timothy two fourteen says that, you know, that Adam transgressed, that Adam knew, Adam wasn't beguiled, Adam wasn't deceived. Adam rebelled against God. Eve was actually deceived. She was deceived by the serpent. So sin, we use different words for breaking God's law. Sin is missing the mark. Sin is a guy trying to shoot a bow and arrow and the arrow when it hits the bullseye, that's not a sin. If it misses the bullseye, that's a sin. You miss the mark. And all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But on a different level, when you know what you're supposed to do and you're not even trying to hit the bull's eye and you're in rebellion to God, that's a transgression. You step over the line, willingly step over, that's a transgression. And you got to be careful because your heart can get hard and you can succumb to rebellion against God like the devil in his rebellion. And Obama and Hillary Clinton and the Ayers group, William Ayers in Chicago, this whole group of people, they read a book called Rules for Radicals. And the Rules for Radical book was dedicated to the devil, the first rebel against God. And so a whole lot of people live in a world where they're in rebellion to God and they worship Lucifer. They worship the devil. So, right. So, desire to make one wise and she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave unto the husband and he did eat. And let's look at some verses now. Well, he did eat I can't see this part. Sololinski, that's the guy. Yep. Rules for radicals. Thank you. And the eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. So there's their response. Now let's look at some verses that describe the fall of man here. Lest the flesh, lest the eye of the pride of life. All that's in the world, the lest the flesh, Lust of the eye of pride of life is not in the father but the world. And the world perish and the lust thereof and he that doeth the will of God abides forever. Okay. Now another another note on the pleasure. Moses esteemed in Hebrews 11, the reproach of Christ is greater riches than all the splendor of Egypt. Egypt is a type of the world, so the devil's trying to present the pleasure, the blessing, looks good to the eye, make you wise, make you wealthy rich, make you as God, make you superhuman. Moses rejected that philosophy of Egypt. He was willing to suffer the reproach of Christ with the children of Israel, leaving Egypt, leaving, being the next pharaoh because he esteemed. You have a value system. He esteemed the reproach of Christ as greater riches than all the splendor of Egypt. So last night, Marlene quoted the scripture, what's it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what would a man give in exchange for his life, right? That's how Jesus sums it up. You've got to evaluate what's valuable to you. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Do you value the things of the spirit? Do you value heaven? Do you value enough to walk in obedience unto God? Or are you cheap? Will you sell yourself for cheap? How much are you worth is what the devil says. How much are you worth? I sold my soul to rock and roll, right? So you became popular, but you sold your soul, right? All right. So, let's look at John eight forty four. Who wants that? John eight forty four? Okay. And so, Satan used lies. He's the father of lies. Romans five twelve. Okay. Romans sixteen twenty. I'll do that one. Okay. First Corinthians fifteen twenty one and twenty two. Anybody? First Timothy two fourteen. First Timothy. Yeah. Okay. And then, first Corinthians ten thirteen. Everybody got it? And we'll come back to verse seven. Yeah, first guys. Next week, we'll we'll develop it further. But right now we're going to finish up with verse six and look at how Satan did this. So John eight forty four. You are of the you are of the father the devil and the lust of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. Okay. So Jesus, who's his audience? Who's he speaking to? The religious leaders. He doesn't have a group of sinners, harlots and tax collectors that your father's the devil. He's talking to the Pharisees. He's talking to the religious leaders that they're not even believers, that they're following the devil, that the devil's a liar and he's there. That's powerful language for him to say that. Alright. Romans five twelve. When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam sinned brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. Our first federal head blew it. So that's the answer to the question we asked at the very beginning, why is the world evil? Because Adam sinned. Man has fallen. The fall of man ushered in. The consequences of sin is death, corruption. Romans sixteen twenty. Maybe. For god the god of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. So that's referring to where we're going to get in verse 15. He's going to soon crush the serpent under his feet. So this fallen world with the God of the world continues in this evil manner until the second coming of Christ, until Jesus returns. And he's already crushed the serpent's head at the cross. He spoiled all principalities. He is in Revelation five with the title deed to the earth. He's ready to take possession, but he's already destroyed the power, the authority that the enemy had over us. And so we're free. We still are succumb to suffering and to a fallen world in which we're in but it's no longer us living but Christ living through us and the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the son of god who loved me and gave himself for me. I'm crucified with Christ and alright. Okay. So, first Corinthians, we did that fifteen twenty one and twenty two? Yeah. First Timothy two fourteen. And it was not Adam who was deceived by Satan. The woman was deceived and sin was the result. And sin was the result. So Paul's speaking in terms of headship. This is the reason why we have headship. We have Christ as the head of his church. The husband has a place of position to protect the wife in the home, and then the woman underneath the husband. So it's a chain of command or a chain due to the And when we get into the ramifications of the curse, we'll teach on that further and expand it further. And so, first Corinthians ten thirteen, this is how we don't succumb to the tempter. Now we're tempted. We go through trials, we go through temptation, and we're drawn away of our own lust, right? And so the devil tries to appeal in the same way, the lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, the pride of life. And it's a test, and this is how we can overcome the wicked one and not be a casualty in this battle. So first Corinthians ten thirteen. Promise to mankind. And God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. So where's the way of escape? Where's the way out? God always gives us a way out. We're in the temptation. We're in the trial. But where's the way out? He'll give you no temptation. He won't give you more than there's no temptation taking you but such is common to man. We all go through suffering, trials, temptations. But God is faithful, who will not permit you to be tempted above that which you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way to escape, that you may be able to bear it. Jesus is our way of escape. We may face something that is greater than us, And we can't get through it without his help. And we run to Jesus. He's our way of escape. And so we we don't have to succumb. The devil has to get permission to come at you and I, and everything has to go through God's providential filter. And God promises us that if he allows it, that He's working all things together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. So we go in Romans eight and we recognize that nothing, nothing, nothing can ever separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus. Not height nor depth nor principality nor powers, not things present nor things to come. Nothing's ever going to be able to separate us from that love of God that's in Christ Jesus. And he's made his intention known by sealing you and I with the engagement ring, which is the Holy Spirit. And we're awaiting the return of the groom to come for us, his bride, and we're watching, we're looking up, we're ready. And next week we'll talk about the garment that we're wearing because the fig leaves, the fig leaves just won't do. Fig leaves are itchy. You put fig leaves on a naked body, those are itchy. That's uncomfortable, you know? And, God has something much, much better, than fig leaves. And, alright. Any questions or comments? Anything there before we pray and Anything? Nope. Okay. Father, we come before you, Lord, and we thank you. Again, we lift up Carl. We pray that he's making great, great progress tonight, resting and overcoming all the trauma that his body's been going through. Pray for Sue and the doctors, the nurses, all of them, they'd help Carl. We thank you for him, Lord. We love our brother Carl. And Lord, we pray for Steve Wilcox. We pray for his throat. Pray that you'd give doctors answers for that and Christie her throat. And Lord, we just pray you keep a hedge of protection around our grandkids, our kids, our loved ones. We pray for those in our sphere of influence, those that we love, our prodigals, friends, family, that have been taken captive by the wicked one, Lord. We pray that you would open their eyes, Lord, that they would be able to see how they've been deceived, and Lord, that you'd set the captives free. We pray they'd come home to fellowship, that they'd not be enslaved by the wicked one to sin. And Lord, set them free. Let them receive forgiveness and restoration and sweet fellowship. We desire fellowship with those who have fallen, those casualties of war, Lord. As Satan looks for the weak link, he looks for the weak one in the chain to take down. And, Lord, our heart breaks, and we know that your heart breaks. So move and work by the power of your holy spirit in these last days, Lord. Save now, we ask. In Jesus' name. Amen.

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About This Podcast

Calvary Chapel Bremerton - Home Bible Study

Listen to Rick Beaudry, Pastor of Calvary Chapel Bremerton, lead our home Bible Study session in worship and teaching the Word of God. Be edified and built up in your faith with solid Bible teaching. New episodes released on Tuesdays in the Pacific Standard Timezone.

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